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“SPEECHES BY NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT VIOLETA B. de CHAMORRO” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2150-E2152 on Nov. 9, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SPEECHES BY NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT VIOLETA B. de CHAMORRO
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HON. AMO HOUGHTON
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, November 9, 1995
Mr. HOUGHTON. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on a matter near and dear to my heart--the state of democracy in Nicaragua.
President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who is a dear friend to me and my wife Priscilla, visited our country in September and delivered two speeches--one at the Department of Commerce, and another at the Center for Democracy. I'd like to submit the text of those speeches into the record, and ask that my colleagues take a look at them.
Mr. Speaker, I testified before the subcommittee to emphasize that Nicaragua is well along in the process of turning itself around. Are there problems in Nicaragua? Absolutely. It has only been 5 years under Democratic rule. The road is still long. There will never be an absolute destination. But under the leadership of President Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua has undergone wrenching changes of which any one of us would be proud.
Speech Before the Center for Democracy
Mr. Kelly, President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Democracy, Professor Allen Weinstein, President and Executive Director of the Center for Democracy, Members of the Government of the United States of America, Honorable Senators and Representatives, friends: I would like to thank you for your invitation to share with you this evening in the celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for Democracy. I would like to express to you my sincere recognition for all the support you have given the democratic process in my country. This support has included observing the historic elections of February 25, 1990 and supporting the National Assembly on legislative matters.
I am thrilled to be at this forum, where dialogue is practiced and promoted with the joint action of parties and countries that favor both democracy and the well-being of the persons of the world.
The Center for Democracy is expanding the frontiers of freedom in diverse continents, helping societies in transition build a legal framework based on the Rule of Law and a market economy. I can tell you that Nicaragua is one of these examples.
Building democracy in Nicaragua has been a very difficult and misunderstood task. Upon beginning my presidential mandate on April 25, 1990, I found a country that was destroyed by war, a result of the ideological imposition that the Sandinista Government attempted in my country.
Our democratic transition took place in the midst of weapons. I found any army of more than 90,000 members facing another 22,000 combatants. The civilian population had more than 200,000 weapons of war in its possession at that time. Exile, imprisonment and confiscations of goods were the means with which to confront the opposition to democracy. Freedom of the press and political rights were suppressed. I inherited a collapsed economy. State centralization practically did away with the initiative of the citizenry and the benefits of a free market. Under the economic model of the Sandinista decade, the State took over commerce, banking, insurance and production. The result was an economic regression that took us back to the 1940s, and left us an enormous foreign debt, one of the highest in the world in relative terms. Rationing cards, weekly devaluations, confiscations and long lines at supply centers were coupled with the lack of liberties and because the main symbols of that time. As part of this sad outlook, we Nicaraguans inherited a culture of violence. Dialogue had been the absent protagonist in our history.
My first mission as President was to reestablish public liberties, abolish compulsory military service and foster a true reconciliation and unity among the Nicaraguan family in order to heal the wounds of war.
Today, political debate takes the place of gunshots, our Branches of Government are truly independent and we have managed to subordinate military authority to civilian authority. The gigantic army I inherited has been transformed to a force of 14,000 people, the smallest in Central America. We have approved a new Military Code that establishes the national and apolitical nature of the army. For the first time in the history of our nation, a head of the army abandoned the post peacefully. We took the school textbooks that taught addition by means of weapons and tanks and replaced them with books espousing civilian and patriotic principles. Many military installations were transformed into schools and universities.
The reconciliation, that I do not tire of asking from the Nicaraguan people, has allowed us to incorporate in the National Police, militants of the former Nicaraguan Resistance. The armed and security forces that formerly carried the name of the Sandinista party, today have become the National Army and National Police. Thousands of weapons that previously were in the hands of civilians have been recovered, destroyed and buried.
Economic reforms have put an end to a Centralist State. Private initiative has assumed the role and the challenges that make it the main agent of development. Since 1991, 10 new private banks, one Stock Exchange and one Commodities Exchange have been established in our country in a show of confidence and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Nicaraguan people. Three hundred fifty private enterprises, which constituted close to 30 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, have been privatized. We have been successful in eliminating the hyperinflation we inherited and in maintaining one-digit levels in price increases. We have also reduced our foreign debt or restructured it to increasingly more flexible terms.
Given the conditions of poverty I inherited, we are concentrating our efforts on children and women, who carry most of the family burden in our country. I have given special priority to primary education and preventive health, while integrating community participation and that of civilian society in these tasks.
I would like to clearly underscore that Nicaragua today has an economy with great potential. For the first time in 11 years, our Gross Domestic Product grew by 3.3 percent in 1994 and this year we will have a greater increase. Nicaragua now has appropriate and firm legislation for the protection of foreign investments. We have subscribed to bilateral treaties for the promotion of investment with different countries, including the United States of America.
