Event Commemorating the 46th Anniversary of the Foundation
of the Nicaraguan Army’s Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Defense Force
July 29, 2025
Address by Daniel
Brothers and Sisters of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Nicaraguan Army, today you are celebrating the 46th Anniversary of the Founding of the Nicaraguan Air Force and Air Defense forces. But to get to that Foundation, you had to go through periods of obstacles and make superhuman efforts, so that finally, the Nicaraguan Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Defense could be established 46 years ago.
We did have an Air Force at the time when we were fighting against the Somoza Dictatorship, against the Somoza Tyranny. They had a powerful Air Force, they had anti-aircraft equipment; so really, what did the Sandinista Front have at that time, what did it have, so as to be able to start planting seeds from which the powerful Nicaraguan Air Force would later emerge?
In those times when we were fighting against Tyranny, it was a totally unequal relationship, they were a monstrous Force and we were the People with only our Soul battling and improvising; but Compañero Paul Atha came up with the idea that we might borrow or rent some planes, and so we managed to get three planes, three non-combat planes, they were three planes for transporting weapons to the different Departments of Nicaragua. We even hired a brother Panamanian, who was a tremendous pilot, and so in that way we were gave battle for the People, there was being born, there the roots were appearing of what would later become the Nicaraguan Air Force.
On one occasion, I remember very well, we decided to fly and launch some bombs at the Presidency where Somoza was, and there our pilots, very brave, our two pilots set out, the Panamanian and a Nicaraguan, they sett out and suddenly started launching bombs at the Presidency. That was a shock, an alarm for the Somoza National Guard, it then seemed to them that we had available a large fleet of airplanes. It was indeed a feat, one more feat proving the Courage, Patriotism and Love for Peace that Nicaraguans have had and had then.
Just now as we were coming to this Commemoration of the 46th Anniversary, General Aviles and the Head of the Air Force surprised us with this gift. Anyone would say, looking at this, that it is a little toy for children... Really, a little toy for children!
But this was a combat weapon, of course of a larger size. This was part of the cooperation the Soviet Union offered us, so with this type of equipment that they themselves used over there; of course, they had very powerful anti-aircraft equipment there, but they supplied us, and how much this helped us, protecting us, scaring away and overcoming the United States Air Force. Because it was the United States Air Force that was waging war on us at that time.
We have to remember that famous plane, the Black Bird, a plane no other country had and which they launched against us every night here. So then, when you had an idea at what time more or less the Black Bird was passing, then this truck, and this wasn't a small truck, it was a large truck, and it’s searchlight was not small, it was a tremendous searchlight, and waited in the darkness for the Black Bird to pass. As soon as the Black Bird came, the lights would turn on and the Black Bird had to look for where to escape, thinking that it was under attack.
In that way, they managed to defeat the attacks of the United States Air Force, with these lights, with the searchlights. Because at night everything came down to them being in the lights, and as is normal in an air battle, illumination determines whether the one now in full view accepts the combat or flees. And here they fled!
This is a debt of thanks we owe the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, where the First People's Revolution took place in the World, the Soviet Union, with Lenin at its head, where they managed to install the First Peasant, Socialist People's State in the World, for the benefit of the poor, to eradicate hunger, misery. And we cannot forget, on a date like today, the Fraternal Solidarity of the Soviet Union with the Sandinista Popular Revolution.
The struggle in the world today is the same as in that great novel by Leo Tolstoy... Tolstoy, see how many years ago, he was a great visionary and when he wrote the novel he called "War and Peace”, simply put, very firmly, and he goes on elaborating, he goes on describing, “War and Peace,” and goes on to describe wars and he goes on to describe moments of Peace, then War returns, then Peace returns...
He observed that humanity, unfortunately, has been torn between War and Peace and that the victims of this confrontation have been the Poor, have been the Peoples, the Peasants, the Workers, Youth.
