Message from Co-President Comandante Daniel
at the XII ALBA-TCP Extraordinary Summit held in Caracas, Venezuela
February 3rd 2025
Thank you. Our greetings, our respect, for the People of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and for those who have known how to fight and defend the Dignity of that People, from Bolívar to Chávez, from Chávez to Nicolás.
And on this date of the birth of Sucre, who was decisive in the Battle for Liberation from Spanish Colonialism, on this day, February 3rd 2025, in these moments of Struggles and Battles, like those our Peoples have fought throughout history, we dedicate this Session, this Meeting, this ALBA Meeting, to Sucre.
Sucre is here with us, with all his strength; just as Bolívar is here, just as Chávez is here, Sucre is here. And here they are too with Chávez and Fidel, founders of this Alliance... Chavez and Fidel, Fidel and Chavez.
And our solidarity, as always, with the Fraternal People of Martí, the People of Fidel, the People of Raúl, the People of our beloved Brother, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has expressed very confidently, very firmly, the strength of the People of Cuba, a People that has resisted and every day that passes resisting, is another day that the People of Cuba defeat the criminal blockade, imposed by the Yankee Imperialists.
The reality is that these are the challenges that humanity has had at all times; face by Peoples who want Peace, want Security, want Stability, Want Education, want Health, the Imperialists of the Earth appear, wanting to impose chains on these Peoples.
And the Battle of Nicaragua is a Battle that, as I told Nicolás in the days of the Inauguration of his Presidency, how here in Nicaragua, in 1855 and 1856, there was the Yankee expansionists occupation; that is, they were the ones who brought the whole Ku Klux Klan ideology, the ideology of slavery.
Mercenaries, Colonels, and others, from the Southern United States occupied Nicaragua and had themselves elected President. That must not be forgotten, that cannot be forgotten, and this is something that we repeat here to our People. We cannot forget that the Yankees have already had a president here, William Walker, who set up an election by murdering Nicaraguans; he set up the election, by force of arms, really, he imposed himself. And back then the United States Ambassador of the Government of the time was present at his Inauguration; that is say, legitimizing him.
While imposing himself as President in Nicaragua, at the same time he decreed slavery in Nicaragua. Just a few years before, in 1821, Nicaragua and Central America, upon gaining independence from Spain, had buried slavery, but in the end, the Yankee came, with all that arrogance, for the Ku Klux Klan to rule in Nicaragua.
But, the people of Nicaragua have always been a combative People, a People with Dignity, and the battles against the Yankee invaders began, and the combats against the Yankee invaders began. And the Indigenous Peoples of Matagalpa, a department in the center of Nicaragua, also joined in these battles. They came down from Matagalpa and joined the forces defending the Sovereignty and Dignity of Nicaragua... In those years, just imagine! In those years giving battle against the Yankee invader, and one Battle had a devastating impact against the invaders, which was the Battle that took place at the Hacienda San Jacinto.
And there, at the Hacienda San Jacinto, resisting the Yankee troops led by a Colonel from the South of the United States, called Byron Cole, there the Nicaraguan combatants defending their Patriotic Nation, one that is small, but as Darío said, “if one's Nation is small, one dreams of it being great,” defending their Patriotic Nation, and defeating the invaders in that Battle.
And when the Yankee Colonel fell in that Battle, he died there in that combat, which was when Sergeant Andrés Castro, who was entrenched behind one of the Hacienda's stone walls, ran out of rifle ammunition for a moment, because they were single-charge shots, you had to load shot by shot, one shot at a time, the Yankee came over the top, so Andres grabs a Stone and throws it himself, and strikes the Yankee down. And so it remained for all History, for the Dignity and Pride of Nicaragua, that Stone that cast down the Yankee.
And ever since then, this has become a Historical, Patriotic Date, in our Country, one they had to respect, even Somoza had to respect that date, one that is commemorated since then in all our Schools paying Tribute to Andrés, the Hero, who took that Stone and cast down the invading Yankee.
Then in his retreat, Walker, the invading Yankee, sought out the Pacific Ports where they were coming in ships sent from the United States to bring him away, in their retreat they burned the City of Granada and left a sign that said: “Granada used to be here”, the sign in English there. They left just ashes, they left death, the Ku Klux Klan rulers of that time, already defeated and in retreat.
So Nicaragua managed to recover its Independence, its Sovereignty, in the midst, indisputably, of all the difficulties that arose among Peoples that had only recently become independent and where the Political Parties were already fighting each other, confronting each other, not only at the polls, but also with bullets.
