 So we're out here in the famous Plaza de la Revolución Sandinista in Managua, Nicaragua. This is a liberated space where the Frente Sandinista para la Liberación Nacional liberated this plaza and the country from the Somoza dictatorship U.S. backed here right behind me. You see the Palacio Nacional, which is liberated. You have the picture of Sandino to the left and Carlos Fonseca to the right, the heroes of the Nicaraguan people. The leaders of the Sandinista ideology here in Nicaragua. So we're out here at the Francisco Morazang International Worker Peasant School headquarters of the ATC based in Nicaragua. We're outside of Managua, which is the capital of Nicaragua. And this is the headquarters for the next few days of where we'll be staying in Nicaragua. I want to give a big shout out to the ATC for allowing us to stay here in this beautiful piece of land. There are so many beautiful portraits of revolutionaries like Faraundo Martí, the indigenous Salvadoran communist who fought against big landowners in the 1930s. And this center is actually named after Francisco Morazang, who was considered by many to be the liberator of Central America when it was united as one Central American Federation of Republics, which included Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. Unfortunately he was assassinated in battle, but to many he remains a big hero, including the people here. This is ground zero for revolutionary organizing of campesinos and trajadores here in Nicaragua, where people from the fields and people from the urban areas come together to organize, mobilize and empower the people here in Nicaragua. This is so essential to the Sandinista Revolution, and I'm glad to be able to share this space with you. So many beautiful pieces of art, so many beautiful plants, the landscape, the architecture. Everything about this piece of land is very beautiful, and it's just a microcosm of what Nicaragua represents, the coalescence, the convivencia between nature, society and human living. And so I'm glad to be able to share this, and we'll continue to see more of this as we continue our voyage across Nicaragua. I hope you enjoy it. After settling into the ATC's headquarters, we met up with Gerardo Alvarez, a local Sandinista activist. Gerardo gave us an in-depth tour of Managua, showing us some of its historic and revolutionary sites. So we're out here in Managua. You see the beautiful silhouette of Sandino right behind me, towering over Managua. You see the flag of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and the flag of Nicaragua. There's a beautiful setting here, so many historical events that took place here. This was the presidential house of Somoza, and the entire group and regime of Somoza in their time. They killed anybody from the opposition during the Somoza regime, and they destroyed them because this is actually a volcano crater. This is a natural lagoon, a volcano lagoon. Underground is the main office of Somoza and the regime. They destroyed bodies, they destroyed people alive, any kind of situation or torture. You can't imagine it here. So that's why they're trying to make a nice place for the view, but actually the horrible history underground here is very sad. The old military hospital, now we have the new one, military hospital, one of the best of Latin America, with the best technology, the best technology you can imagine. So we don't have to go to Costa Rica or pay to the government, Costa Rica order or Mexican government to go do whatever we have to do, operations, heart operation, brain operation. You don't need any other country to do that or pay, and people have the opportunity, either the opposition, they don't pay for operations, they don't go to the private hospital, they go to the public hospital because it's cheap, it's cheap for them. So we're here at the Parque Luis Alfonso Velázquez Flores named after a young Sandinista youth guerrilla fighter who was murdered by the Somosista regime, was a liberator for his people, a young guy, 10 years old, and this is beautiful park named after him here in Manawa. It's beautiful to see kids here playing in a safe environment that's happy, healthy, safe, parents are here, families here, it's Sunday, we're just chilling at the park. It's another triumph of the Sandinista revolution, serving the youth, serving the people, putting the people as number one. Daniel Ortega decided to rebuild the Parque Luis Alfonso and in honor of all the combatants, both against, like Somosista, Sandinista, liberals, non-liberals, neutral and central, they decided to hand over the weapons and work for Nicaragua, so he created the park La Paz, that's right, today we're in it, but this is now the Parque Luis Alfonso, which has always been the Parque Luis Alfonso, and we have a little bit of history here with us, as you can see, the Calashnikos, which is the AK-47, we have them here, and it's a pride for us, because it makes us proud, our culture, our defense of sovereignty, I think we are one of the few Latin American countries that maintain our political conviction and our sovereignty, we have always defended it, and we have been one of the smallest and poorest countries in the world that has won two wars in the United States, so with great humility I can say that we are Nicaraguans, but we are more than Nicaraguans, we are superhuman, because we help each other, we respect each other and we work together. As a youth, we feel proud of our commander, he has taken this country with love, with passion, with a complete delivery to his people, if we may see the streets that they saw