Señores presidentes:

In view of the fact that your fifteen countries would be those most affected if Nicaragua were allowed to become a colony of Uncle Sam, I am taking the liberty of sending you this letter, inspired not by hypocrisy or by false diplomatic courtesies, but by the rough frankness of a soldier.

With such shame as they may still possess, the Yankees wish to mask their intentions behind a project for the construction of an interoceanic canal across Nicaraguan territory, which would cause the isolation of the Indo-Hispanic republics. The Yankees, who do not pass up any opportunity, would take advantage of the estrangement of our peoples to bring to reality the dream that they inculcate into their children in their primary schools, that is, that when all of Latin America has become an Anglo-Saxon colony, the blue field of their flag will have only one star.

Before the cold indifference of the Latin American governments, and left to its own resources, the Army in Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua has for fifteen months honorably and brilliant faced the terrible blond breasts and the pack of traitorous Nicaraguan renegades who support the invaders in their sinister designs.

During this time, señores presidentes, you have not carried out your duty, because as the representatives that you are of free and sovereign peoples, you are obliged to protest diplomatically or, if necessary, with the weapon that the people have placed in your trust, against the nameless crimes that the White House government orders carried out in cold blood in our unhappy Nicaragua, without any right and with our country blameless except for its unwillingness to kiss the whip that lashes it, or the fist that strikes it.

Do the Latin American governments think perhaps the Yankees would be content with the conquest of Nicaragua alone? Have these governments perhaps forgotten that among twenty-one American republics six have already lost their sovereignty? Panama, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua are the six unfortunate republics that have lost their independence and become colonies of Yankee imperialism. The governments of those six nations do not defend the collective interests of their compatriots, because they came to power, not as a result of the popular will, but imposed instead by imperialism, and so it happens that those who rise to the presidency backed by Wall Street magnates defend the interests of U.S. bankers. In those six unfortunate Spanish-American nations, all that remains to the people is the memory of their independence and the distant hope of reconquering their freedom through the formidable efforts of a few native sons, who fight tirelessly to rescue their country from the infamy into which the renegades have sunk them. The Yankee colonization advances swiftly over our nations without encountering a wall of bayonets in its path, and therefore when its turn comes each of our countries is overwhelmed by the conqueror with little effort on its part, because, until now, each has defended itself alone. If the governments of the principal nations of Latin America were led by a Simón Bolívar, a Benito Juárez, or a San Martín, our fate would be other than it is, because they would know that once Central America had been dominated by the blond pirates, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, etc., would follow.

What would become of Mexico if the Yankees succeeded in their dastardly designs to colonize Central America? The heroic people of Mexico cold do nothing, despite their manly qualities, because they would be crushed beforehand in Uncle Sam's grip, and the help they might hope to receive from sister nations could not reach them because the Nicaraguan canal and the naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca would stand in the way. And so Mexico would be destined to struggle against Yankee imperialism isolated from the other nations of Latin America, using its own resources, which is exactly what is happening to us now.

The celebrated Carranza doctrine proclaims that Mexico, because of its geographic position, must be--and in fact is--the advantage guard of Hispanism in America. Then what might be the opinion of the present Mexican government with respect to the policy the Yankees are carrying out in Central America? Have the Ibero-American governments not seen that the Yankees are amused by the prudent policy adopted in situations like that of Nicaragua? It is true that, for the moment, Brazil, Venezuela, and Peru have no intervention problem, as their representatives declared this year at the Pan-American Conference in Havana during the discussion of the right to intervene, but if those governments were more conscious of their historic responsibility, they would not wait for the conquest to unleash its havoc on their own soil, but would come instead to the defense of a brother nation that struggles with a bravery and tenacity born of despair against a criminal enemy a hundred times larger and armed with every kind of modern weapon. At such a tragic and decisive moment in history, can governments that express themselves as Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, and Cuba did retain sufficient moral authority over their sister nations? Will they have a right to be heard?

Today it is with the peoples of Spanish America that I speak. When a government does not reflect the aspirations of its citizens, the latter, who gave it power, have the right to be represented by virile men with concepts of effective democracy, and not by useless satraps whose lack of moral valor and patriotism are a disgrace to a nation's pride.

We are ninety million Spanish Americans, and we should think only about our unity, recognizing that Yankee imperialism is the most brutal enemy that now threaten us and the only one that intends to put an end to our racial honor and our peoples' freedom through conquest.

Tyrants do not represent nations, and freedom is not won with flowers.

To form, then, a united front and to stop the conqueror's advance over our lands, we must begin by respecting ourselves in our own house, and not allow bloodthirsty despots like Juan Vicente Gómez and degenerates like Leguía, Machado, and others to make us look ridiculous before the world as they did in the pantomime in Havana.

The honorable men of Latin America should imitate Bolívar, Hidalgo, San Martín, and the Mexican lads who on September 13, 1847, fell at Chapultepec, pierced by Yankee bullets, dying in defense of their country and their race, rather than surrendering to a life of disgrace and shame into which Yankee imperialism would cause us to sink.

Patria y Libertad.

AUGUSTO C. SANDINO