GRANADA, Nicaragua – President Daniel Ortega said yesterday that Nicaragua feels “a little bit freer” following the United States' decision Monday to suspend $64 million in aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) due to Washington, D.C.'s “deep concerns” over the state of democracy in Nicaragua.

Speaking yesterday at the III Special Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in Caracas, Venezuela, Ortega said the United States' decision to suspend its conditional aid for Nicaragua only makes the country feel freer, according to a live video feed on Nicaraguan state television.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seconded Ortega's opinion, adding that in suspending MCC aid to Nicaragua the United States is just “taking the chains off.”

Ortega's position stands in stark opposition to comments from private sector leader César Zamora, president of Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce, who said that a cutoff in MCC aid would be like a “nuclear bomb” on Nicaraguan economy.

Chávez, meanwhile, said that ALBA will continue to denounce the international plans to destabilize the revolutionary governments in Latin America and warned that member nations have “soldiers to defend it.”

Chávez and Ortega also warned U.S. President-elect Barack Obama that his opponents “will kill him” if he tries to promote the change that he has promised in the United States.

“He is a prisoner of the empire,” Ortega said.

“I hope they don't kill him,” Chávez added.

For more on the U.S. aid freeze see www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2008_11/1126081.htm.