before, for years to come, now they are new streets, improvement of parks, hospitals, health centers, new streets, new land for the poor people who need a place, then there is the city of Viumar Martínez, which is the one that gives dignity to each population, to reduce the poverty index in our country, and thank God, first of all, it is for our commander, we have a free country today, free of oppression, you come here, a tranquility, a peace, a harmony, we Nicaraguans take it with open hands, because we are in a world of peace. So we are here in the famous Plaza de la Revolución Sandinista in Managua, Nicaragua, this is a liberated space where the Sandinista Front for the National Liberation liberated this plaza and the country from the Somoza dictatorship U.S. backed here right behind me, you see the Palacio Nacional, which is liberated, you have the picture of Sandino to the left and Carlos Fonseca to the right, the heroes of the Nicaraguan people, the leaders of the Sandinista ideology here in Nicaragua, behind us is La Casa de los Pueblos, you have a beautiful sign, todo con amor, todo por amor, you have people chilling here, families, kids playing, this is what socialism can look like for our people, peace, security, stability, progress, we don't have to start from a blank slate, this is an example of what liberation looks like and it's truly an honor to be here in La Plaza de la Revolución in Managua, Nicaragua, again right behind me the Palacio Nacional and so many beautiful structures here that have been liberated, honoring Sandino, honoring Carlos Fonseca, honoring the Sandinistas, peace out, yeah. The next morning, after touring Managua with Gerardo, we reconvened at the ATC's Francisco Morazán Peasant Workers' School. We got the chance to meet with important figures in the Sandinista movement. We met with Jorge Capelán, a veteran journalist who has been covering Nicaraguan politics for decades, Yorlis Luna, a Sandinista youth activist with the Institute for Agricultural Technology, Marlene Sánchez, who works closely with the Agroecological Institute of Latin America, known as Iala, Paul Oquist, a US-born Nicaraguan official who tragically passed away on April 11th, 2021, just weeks after this was recorded, and even Fausto Torres Araus, a former Sandinista guerrilla who now leads the work of the ATC, they spoke about the history and current events of Nicaragua, including the impact of sanctions and regime change efforts, and how Nicaraguans are fighting back with independent media, sustainable agriculture, and food sovereignty. This is why Nicaragua is in the center of Central America, and it has a geopolitical position. It is not only because it is in the center of the fleets of people from North to South, but also because it has a privileged position to build an interoceanic channel. The issue of the interoceanic channel through Nicaragua has been central for the United States throughout its history in this country. They wanted to have control over Nicaragua in order to build the channel or prevent Nicaragua from building it, always when they could have control over what they call their Marenostrum, which is the Caribbean. So these facts have marked the history of Nicaragua. I was born in the 90s, born a year ago, in a very complex historical moment. And that was the reality, people without schools, without hospitals, without anything, without hope. That's why I come. I come to see that and to see how in my neighborhood, not only me, we could study, we could, thanks to this second stage of the Sandinista Revolution, but many more, other colleagues, neighbors of the neighborhood who are now doctors, gynecologists, and that would have been impossible. And as we already have a neighborhood with dignity, and it is constantly rising in the life with dignity, with the basics, we can be poor, but have dignity. So what happened in 2018? What happened? The private sector, the concept, the national oligarchy class, allied with the Catholic Church, begin to call for protest. Well, let's protest and start a whole campaign of media manipulation, fake news, to achieve that inequality. So much so, that in less than three days, in 72 hours, more than 100 million messages were sent through all possible ways, through social media, to create that state of, we are all cultural subjects, we are historical, political and cultural subjects. When there are people in the environment, we feel it. All this media invasion was to make our being, our mind, our, say, Ah, Doudara, that was the first thing to make Doudara say. If I go to the house, I turn on the TV, they say they are killing people. I put my Facebook, they are killing people. I put the radio, they are killing people. It was like the classic, no, of fascism. Repeat a lie a thousand times that it becomes true. I came training in the youth movement of the field, which is one of the areas that works the ATC and also the area of the women of the field. We are a school network of agroecology and then I was part of that group that founded this first IALA in Venezuela in 2006, 2006, 2012. As a result of that process, we were the ones who came back from that first cut, assuming these tasks, the tasks that are being done by the organizations in our countries, for our region. And in the case of, in the case of ours, in my case, Nicaragua, we decided to promote this school, this IALA and Shimuleo, which means land of corn, it is in Mayakiché. And why land of corn? To make that tribute to this space, to this land that comes from the south of Mexico, to Panama, as a center of origin of corn. And that's