Nicaragua, 1993

Allow me to congratulate you sincerely, Sir,

on behalf of our Latin American and Caribbean region, on

your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its forty-eighth session.

Some nations, like Nicaragua, are in transition from war

to peace. We are in the process of shaking off an

inheritance of 50 years of right-wing dictatorship and

10 years of left-wing dictatorship. At the same time, we are

moving from a centralized economy to a social market

economy. Each one of these three transitions is an

enormous challenge requiring fluid and timely international

political and economic cooperation.

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 11

Nicaragua is a special case. My country has had to

endure this triple transition. We are overcoming a post-war

era, building democracy and restoring our economy’s

strength and dynamism, all in the midst of a polarized

society. I sincerely believe that few societies in

contemporary history have had to confront so many

challenges at the same time and in such difficult

circumstances.

The Governments and organizations that have been

following closely the critical situation in which I found my

country when I took office - with a gross national product

similar to that of an economy of the 1940s and an

unprecedented rate of hyperinflation - can easily understand

the magnitude of our efforts.

We need to build a democracy, reconstruct a wounded

society and compete economically with the world, all while

following an economic adjustment plan that leaves us no

resources for social investment. There is hunger in my

country. There is hatred. There are many weapons. But

there is also an absolute desire to build a society at peace.

Nicaragua has been a symbol of war and of hope in this

decade. Nicaragua should continue to be a symbol of hope.

We will achieve this only with international assistance.

With great effort, we have limited inflation to

3.5 per cent annually, but with such difficulty that we were

able to achieve economic growth of only 0.2 per cent in

1992, after eight years of a falling gross national product.

I recognize that the international community has tried

to understand the immense complexity of our process. In

1990, the General Assembly granted Nicaragua special

treatment, and called upon the international community to

provide us with effective and timely support. Since then,

my country has fulfilled all agreements and commitments

undertaken with multilateral institutions and the international

community. We are engaged in creating the necessary

conditions so that private, national and international

investment can contribute to the economic growth of the

country and hence initiate the reconstruction process and the

sustained development needed by Nicaragua.

After paying for oil imports and external debt, my

Government has received international assistance amounting

to an average of less than $12 million a year, which does not

cover the costs of such a difficult and complex transition.

Our economy has stabilized; however, this has been a slow

process and it does not satisfy the aspirations of an

impoverished people demanding the attainment, in a short

period of time, of levels of well-being that they deserve.

The economic problem is our greatest source of

instability, because it creates tensions in the political and

social environment, jeopardizing national and regional

stability. If foreign aid arrives late, if strong conditions are

placed on it or it becomes a political tool, as happened in

1992 and is happening now, democracy in Nicaragua could

collapse.

My country depends on the financial support of the

international community. Our exports are equivalent to only

$250 million a year, and we need $850 million to finance

our imports and service our inherited external debt.

I have come to the General Assembly, to this forum of

fraternal nations, to ask the international community to

continue helping Nicaragua. We need the United Nations to

help us to maintain and to guarantee economic bilateral

cooperation at current levels for my country. We need

additional resources to reactivate economic production and

growth, to strengthen the creation of social networks and to

renew the process of conciliation.

We must not forget that on 25 February 1990, to the

surprise of the entire international community, we held the

first free and participatory elections in all the history of my

country. On that day, Nicaraguans laid down their weapons

and we all celebrated the triumph of peace, aware that we

were choosing the path of democracy, freedom, peace and

respect for human rights.

When the time came to vote, every citizen voted against

decades of violence and bloodshed, and as we voted, we

thought about erasing from our minds the sad images of

10 years of war, the orphans, the widows and the maimed.

We voted in the determination to put an end to the tragic

parade of soldiers, many of them children, combatants in a

war between brothers.

This was my first mandate: to generate a policy of

national reconciliation; not an easy task in a society

accustomed to political polarization and to confrontation.

