Nicaragua

Nicaragua – spiritual resilience
and national development

Stephen Sefton, July 9, 2023

Among the top five countries in Central America, Nicaragua is the country with the smallest Gross Domestic Product. Measured based on purchasing power parity, Guatemala’s GDP is practically five times larger than Nicaragua’s, Costa Rica’s more than three times, and El Salvador and Honduras around twice.

Given this reality, the obvious question is why, despite having a relatively small economy, Nicaragua among its regional neighbors has the best public health system, the best roads, the most comprehensive technical education system, the best protection system agricultural health, the best network of fire stations, the best public safety.

Other notable achievements, recognized at the regional and international level, follow, for example the award-winning system of Maternity Homes and the reduction of maternal and infant mortality, improvements in access to drinking water, the construction of hundreds of thousands of social housing, the free education, school meals for more than a million girls and boys every school day, the Food Productive Bonus, the Usura Cero program, subsidies for the consumption of electricity and urban and interurban transport and the maintenance of the prices of oil and its derivatives.

All these measures guarantee the essential conditions for the nation’s economic growth and human development. International organizations such as the FAO or UNICEF recognize our Government of Reconciliation and National Unity for its commitment to poverty reduction and its high levels of budget execution.

An important reason for these tremendous achievements with relatively small budgets has been our government’s commitment to efficient use of available resources. Even the international financial institutions controlled by the same empire that applies unilateral coercive measures against Nicaragua, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, recognize the efficiency of the use of the credits granted to the country. But mere efficiency does not explain the political and moral commitment that generates it, nor does it explain Nicaragua’s extraordinary capacity for economic recovery from the aftermath of the failed 2018 coup attempt or the Covid-19 pandemic.

The clearest expression of the revolutionary political and moral commitment of the government of President Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario have been the revolutionary National Human Development Plans implemented since the return of the Sandinista National Liberation Front to government in January 2007. The inauguration by our Commander Daniel in January 2007 meant the return of the revolutionary principles of the historical program of the Sandinista Front of 1969 and in an even more fundamental way of the defense of National Dignity. The 37th anniversary this year of the judgment in The Hague once again reminded the entire world of the example of Nicaragua as a country committed to Peace, to international law and to the defense of National Dignity.

As comrade Dr. Carlos Argüello explained in a recent interview with RT: “We have a true Hero, a Hero who was recognized internationally, and that is our National Hero, who was precisely to defend the Sovereignty of Nicaragua.” Compañera Vice President Rosario has written that, “We are always called to live our National Sovereignty with a deep and transcendent Spiritual Sense, of Sovereignty, because our History also obliges us.” In his book “With Sandino in Nicaragua” from 1934, the Basque writer, Ramón de Belausteguigoitia, shortly after visiting Sandino in Las Segovias, wrote these prescient words: “Sandino’s work has not finished. A moment may come, perhaps years of rest or an apartment. But that force will continue in one form or another. It is an arrow shot into the Horizon, endowed with an invincible moral impulse…”

As our Commander Daniel never tires of explaining to us, Sandino’s moral and spiritual strength has its roots and antecedents in the struggles of the Nicaraguan people in defense of their sovereignty throughout its history. It is a story that is both noble and terrible that has undoubtedly caused an accumulated trauma of pain and human suffering in the national conscience with a tremendous impact on the spiritual life of the People in favor of Peace. The drive towards national reconciliation began with the Sandinista government in the form of amnesties even in the midst of the war.

As fellow congressman Wálmaro Gutiérrez explained last year, “If there is a political institution in this country that has put its bones on edge to guarantee that Nicaragua is a country of peace, concord, and harmony for Nicaraguans, and of well-being, progress, equity and equality, has been the Sandinista National Liberation Front and as I repeat, I refer you to the evidence: 12 of the 15 amnesty laws have been approved, either in the first or in the second stage of the Revolution. The desire and popular commitment for Peace was demonstrated in the community advances to implement Law 985 for a Culture of Dialogue, Reconciliation, Security, Work and Peace.