why we call it the Shimuleo. We work from political, pedagogical and ideological lines of the Latin American coordinator of the organizations of the field and the Campesina Villa. These IALAs are those institutions dedicated to the Campesina agriculture through popular education methodologies, through liberator methodologies, what we call liberator pedagogical, the liberator methodologies of what Paulo Freire and other thinkers that come up with a different education. The imposition of unilateral coercive sanctions against institutions, countries and individuals are completely illegal and international law. They reflect the colonial or neo-colonial superiority complex, the same impulse that drove imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, by self-appointing themselves as world policemen, world watchmen, exercising simultaneously the functions of police, prosecutor, judge, jury, jailer. The way these measures are applied violate all human and civil rights also. It's quite ironic they apply a measure saying it's to protect human rights when the measure in and of itself violates all human and civil rights. Why? There's no charges, no presumption of innocence, no right to defense, and even if you could get a lawyer, you couldn't pay him because you're a designated person. And the lawyers are wary too because of that phrase that says anyone who has a conspiracy to obviate this can also be punished. I've experienced that. No right to do process, no right to a trial, and we go further in terms of the application of the measures. No right to own legally derived property, legally gotten property is frozen, or to engage in economic transactions. There's only what exists are administrative measures without judicial recourse. That is a huge violation of the civil rights of all. I'm from the city of Matagalpa, and currently I work in Managua in the association of field work in charge of international relations with the ATC. And at the international level, in the operational secretariat of the Latin American Coordination of the Organization of the Field, CLOC, which is part of the Campesina Vía of the Latin American continent for the Campesina Vía World. The ATC, which is the association of field work, is a campesina syndical organization that was born in the mid-70s, 1974, and was born as a popular expression of the labor sector in front of the exploitation of the private company of those years. It is organized in the Carazo department and starts the first social mobilization of labor, wages, social loans, the best living conditions of the workers, and is constituted formally as a more large association and with some representations in some departments of the country. The ATC, already in 1978, is incorporated into the movement of the fight against the dictatorship of Somoza because, in part, Somoza had grown so much in the business sector that we, the same Somoza, shared with the big businessmen, with Petia, with many businessmen, and because of that, we, the workers, started to fight against that regime of exploitation, of exploitation, of exploitation, of exploitation, of exploitation, of the difficult crisis that the people experienced by the force of the repression of that dictatorship. And in this way, the ATC was born in that effort, it is more formally constituted in support of the fight against the dictatorship united with the Sandinista front of the National Liberation. I incorporate the Sandinista struggles against the dictatorship of Somoza more or less in 1977. I was studying in the Institute of Matagalpa, the secondary, when the student movement constituted a movement called the Association of Students of the Secondary AES. We incorporated that movement and we started all the mobilization work with the students in the department of Matagalpa. We came to the city of Matagalpa and in that way, we started to incorporate all the tasks that at that time were already organized by the Sandinista front, participating in the mobilizations, in the protests, in the streets, making strong demonstrations and also bringing the opinion to the popular sectors of the incorporation of the fight against the dictatorship of Somoza. I incorporated in that year, in 1977-1978 we participated in the activities of the anti-Somoza struggle until the 1979 triumph. When the 1979 triumph arrived the Sandinista front incorporated me to the organizational activities of the new government, we are in the Sandinista government and at that time I started studying the Soviet Union, what Russia is going to do, to study political sciences to return from that country with the ideas of Marxist-Leninists and with the exchange of experiences with several countries of different parts of the world to work on the tasks that we had in the country. I started working with the common movement and then I started to be a part of the party in the war zone, practically in the areas of the White River, of the Pantamas, of the Ginotega and then in that sector I began to mobilize and represent the tasks that the party recommended to me, in this case the Sandinista front of the National Liberation to work with the peasant sector in this part of the territory of the country. I incorporated the issues of the church, of the religion and then having come later to understand the process of the Sandinista front and to improve the conditions of life of thousands of families, that also approached me a lot to the God of the poor, to the theology of liberation. So that closeness of that revolution and Christianity have that identity, it satisfies you because you are looking for things that