Today, three years later, I continue to be committed to

pursuing national dialogue as the only viable way to solve

our problems. The call to achieve this national

understanding has been met with solidarity and support from

countries and international organizations.

In the national dialogue, we rely on the presence, which

greatly enhances the validity of the process, of

12 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

representatives of the Presidents of Central America, a

region that can envision its future only in the larger prospect

of integration and unity with Nicaragua.

The sincere gratitude of my people and Government

goes to my Central American colleagues, to the

representatives of the Secretary-General of the Organization

of American States, to the Catholic Church and to the

Secretary-General of the United Nations, who have

contributed so much to peace and reconciliation in

Nicaragua.

I especially wish to thank the Secretary-General of the

United Nations for his support in the formation of an active

group of donor countries, friends of Nicaragua, which,

within the context of the United Nations, will help us

identify our requirements for external cooperation and the

means for channelling this necessary assistance.

I believe that countries in transition from war to peace,

which have signed international agreements to attain total

pacification, democracy and reconstruction, should have

access to a special fund to enable them to stand again on

their own feet and go forward.

Nicaragua and other countries in Latin America, such

as Haiti and El Salvador, need exceptional treatment because

we cannot compete with nations that have not suffered the

pain of the political, economic and social destruction caused

by war.

When we appeal to the international community, we do

so in the conviction that the principal efforts for the

reconstruction of our country are our own responsibility as

Nicaraguans, as the actors in our own development. The

Government of which I am President assumes this level of

responsibility in order to prevent our democracy from

regressing. I reaffirm once more before the Assembly the

commitment I made to the Nicaraguan nation not to rest

until democracy has been consolidated.

I shall continue to work to ensure that freedom of

expression, assembly and association are never again

restricted. My commitment to human rights is firm and

unalterable.

My decision to achieve the institutionalization of the

armed forces in Nicaragua is irreversible. For that reason,

in addition to drastically reducing my country’s army, I am

introducing reforms and laws that will guarantee the total

subordination of the military to civilian authority and clearly

establish fixed terms of office in the upper echelons.

We are in the process of building a democratic

institutional structure, including a small, professional,

non-partisan army at the service of the nation as a whole.

Similarly, we are making great efforts to disarm civilian

groups and to prevent the thousands of weapons already

confiscated from being used once again to undermine

Nicaragua’s democratic achievements and so undermine the

regional stability of Central America. Weapons confiscated

by our authorities are burned in public for all to see.

In consultation with other countries of the international

community, my Government has decided to host in our

capital city of Managua, in May 1994, the second

international conference on new and restored democracies.

We want to share experiences, closely examine the structures

of the new democracies and adopt proposals that will

contribute to their self-betterment.

The United Nations must respond positively to the

changes in the world today. Nicaragua supports recognition

by the United Nations of the rights of the Republic of China -

Taiwan. We believe it is only right to recognize the

fundamental rights of the 21 million people who live on that

territory. Nicaragua firmly supports this noble initiative.

Finally, I share the joy of all our countries at the

historic signing of the declaration of principles between the

Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation

Organization. This agreement clearly demonstrates that

peace is possible when the will for dialogue and negotiation

exists. It should serve as one of the great lessons of our

times and a source of new hope for global peace.

We Nicaraguans trust in God, in the solidarity of

friendly nations and in cooperation by international

organizations; the generous, fraternal, sincere hand they

stretch out to us will enable the Nicaraguan people to

achieve the new society of which it dreamt when it voted in

our general elections on 25 February 1990.

We in Nicaragua know that the century that is coming

to an end leaves us some hard lessons. Yet it allows us to

face with courage the great challenges that will enable us to

consolidate a world society inspired by peace, freedom and

progress. For that reason, on the threshold of the new

century, I would like to reaffirm, in the name of the

Nicaraguan people, our deep commitment to contribute to

the development of a more prosperous and more just world

order. That is the commitment I make to democracy and to

all the peoples of the world.