A SANDINISTA activist told a meeting at the historic Marx Memorial Library on Tuesday night that “we will continue fighting for our revolution.”

The meeting, organised by the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, heard how the media had distorted the progress made by the revolution, which celebrated its 44th anniversary on July 19.

Speakers said that, even with the gains made in Nicaragua such as free education and healthcare and major house and road building programmes, the country is constantly demonised by mainstream media and by some on the left.

Abigail Espinoza Munoz, an active member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Masaya, said: “We voted for Comandante Ortega because he is the best president we ever had in the history of our country.

“We have built 26 new hospitals in the last 17 years. In the years of neoliberal government all you got was a slip of paper that said you had to go and buy whatever you needed to make you well.

“Health is now free in our country and I am so proud of our government.

“We are Sandinistas and we are still here and we will continue fighting for our revolution regardless of any sanctions against us.”

One of the speakers, writer John Perry, who has lived in Masaya in the central region of the country for more than 20 years, explained the background to the coup attempt in 2018.

He said: “The United States funded NGOs to take part in the coup attempt and were behind a sustained media campaign, beforehand and since, to undermine the revolution.

“This led to a declaration by the US that Nicaragua is somehow a strategic threat, which was followed by the imposition of harsh sanctions on Nicaragua.

“The reality is the coup attempt, although portrayed as spontaneous, was in fact carefully planned.”