we always work in the church sector. And it was to give land to the peasants, a rural reform, that the health was free, that education was for all the people, to have participated in the cross-national alphabetization, to have participated in the agricultural revolution, to be with the peasant community, that was the greatest satisfaction we had. The saddest moments was the political-military struggle. In 1983 I had to be in a very complicated area, which is the Pantasma area and there were many colleagues who we looked at them in the morning and in the afternoon they were already dead, they fell into combat On October 18, 1983 they took me to the town and died 47, 46 companions and companions, that was very sad, very painful that so many young people died in the middle of a war of aggression and not only the young people who were in front of the Sandinistas but also young people who were in the counter So this was a very sad moment because we lost our best companions our great friends in the war This was the most difficult moment Obviously, what came later we, as the Sandinistas government in the 1980s made the greatest and most significant achievements such as delivering 4 million hectares and reforming the peasants of this country having carried all these re-indications to the countryside and the labor sector was the greatest but also having lost that government in 1980 1990 it was difficult because we faced the most cruel neo-liberalism with Violeta Vario, with Arnold Deleman and with Bolaño 16 years the neo-liberal government in which all the re-indications that we had achieved in the 1980s continued to lose due to the pressure we had from the government of the United States and sectors that here in Nicaragua were being lent to the game because they were from the extreme right or even from the extreme right That is a very difficult moment because the Berlin Wall falls and the end of this period ends It is like some can say the end of the Cold War and the world that was bipolar was going to be unipolar the power of the United States in total control and it was thought that we lost the engineers as if the world had passed its end and there were no alternatives However, in that period the World Campaign was born 500 years of indigenous and popular resistance 500 years after the originals they were revealed against the colony so this organized the social movement and this is how a world movement was born called the Latin American Coordinator of Organizations of the Camp that is left in this campaign and we have to the foundation of the clock and also of the Campesina way So that is the important moment because during the neoliberal era we are strengthening all that international scenario of the popular sector workers, peasants in the social struggle the world has not finished the idea that we can read in the manifesto of the Communist Party they were real and they existed and that it was not the totality of capitalism but that the emerging sectors were rising in the Campesina sector the original peoples great social re-indications that allowed us to raise the level of the clock of the Campesina way and say that we are here to improve the conditions of life in the international context the economic situation the food sovereignty the human rights struggle the transnational struggle the formation we had to form in political theory Marxism, Leninism but adapted to a reality to say that capitalism was a reality that existed but also socialism another reality that is on the way and that will have different names we see it as progressive the communitarian socialism some call us socialism of the 21st century the tropical socialism the most important thing was that the people improved their life conditions that the population had access to different social re-indications that was the fundamental thing 16 years later that neoliberalism in Nicaragua did not prove to be better than the 10 years of the Revolution of the 80s here the ferrocarril was sold here the land was given again to the bourgeoisie here the education was privatized the health was privatized here the people did not return to see the clear sun that generated the revolution then this people returned to give them the strength and to give security to the Sandinista Front and especially to the leader and so we arrived to a second phase of the revolution in 2007 in that campaign of the Sandinista Front and we entered another context of course, starting from some mistakes of the past of the context that was different at this time we started to recover the rights of the people of Nicaragua and in that way the Front managed to advance until in 2018 the extreme right made attempts to fail the Sandinista Front won in 2007 and the next day the campaign started to create an opposition to the government of Nicaragua but a position that was not pleasant a position that was financed at an external level with management of the imperialism and it was like that in 2018 it gave a failed attempt of beating we managed to overcome it and still the Front continues despite all the offensives the protests, the NGOs they're still resisting and their class consciousness at such a high level compared to that in the United States people here understand that both the Democratic and the Republican Party are two heads of the same imperialist snake both sides have supported regime change efforts in Nicaragua and all over the world and they understand that here in the United States the level of class consciousness is very high here we're going to keep showing you more we're going to keep showing you the reality