It was under these conditions that later on, here in Nicaragua, a First Revolution took place, the Liberal Revolution, headed by General Zelaya. And this Liberal Revolution really did cause a stir, because at that time Nicaragua was totally subjugated to the directives of the North American Empire, there were units of North American troops here, and being subjected by those North American troops, naturally, there was the struggle between Parties, with some looking to be an instrument of the North Americans, and others looking for how to win more autonomy for the Country.
That's when General Zelaya emerged, and Zelaya was the one who brought up the issue of the Canal through Nicaragua. Those were the years when there was already a debate about which route the Canal should take, whether through Nicaragua or Panama. For as it turns out, when Nicaragua was discovered, when the conquistadors came upon it, they reached Nicaragua and found a passage from the Atlantic Ocean, from the Caribbean Sea, along the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua, and then they were just a step away from the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
So then, North American citizens who were looking for routes to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States at that time, because there was a “Gold Rush”, began using maritime transport, which was, let's say, the talent that Vanderbilt had, as a famous ocean carrier and owner of ships, who organized the route from New York to Nicaragua. And then, disembarking there in the Caribbean Sea, taking the route of the River and the Lake, and reaching the shores of Nicaragua on the Pacific Ocean where another company ship took the passengers to the West Coast of the United States.
That was what worked first as a Canal, transporting thousands of North American Citizens, who, if truth be told, did not come here to harm anyone, did not come to attack, but simply came here so as to pass through and reach the West Coast of the United States. But, in the meantime, the United States had already decided that these areas did belong to the United States, since the Policy of the Americas for the Yankees, the Americas for the Ku Klux Klan was already in practice.
And Zelaya began to promote the project to build the Canal and made contact with European governments, and this brought down the fury of the Ku Klux Klan, and well, the ultimatum for Zelaya to leave the Government. Zelaya did not have the force of character, even though he had Nicaraguans with him willing to fight, and decided to leave the government in the hands of a quisling.
Meanwhile, a Liberal leader, General Benjamin Zeledón, took up arms against the quislings and confronted the Yankee Navy which was already disembarking troops in Nicaragua's Ports and was beginning to make incursions to combat the Patriotic Forces headed by General Benjamin Zeledón.
And Zeledón, having been besieged in the Coyotepe, a high ground here about 30 kilometers from Managua, having been surrounded there by the Yankee troops, a delegation of the Yankee troops arrived offering to him that they would not arrest him, that they would spare his life, if he surrendered, and Zeledón's response was really extraordinary. And just as Sandino would say later, he told them: I'm not surrendering! I'm not selling out, I'm not surrendering! And the combat continued. And they killed Zeledón, on October 4th 1912.
Then they paraded Zeledón's corpse through the villages to frighten people, and Sandino, who was a child, saw Zeledón's corpse passing by, which then made Sandino indignant, such that later Sandino raised the Red and Black Flag to defend the Blue and White Flag of the Nation dragged down by its quisling government; and so began Sandino's Battle against the Imperialists of the Earth.
In 1928, now giving continuity to the Battles of Zeledón, Sandino with his Small Army, according to official statements of the State Department's own reports of the time, the United States had sent 4,609 Marine Infantry soldiers to Nicaragua, whose losses the Navy Department then gave as 24 dead and 45 wounded. And there the Battle of Sandino continued, until the Yankees had to withdraw. In other words, they did not achieve their objective, which was to defeat Sandino, make Sandino surrender, kill Sandino. They had to withdraw.
But under the withdrawal they had already worked out their plan to assassinate Sandino once Sandino signed a Peace Agreement, because Sandino really wanted Peace, and when the Yankee troops withdrew, after all, he felt he had achieved the objective, while Sandino's other Compañeros told him to be careful, because he had to come here to Managua to negotiate with the Government, but he decided to take the risk because he said, I am committed to Peace and we have already removed the Yankees.
Then, later the President invited him, after the signing of the Peace Accords, he invited him to a dinner at the Presidency, and when Sandino was returning after the dinner, Somoza was waiting, in coordination with the Yankees, to capture him and then shoot him along with two other Compañeros, two other Brothers. And that confirms what Che said: The Yankees, the Imperialists, you can't trust them even this least little bit.
Sandino saw them off and they left defeated, he saw them leave defeated; he trusted that the President he was dealing with did not have a history of being a murderer, but was simply a quisling who had been installed there. And when they signed the Peace Agreement and the President made the gesture of inviting him to dinner, without knowing what was afoot, because in fact the President really did not know that Somoza, with the Gringo Embassy here, had already arranged their plan to assassinate Sandino.
These are battles that I cannot stop mentioning, because the story remains the same. The Ku Klux Klan is right there in Washington! The Ku Klux Klan is there! All that happens is that there are times when the Ku Klux Klan hangs, publicly murders, without scruple, and there are other times when the Ku Klux Klan pretends to be spotless, as if it is very democratic, and you can see how they toy with the Dignity of Peoples.
