Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega was joined at the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution by Palestinian Leila Khaled, who denounced imperialism.
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega blasted Western support for Israel in its war on Gaza and asked, if the Palestinian people are not allowed to have a state, why does the United States itself have the right to exist?
Ortega accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and noted that the Western governments arming Tel Aviv are complicit in its crimes.
The Nicaraguan president made these remarks at an event in Managua honoring the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution on July 19. He was joined by Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled, who denounced imperialism and neocolonialism.
Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted that his country has prevented the creation of a Palestinian state for decades. He vowed that one will never exist.
Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi has shown how the United States has been even more extreme than the Israeli regime in its diehard opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In April, the US used its veto power in the Security Council to block Palestine from being admitted as a full UN member state.
Nicaragua’s President Ortega condemned the West for its oppression of the Palestinians, stating in his speech on July 19 (emphasis added):
“We see how cruel the imperialists are with a people who, according to agreements in international organizations, at the United Nations, has the right to a state: the Palestinian state.
…
[The Palestinians are] a people that is being subjected to genocide where children are being killed every day, where young people are being killed every day.
And European governments, and the US government, meeting in NATO, decide every day to give [Israel] more and more weapons, so they keep bombing the Palestinian people. And the politicians governing the state of Israel say clearly that they want the Palestinian state to disappear. They say it without any shame.
The law demands it. It was an agreement in the United Nations, signed by all the countries of the world, that there have to be two states: Israel and Palestine. And what do the authorities of Israel say? That the Palestinian state must not exist, that it must disappear, because it is a threat for Israel.
If we are going along with that philosophy, we would have to request the disappearance of the state of the United States. The first that should disappear is that state, which is humanity’s biggest criminal. And not only for going around killing peoples, occupying countries, as has happened in Nicaragua. Nicaragua [was] invaded by the Yankees”.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has always maintained a close friendship with the Palestinian struggle against Western-backed Israeli colonialism.
In the 1960s and ’70s, FSLN guerillas fought to free their country from a brutal right-wing military dictatorship, run by the Somoza dynasty, which was propped up by the US government.
During this period of armed struggle, Sandinistas trained with Palestinian revolutionaries, who sought to free their own country from a US-backed colonial regime and military occupation.
These shared ties of solidarity have continued into the 21st century. Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has strongly supported Palestine.
Both Nicaragua and Palestine are members of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations.
Nicaragua has formally joined South Africa’s ongoing case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that charges Israel with genocide in Gaza.
In the ICJ, the Sandinista government likewise accused Germany of being complicit in Israel’s genocide, because Berlin has provided Tel Aviv with 29.7% of its arms shipments.
In the 1980s, Nicaragua took the US to the ICJ over the CIA’s support for far-right Contra death squads that terrorized Nicaraguan civilians. The Hague ruled in Nicaragua’s favor in 1986, determining that Washington had repeatedly violated international law. To this day, however, the US has refused the Court’s order that it pay reparations.
At the July 19 anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled said she was “proud that you all [Nicaraguans] have elected a leadership that has fought imperialism, colonialism, that has triumphed, and that is triumphing today in the path toward development”.
“I am proud of this leadership”, Khaled said, “which has denounced the killers of children and babies before the International Court of Justice, with Germany, which is giving its support to the killers of children and babies”.
Khaled highlighted “the revolution and resistance that we have in common” between the Palestinian and Nicaraguan peoples.
Khaled is a historical leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a revolutionary socialist group that has fought for decades against Israel’s illegal occupation and colonialism.
In a statement, the PFLP congratulated Nicaragua on the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution and stressed their “shared goals against imperialism, enemy of the peoples and enemy of humanity”.
“The US and its imperialist policy have failed in many countries”, said the PFLP, emphasizing that the US empire has “not been able to impose their colonialist project” in West Asia and Latin America, due to resistance by progressive forces.
Frente Popular para la Liberación de Palestina saluda el 45 aniversario de la Revolución Sandinista. #noticias #nicaragua #4519LaPatriaEsLaRevolución
Más información 🌐👉https://t.co/czA3SMCkN5 pic.twitter.com/owQG9XJTu7
— Canal 4 Nicaragua (@Canal4Ni) July 19, 2024
Nicaragua has two parks dedicated to Palestine. In 2016, it created the Park of the State of Palestine. In 2024, Nicaragua renamed a main road in Managua after Gaza, and it opened a Palestine Park in the center of the capital.
In the heart of Nicaragua’s capital Managua there is a park dedicated to solidarity with Palestine
The Sandinistas have a long history of revolutionary struggle with Palestinians
It was built in 2013 and features a statue of Yasser Arafat and photo with Comandante Daniel Ortega pic.twitter.com/SsAygxJN9s
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 15, 2021