27 Quotes by Daniel Ortega

El desarrollo esdesarrollo, sólo si es humano

We grew up in a situation where we didn't know what freedom or justice were, and therefore we didn't know what democracy was.

The fact is that the United States is behind what has happened in Nicaragua, and what they did was to promote a confrontation between Nicaraguans.

The people of Nicaragua were suffering oppression. This made us develop an awareness which eventually led us to commit ourselves to the struggle against the domination of the capitalists of our country in collusion with the U.S. government, i.e. imperialism.

What we asked for were weapons so that we could defend ourselves -- that's what we asked of the Soviet Union, of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, of the Algerians, of the Vietnamese; and that's what we received so that we could arm the Nicaraguan people and defend ourselves in that war imposed on us by Ronald Reagan's Administration over a number of years.

Of course, the kind of support that Cuba could give us was very limited when it came to building up our army, since they didn't manufacture armaments in the quantities that we required. So we turned to Algeria and the Soviet Union for support.

Today the winds of hope blow through Latin America and the Caribbean.

We had explored the possibility of the French sending us Mirage, and the French were willing; and when this became known, the Americans reacted by announcing publicly that they would not allow those armaments to enter Nicaragua and that they would bomb the Nicaraguan ports.

We are going to wait for the moment of the debate, and we'll make the decision,