How many years ago Tolstoy's “War and Peace” was written, and so many years have passed with so many wars exploding around the world, one war doesn't end before another war starts. And what is it that drives the men and women who conduct these wars, who promote these wars? Power. They want to be the owners of the world, they want to be the masters of the World, they want all the world’s countries to be subordinated to them, they want to have a world of slaves.
Even though back then it already seemed that slavery was disappearing, the culmination was that here in Nicaragua, in 1855, when the filibuster Yankees came with William Walker, and William Walker was named President here and Walker was recognized as President by the United States.
Nicaragua had finally gained independence from the Spanish colonialists in 1821... 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, barely 10 years, and Nicaragua, a tiny country, without great wealth, apart from the Courage of its People, the Yankees came after the Independence of Central America is declared, because the Spanish had by then been defeated by Bolívar, they had been defeated in Mexico, and thus they could no longer continue maintaining Central America as a Colony.
So, in that period, just imagine, from 1821 to 1855, just then, which Country did the Imperialists choose to occupy and, at the same time, take over the Country, become the Country’s Presidents so as to possess the Canal routes? They chose Nicaragua, possibly they thought Nicaragua was a country of humble people, simple, peasant people, who were a pushover, who were not going to be able to resist, who were not going to be able to fight, much less defeat the invading Yankees.
And back then the first thing that Central America did, in 1821, when it was freed from the Spanish yoke, under which by the Law of the Kings, slavery existed here in Central America, so then once we are independent and the first thing that the Central American Independent Leaders did was declare, No more slavery! Abolishing slavery in the year 1821!
But just a few years later, in 1855, when the Yankees invaded, the first thing the self-styled President of Nicaragua, William Walker, did was to establish slavery. That was supposed to make everyone surrender, take fright and run away. But no. Here what the People did was to unite, here what the mestizos did was to unite with the indigenous people of Matagalpa, and thus an Army was formed, albeit with weapons that were not as powerful as those of the Yankees.
And among these weapons, the one best known is the stone of Andrés Castro, united with the Indians of Matagalpa, that is to say, the indigenous roots could not be done away with, the Spanish could not kill them. They had them subdued, they imposed a language on them, they imposed a religion on them, but within there was always Indigenous Pride, Indigenous Resistance; the Resistance of Diriangén who had defeated the Spanish in their first onslaught here in Nicaragua.
And that fortitude, that mystique, those roots the Spanish could not destroy even by killing thousands of Peasants, turning them into slaves, in their notorious encomiendas. They just couldn't! Rebellion was within, Fortitude was within, and that is why those people achieved in Nicaragua, in the year 1855, they achieved it, “the barefoots” as we might say now, the Peasants managed to unite, the Workers managed to unite, the Indigenous managed to unite, with no other weapons but Heart, Conscience, Strength and Dignity.
Because Dignity cannot be killed, Dignity cannot be eradicated, and all the Strength accumulated there defeated the Yankees, such that the Yankees suffered their first defeat in America, it was the first defeat they suffered in America.
All of you, Comrades of the Air Force and Air Defense, you are formed from that material, you are made of that steel.
How many Nicaraguans died if one counts the stage of the struggle against Somoza and then the struggle against the Yankee intervention led by Ronald Reagan? More than 100,000 Nicaraguans. But although our Combatants saw Compañeras and Compañeros fall, they did not flee, they continued fighting, and that's why it was possible that with the Soul, the Strength of the Brothers and Sisters, the Army Cubs back then, the Soldiers of our Army, victory was achieved in a war, bear in mind it was a 10-year war facing the United States, with the President of the United States menacing, arming, training, attacking, but in the end they were defeated, after 10 years.
But 10 years earlier, in the struggle led by the Sandinista Front against the Somoza tyranny, more than 50,000 Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters were killed, and what this proves is that Conscience and Courage are more powerful weapons than cannons and rifles.