These important achievements have only been possible thanks to the solidarity we have found in friendly countries that have not deserted us. I would like to especially acknowledge the broad bipartisan support that the United States has shown us. By such support, you understood that democracy in Nicaragua is irreversible. Those who compare the Nicaragua of the past with the Nicaragua of today, transformed as it is by democracy, may appreciate how costly it has been to arrive to where we are today. We need to continue receiving support for our democratic process in order to meet the great challenges that face our society today. We will continue strengthening our economic development, confronting absolute poverty and perfecting our democratic institutions.
Upon completing my term, on January 10, 1997, I would like to leave the property issue resolved, which is one of the most difficult and complex problems that I inherited from the previous regime. The property issue affected more than 170,000 families and close to 25 percent of the arable land in Nicaragua. Today I can tell you that we have taken significant steps to finding solutions to this situation.
My dear friends, we Nicaraguans are entering a new era in our history. We are heading toward an electoral process in 1996 that will enable us to take one of the most important steps in the consolidation of democracy. The challenge we face is to preserve peace, strengthen justice and the rule of law and further establish economic and social development, eliminating extreme poverty and fighting unemployment. Only absolutely free and honest elections can lead us to a true consolidation of democracy. I call on the international community to support us in the diverse aspects of the elections we will be holding towards the end of 1996. We are confident that we will continue to count on the support of the United States and the leaders of the Center for Democracy.
I would like to conclude by saying that the bipartisan consensus that the Center for Democracy has promoted in relation to Nicaragua has not been in vain. This celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Center for Democracy is also a source of great pride and satisfaction for my country. I would like to offer you a simple yet significant gift of a destroyed weapon, which symbolizes the peace and reconciliation of Nicaragua. May God bless the friendship between our two peoples. Thank you very much.
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Remarks at the Department of Commerce
(By Her Excellency Violeta Barrios de Chamorro)
Allow me Mr. Brown to thank you for your kind invitation to participate in this breakfast and the opportunity to exchange viewpoints on some areas of common interest.
During the last few years, Central America has been making impressive progress in the opening up of its framework of trade and its economies. In fact, the reduction of tariffs, the elimination of non-tariff barriers, economic deregulation, improvements in the framework of investment policies and progress in the protection of intellectual property rights, among others, are contributing to the perfection of our instruments of integration.
In this context, it is important to highlight accession of all Central American countries to the World Trade Organization, a commitment that will bring regional trade norms into line with the disciplines that govern international trade. This development also represents a fundamental step in the creation of the Americas Free Trade Zone, which is the objective we established for ourselves in the Summit of the Americas held in Miami in 1994.
This set of policies and actions is contributing to a better commercial growth in the region; in 1994 intra-regional trade surpassed the historic levels reached in the last decade. Our principal trade partner is the United States, on the export as well as import levels, thanks to the Caribbean Basin Initiative.
This success notwithstanding, with the emergence of NAFTA, the region together with the Caribbean countries perceives potential disadvantages as a result of a diversion of trade and investment. For this reason, we support initiatives that promote NAFTA parity and we support free access of our products, which today face restrictions.
Although our commercial relations show important growth, they are not necessarily a reflection of the flow of investment. I therefore, consider that we must redouble our efforts to promote the potentials of investment in Central America.
When Mr. Pablo Pereira, our Minister of the Economy and Development, returned from the Meeting of Ministers in Denver, he reported to me in detail on two events of special importance to our country that took place in that city.
(1) The signing of Bilateral Investment Treaty between the United States and Nicaragua.
(2) A working session with you where we responded to your initiative of holding a Forum on Trade and Investment at the Central American level with an invitation to stage such a Forum in Managua.
I now have the pleasure of reiterating that invitation to you and to tell you that in Nicaragua we will welcome you, your assistants and the important business people that accompany you, with open arms.
From the outset, we believe this event will be important, not only to give the Bilateral Investment Treaty its own dimension, but also to provide a magnificent opportunity to examine, within a Central American context, concrete perspectives on trade and investment between our subregion and the United States.
In this same vein of ideas, allow me to suggest the creation of a U.S.-Central America Business Development Council, a body that will promote business ties, providing the private sector with the major role befitting it in our societies.
Mr. Brown, distinguished guests, Central America is a region that has abandoned war and violence and has initiated the irreversible consolidation of its democracies. I am proud to point out that, toward the end of next year, we will hold in Nicaragua, the fairest, most free elections in our history. These elections will mean a political transition without interruption, guaranteeing our democracy. Pacification, reconciliation and development have been the central themes of my Government, under the difficult circumstances I have had to govern.
In my country we put an end to the hyperinflation of the 1980s, launched a highly successful process of privatization, reduced the foreign debt and made considerable progress in the solution of the property issue inherited by my Government. We also began an intensive process of export diversification and, in general, have laid the groundwork for a better transformation of production with economic and social equity. Nicaragua is a stable country, currently open to foreign investment and willing to gradually assume the responsibilities imposed by economic globalization and international competition. Our convictions, our principles, as well as our laws grant complete security and protection to foreign investment.
I invite the American business people to discover Nicaragua. Here, among us, we have examples of business people and businesses that know that in our country in particular, and Central America in general, significant opportunities for trade and investment are taking place.
Come to Nicaragua, Come to Central America, we are waiting for you.
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