"The story of 17,000 million dollars

One of the few interesting things that Daniel Ortega said in his speech on July 19, the 32nd anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, was that he would revisit the claim that the United States allegedly has debt of more than $17 000 million, arising from a ruling in favour of Nicaragua made by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on June 27, 1986.

Since regaining power in January 2007, Daniel Ortega has spoken twice on the subject. The first time was on April 17, 2009, in the V Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, when in the presence of the U.S. president, Barack Obama, Ortega said the debt ruled by The Hague was still in effect and had increased to more than 50,000 million dollars, because of ordinary interest and late payment charges. The second was in a speech on 25 June, but then Ortega no longer spoke of 50,000 million dollars, as in Trinidad and Tobago, but instead of 17,000 million dollars ".

"In any case, it is not true that there is a U.S. debt of 17 thousand or 50 billion dollars. That is Daniel Ortega’s political story. What happened was that a decision was made in a trial in The Hague regarding the war in the 80’s, but the U.S. did not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court in that case and therefore was not obliged to comply with the ruling. The Court ruled against the U.S. but did not determine any amount of money as compensation.”

Source: laprensa.com.ni

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