And, today, on this afternoon, we congratulate and salute all the Brothers and Sisters on their 46th Anniversary of the Air Force; we salute, we embrace, with all our Love, the Families who have accompanied them throughout this period, giving them Strength, giving them Encouragement, giving them Love, for as we already know very well, Love is more Powerful than Hate, Love conquers Hate in the end, and here we continue striving for Peace.
That is why, as you know, the Anthem of the Sandinista Front was able to take from “War and Peace”, we have to be always repeating this, that, in order to defend Peace, for us to have Peace, we have to have Strength, we have to have Fighting Spirit, not because we want to fight, but because History in the World continues to show how we are between War and Peace. And if we want to defend Peace, we must always be prepared for War.
Today I conclude with good news, because to win the Peace you have to win the War, and in that regard we are seeing the gigantic wars now being fought in the world; the cowardice of the Zionist rulers who have now sworn that they are going to wipe out, that they are going to disappear the Palestinian People.
And there behind the Zionist regime is the US government, and behind the US government, behind the Zionist government are the Countries that puff themselves up as being the most democratic in the world, the countries that make up NATO. That NATO which is now preparing for a war that it thinks it can win against the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation.
That is to say, they are thinking only of more death, more war, and there really is no Greater Force, no more Powerful Force, able to win Peace, overcome Death, and conquer War, than the Fighting Spirit, the Combative Spirit, the Spirit in Defense of Families, of the Peace for all Peoples.
And the world’s Peoples are rising up, the Peoples are rising up everywhere around the world, and that's what will bring War to and end and for Peace to be established in the World. And even more so, given that the Powers which used dedicate themselves only to fighting over territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America and lived in constant war, those Powers continue with their disputes.
However, there are two Powers, the former Soviet Union, which is fighting for Peace, and the People's Republic of China, which is also fighting for Peace, such that Nicaragua has two Sister Nations: The Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, the greatest Power currently in the world, not because their troops are firing their weapons, not because they are dropping bombs, not because they are provoking wars. Who can point out where the People's Republic of China is engaged in a war trying to wipe out a Country, occupy a Country or steal a Country? No one!
The Russian Federation is fighting to recover its country, and the Russian Federation is fighting the battle, defending its rights, and we are sure that they will win, they will recover the lands, the villages, the cities, everything that Fascism has been devouring and continues seeking to devour.
On the other hand, our relations with the People's Republic of China are extraordinary, and in the messages they have sent us, read out recently by the Delegates of the People's Republic of China in the Plaza, they make clear that they are going to provide all kinds of help to Nicaragua, including help for defense. They said as much, very clearly. They wrote as much, very clearly.
That is to say, we are today a Nation blessed by God, because we have these great Nations which bring only Well-being to our People; that Great Nation, the People's Republic of China, which is now the greatest commercial power, which is indeed a Power, in fact the greatest World Power.
We thank them for their willingness to cooperate with Nicaragua, and we are sure that with these Brothers and Sisters, because we are Brothers and Sisters, Fraternal Peoples of Nicaragua, in the end we are going to be able to remove from the Frente Sandinista’s Anthem, the words “Fight on, Fight on, Fight on, to Win, Win, Win” because we will no longer have to engage in war, because there will be Peace in our Land and there will be Peace in the World.
Long live the Solidarity inspired Cooperation of the People's Republic of China!
The People's Republic of China was the one that carried out the most gigantic Revolution there has ever been in the World; the Soviet Union also, but of course, the People's Republic of China given its size, the number of its Peoples, of the Regions that they had, it was no easy task to make the Revolution there so as to be able to unite all that Great Power, but Mao Tse Tung achieved it, he was the genius that managed to unite the People's Republic of China.
And also to President Putin all our thanks, all our Affection, all our Solidarity. We are Brothers, yes, we are Brothers, President Putin, President Xi Jinping of China, and we Nicaraguans, we are Fraternal Peoples and we are going to win Peace.