Our fellow congressman Carlos Emilio López explained to us, “This Law is nourished by collective aspiration, fed by the International and National Legal Order, and takes Nicaraguan Culture into account… it is a Law that also connects with the ancestral Culture of Nicaraguans , with Popular Culture, with the Nicaraguan Legacy of Peace. In the myths, in the traditions, in the songs, in the legends, in the sayings and popular Nicaraguan phrases there are high contents of Peace, there is a range of Peace Values ​​that are in the Nicaraguan Culture and this Law also includes them.”

In 2019, the comrade Miriam Raudez told of her experiences of the Reconciliation, Justice and Peace commissions, “Since last year we have been in this, we saw that discipline, certainty and confidence in the decisions of Commander Daniel, for example. It is one of the things that people say with certainty, with confidence, and we look at them that there is no uncertainty but that there is certainty, there is confidence; there is no questioning why this is done?, but rather they know that Peace is worth it… there are Families that have been affected by this situation; However, when sharing there is healing, because the issues are discussed and addressed, with pain of course, but that shared pain makes us look for solutions and emotional outlets that allow the Families to value this..”

And the compañera Johanna Flores in the same interview with Alberto Mora commented, “We have found stories or expressions of people who have told us: I am not a Militant of the Sandinista Front, but I am part of this Commission because I love my Community and I want the best for my Community, and I want the best for my Country, because we live here [email protected] In other words, what we identify is that the majority of Nicaraguans already take ownership of what we want, that we yearn for Peace and that we are clear that the only way to achieve it is to work together, to understand each other…” It is evident that this is a phenomenon of deep spiritual reach in national life that promotes the development of a heroic culture of Peace, one in which all agree with a high level of consciousness to prioritize the Common Good over the pain and suffering of their families.

Another national reality that has accompanied and strengthened this profound culture and spirituality for Peace has been the acceptance, recognition and celebration of the authority of women as essential and indispensable protagonists not only in defense of family values ​​but also as leaders. in the national political life and in the social and economic development of the country. It is not a mere coincidence that the great strides in Nicaragua since January 2007 have been achieved at the same time that Nicaragua has ranked among the top seven countries in the world in terms of women’s participation in government and public life. The example of so many women, like our Vice President Rosario and the compañeras in charge of the different ministries, or of magistrates like Alba Luz Ramos and compañeras Brenda Rocha and Alma Nubia Baltodano and many other compañeras, at the national and municipal level , indicates the importance in national life of the moral, spiritual, economic and political authority of women.

The extraordinary achievements of Nicaragua, its government and people have shown that the national development of a country is not only a matter of monetary wealth, financing, resources and accounting figures. Nicaragua, with so much natural wealth, is not a rich country in conventional economic terms, but it has accomplished more with its relatively modest resources than much richer and supposedly more advanced countries. The unquestionable achievements of Nicaragua They are based on a culture of spiritual healing, moral serenity and Peace based on the values ​​of solidarity and sincere cooperation.

A political class and a population that have survived so many profound experiences of trauma are especially committed, from their feeling of a moral debt to their heroes and martyrs, with the imperative to promote reconciliation and the construction of a culture and society of the Common Good. This has been the fundamental factor in the success of the human development strategy of our government and our Sandinista Popular Revolution. And our Commander Daniel explained it this way on the anniversary of Commander Carlos in 2020:

“Carlos is present in all these Fights that we are waging. We are waging the fight with Work, we are waging it with Education, with Health, we are waging it with the accompaniment of the Working People in difficult times. Solidarity, Solidarity we put into practice, Solidarity that is Love, which is Tenderness, as Tomás said, of the Peoples. Solidarity is the most valuable thing we have [email protected] Nicaraguans…. and our responsibility as Nicaraguans, as heirs of Carlos, of his Thought and of all our Heroes and Martyrs, is to guarantee Economic-Social Stability, Health, Education, the construction of Highways and Paths, and Bridges, which are not stop…”