Ambassador Robert J. Callahan (blue shirt and tie), seen here during Clinica Verde’s 2011 annual meeting of the board in Granada, Nicaragua.
On March 2, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Robert J. Callahan delivered a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Nicaragua that generously commended the work of Clinica Verde. The full text of the speech appears below. Thanks very much, Ambassador Callahan, for being such a force for good diplomacy in the world.
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Fact and Fantasy: the United States and its Policies in Nicaragua
March 2, 2011, Ambassador Richard J. Callahan
Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to speak. The American Chamber of Commerce in Nicaragua has been a catalyst for economic development and a bulwark of democracy for many years. I salute you for your numerous achievements and wish you many successes in the future.
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Doctor Yali Molina on his election as Amcham president and acknowledge publicly Licenciado Roger Arteaga for his superb work as president and for his forceful and valiant advocacy of democracy in Nicaragua. You both have the support and admiration of the American Embassy in Managua.
I would also like to take a moment to congratulate our friends at La Prensa, a paper which celebrates today the 85th anniversary of its founding. Few editors and reporters anywhere in the world, or for a longer time, have shown such courage of their convictions, such determination when confronted with threats and censorship, and such commitment to the idea of free expression as those who have made that paper a symbol of democratic defiance. To all those who work there, and have worked there, and to the members of the Chamorro family who have guided the paper through many tumultuous decades, thank you for your contributions to freedom. May they continue for many decades to come.
I just wish that Guillen would make me look better in his caricatures.
Today I want to talk about the United States and respond to some allegations and accusations that I hear, and have heard for over two years, about my country’s policies and intentions in Nicaragua. As the bromide has it, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. I want to offer some facts.
I then want to describe what we really do here, which is nothing more than to support those Nicaraguans who seek to strengthen democracy and generate prosperity for their country.
In doing so I will depart somewhat from customary diplomatic language. I will be candid in my comments and direct in my exposition. But I offer my views in the belief that we can speak truthfully to each other, as friends and as partners, and by doing so create a more mature and respectful relationship.
Let’s start over 150 years ago, with the inevitable William Walker, who is invoked with such frequency that you might think he was here last month. It is said that he was sent by the American government to colonize Nicaragua and establish slavery. The truth is that Walker was an adventurer, something akin to a land pirate, and that President Castellon, a Liberal, invited him and his band of mercenaries to join his side in a civil war against the Legitimists or Conservatives.
It is true that at the beginning of Walker’s campaign, the American government did nothing to restrain or condemn him. And it is also true that, when his fortunes began to sour and his situation became desperate, he planned to establish slavery in Nicaragua. He thought that this would earn popular support in the slave-holding states in America, and it did.
But when it became apparent that Walker was indeed a danger to Nicaragua and an embarrassment to the United States, Secretary of State William L. Marcy took measures to discredit and disarm him. He marginalized the American minister, John H. Wheeler, who was sympathetic to Walker, and ordered American warships to intercept the Filibuster’s supplies and reinforcements. In fact, when Walker left Nicaragua and returned to the United States, he blamed his defeat on Marcy and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Walker was clearly crazed, a true megalomaniac, and he caused death and destruction wherever he pitched up. But he was acting on his own and received no support from the American government.
Those are the facts.
America remained interested in Nicaragua over the next 50 years, especially as a potential site for the inter-oceanic canal, but it was the arrival and lengthy presence of Marines during the first third of the last century that has provided grist for current criticisms. Although I will not attempt to defend that policy, I do think it fair to recall that the Americans sent the Marines with good intentions: to put an end to political chaos and help Nicaragua establish a stable democracy.
Of course, the Marines stayed for about 20 years and their presence was a daily insult to many patriotic Nicaraguans, including Augusto Cesar Sandino. He took up arms and waged an effective guerrilla war against them. However, following the peace agreement in Tipitapa in 1927 and the promise of national elections, according to a book I’ve read that cites one of Sandino’s letters, Sandino wrote to the Marine commander in Jinotega, proposing to lay down his arms provided the Marines remained to ensure free and fair elections.
Another renowned Nicaraguan figure to emerge from this period was Anastasio Somoza Garcia. As history would prove, Americans erred in selecting him to lead the newly created and non-partisan National Guard, which was to replace a politicized army, but it would have been impossible to know Somoza’s intentions at the time. He seemed bright and well intentioned and he spoke English. He talked of democracy. He extolled freedom. He promised elections. He charmed us, and many others.
Yes, we supported him and his sons for years, tolerating them in the name of national security. But at the end, admittedly late in the game, we abandoned him. Many contributed to the defeat of Somoza, but we did play a modest, if belated, role.
Those are the facts.
But no matter our interpretation of history, no matter the prism through which we see the past, it profits us nothing to dwell there. Yes, acknowledge it, learn from it, but move on. After all, don’t we have enough problems in the present? Don’t we have enough challenges to address, as individuals and nations, as neighbors and partners?
We certainly think so, and that is why I have talked frequently over the past years about America’s commitment to the Nicaraguan people. I would like to think that by now our various bilateral programs – USAID’s work on health, education, and democracy, the MCC’s contributions to infrastructure development and technical assistance, the Peace Corp’s daily involvement with thousands of Nicaraguans – are well known. Over the past two decades the American people have spent in Nicaragua over 2 billion dollars.