Obama arrived, making a gesture implying an early restoration of relations with Cuba, but that gesture was accompanied by Obama stabbing Venezuela, by claiming it was a threat to the Security of the United States; that is to say, he shakes your hand here and stabs the dagger in there. And then, expelling thousands of migrants, it was Obama who expelled them, who invented those cages to put them in, keeping them there in cages while selling himself as the “good” President Obama.
They are all simply the same, they are the same; some act like Obama; others act, bluster and threaten publicly.
That is, after all the history of our Peoples, that is the reality we have to confront. Because we have to confront that reality, but how do we confront it? It is not about confronting it with weapons. We don't have atomic weapons. Oh, if we did indeed have atomic weapons...! For anyone who has atomic weapons is well protected.
But we have a weapon more powerful than the atomic weapon, which is the Conscience and Dignity of our Peoples, which gives rise to Men of Thought, Intelligence, Courage, Generosity coming to Government, like Eternal Comandante Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, indisputably Anti-Imperialist.
And it did not occur to him to go to war against the United States, or to plant bombs in the United States... No! What he did was, with Fidel, they agreed to promote the creation of ALBA, to bring together the Latin American and Caribbean Peoples, starting with those closest to them, despite great difficulties in the economic and social order, continually being extorted by the imperialist Powers, and they developed Programs for the benefit of those Peoples, to what end? So as to assuage people's hunger, to generate employment, to generate production, to guarantee oil supplies.
That is to say, with the weapon of Peace, with the weapon of Generosity, with the weapon of Christ, which is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” that is how Comandante Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías behaved, and this is how our Brother Nicolás behaves. They are not looking for how to dominate, instead they are looking for how to help by presenting programs and proposals such as this one that has been presented in today's Work Agenda, which involves defending the Sovereignty and Peace of all Latin America and the Caribbean; demanding respect for the Human Rights of migrants. Let them be respected!
Let those now governing in the United States not forget that their forbears had no idea these lands even existed, and when they realized these lands did exist, then they left Europe as migrants, they left England as migrants, and they sailed at risk, at some peril, and arrived in territories that were not theirs.
Who gave them that territory? They simply occupied it by force and murdered its real owners, the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited what is now North American territory and Canadian territory. They killed them, reduced them and took over their lands... And yes, these are their heirs who have been ruling the United States and wanting the United States to rule the Planet, to be Rulers of the Planet.
We, off course, agree with this Agenda, an Agenda Concerting Common Positions in Multilateral Spaces; one of progress in relationships with other Regional Organizations; of seeking how to expand ALBA Projects to all ALBA Member States, as well as to other Countries of the Region and of the Global South who want to join a Project like this, which is a Humanist Project.
In the economic field, there is the expansion of the AGRO-ALBA Project, namely, to produce food; the Peoples' Trade Agreement, the TCP, and the ALBA Agreement regarding Agricultural Cooperation, which are now continuing via the modality of the Framework Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation which was the legal basis for the Agro-ALBA Project, to be presented to the Countries concerned.
There are advances in the study, development and use of Artificial Intelligence within the ALBA Countries; our Brother Miguel Díaz-Canel has spoken just now about how in Cuba they have already made progress. Despite the blockade, despite the policy that wants to provoke non-conformity and rejection by the Cuban People of their Process, the People remain firm.
Going through difficulties, it is true, but remaining firm; and looking for answers, looking for solutions in the face of difficulties, the People of Cuba remains firm, and not only embraces Proposals like these, Projects like this one, of Artificial Intelligence, where they already have programs with which we can share so as to advance in that field too.
And today, as has been well said here, we have to defend the Rights of all the Citizens of this Planet, and first of all of the Citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean. And we have to express our Solidarity with the Peoples who are being beaten down, there are Peoples who are being beaten down; by the way emigrants who had been settled in the United States for years are being treated, people who had made a whole life in the United States, and now they are being treated like criminals, accused of being criminals, accused of being drug traffickers, with no proof, with no trial, with no verdict stating that those Citizens have committed any crime, rather they are simply disqualified in the most brutal way, and kicked out of that country.
We express our Solidarity with the migrants who are being deported from the United States, but really, the day will come when that behavior, that attitude, that anti-migratory tendency which has been stirred up will disappear, and value will be given, as it should be given, to the contribution and to what continues to be the contribution of migrants to economic activity, to productive activity, to all the activity that demands labor from these Countries, in many thousands, and the the day will also come when the Will for Peace, for Respect for Human Rights, the Will of Humanity, is also established in the North American people and especially in North America's Rulers.
Thank you, beloved President Nicolas.