But there are many other, much less visible, ways that America and Americans contribute to Nicaragua’s economic and social development. Take, for example, remittances. Although we have no exact figures, we estimate conservatively that Nicaraguans receive at least a half a billion dollars annually from workers and residents in the United States. The United States has welcomed these workers, many of whom are immigrants, and has never interfered with their desire to send money home.
Take trade. Since the inception of CAFTA almost five years ago, Nicaraguan exports to the United States have increased by 71%, to a current total of about two-billion dollars. Think of the jobs this has engendered, the opportunities it has created, the wealth it has generated.
To help in the export of agricultural commodities, the United States Department of Agriculture has worked closely with Nicaraguan ministries and farmers to increase yields and reduce disease. We have offered training, education, and equipment to the specialists, and then provided motorcycles and trucks to get them into the field. Over the past decade this has cost 66-million dollars. Then, just last month, we made an additional 10-million dollars available.
Another program sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, as strange as it may seem, is in microfinance: providing loans to entrepreneurs in businesses related to farming. To date, this initiative has made loans available to 9,000 clients in the amount of over 2.2 million dollars at modest interest rates.
And we continue to devote effort and resources in other ways to Nicaragua’s largest economic sector, agriculture. Through our various USAID programs the United States provides millions of dollars each year to improve farming techniques and increase agriculture production in Nicaragua, especially among the smallest and poorest farmers. We want to encourage them to move from subsistence farming to become producers who sell their surplus at a profit, making them, their families, and their communities more prosperous, and in the bargain contributing to Nicaragua’s food security.
These are not crumbs. It is development, and it involves a lot of money, money that comes from hard-working Americans who may themselves be struggling to remain solvent. We should never lose sight of that.
The programs I just described, and there are many others, are designed to promote Nicaragua’s economic growth, most notably among the needy and indigent. Along with the prudent macroeconomic policies and a commitment to free markets pursued by this and previous governments, and with contributions from other donors, we have seen significant progress over the past 20 years. We take satisfaction from that, and also in our social programs.
Like you, I often hear accusations of America’s imperial designs on Nicaragua, criticisms about our evil intentions here. As I discuss a few of our social programs, I’d ask that you give some thought to how, by any stretch of the imagination, these programs support imperial policies or promote nefarious ends.
Let’s begin with child labor. When a child works to pick coffee or cut sugar cane, he is not only deprived of a proper education but also jeopardizes his mental and physical health. He is denied the simple joys of youth, the freedom to play and explore, read and learn. He grows old while still a child, loses his innocence while still young.
To address this scourge, the United States Department of Labor has created a program called Enterate and has provided 5 million dollars for its execution over three years. The intention is to rescue five-thousand children engaged in physical work and prevent an additional five thousand from becoming involved. Now functioning in the departments of Madriz and Jinotega, and in cooperation with enlightened owners of coffee plantations, Enterate is providing quality education to thousands of children who otherwise would be picking beans or coffee.
There is another, equally important, facet of the program that targets children in Managua who have been sold into prostitution or compelled to work in markets or on the streets. They too now have an opportunity to learn and grow as normal children, free of the fear of forced labor.
An American idea. American money. Is this an American plot to subvert Nicaragua’s sovereignty or further America’s imperial ambitions? Ask those kids in school. Or their parents.
What of the American military, the very instrument, according to some, of our imperial designs? By now the annual visit of a U.S. Navy ship, often the hospital ship Comfort, is old news. The doctors, nurses, and technicians aboard, working closely with Nicaraguan medical personnel and those from other countries, such as Holland, Colombia, and Canada, treat about 10,000 poor Nicaraguans during their two-week stays. They perform routine and complex surgeries, distribute thousands of pairs of eye glasses, offer health classes, and provide medicines of every sort. Other crew members undertake civic-action programs, such as building basketball courts or repairing schools.
The arrival of these ships attracts a lot of media attention. What is less well known, but every bit as helpful, are the humanitarian projects that occur without much fanfare. For example, our military has built warehouses on the Atlantic coast and stocked them with supplies for use in emergencies, such as natural disasters. They have dug wells in small towns to provide safe drinking water. They have donated thousands of mosquito nets in an effort to reduce the incidence of malaria in the RAAN.
To be sure, our military also comes to help train, equip, and work with the Nicaraguan armed forces, but our exclusively humanitarian programs probably cost close to five million dollars a year, more than we spend on military training, equipment, and exchanges.
Why do we do it? We do it because we are committed to the Nicaraguan people and want to show them, in the most tangible way, our friendship. Some may find a sinister motive in that, but I do not.
So far and for the most part I have discussed the American government’s many programs in Nicaragua. Now I’d like to turn briefly to what private American citizens, with little or no reference to their government, are doing here.
Working with their Nicaraguan counterparts, they are engaged in an array of efforts to improve health and sanitation in the poorest communities and bring medical attention and decent housing to the neediest. They arrive, go to their site, do their work, and return home. We often don’t even know they have been here.
Let me cite a few examples. Dr. John Lent and his wife Barbara bring a medical brigade to Rosita for two weeks each year. They perform surgeries and provide routine health care, distribute medicine they have brought from home, offer training to local doctors, and send dentists to the far countryside, where they treat people who have never seen a dentist before.
Amy Wiza runs the Wisconsin-Nicaragua Partners of America, one of the most active chapters in the program. Amy’s mother, Sherin Bowen, whom I admired and respected, lost her life in an accident while working on a project in Managua almost two years ago. Her selfless example continues to animate all those involved in the organization, especially the young Nicaraguans she nurtured and mentored. Today, under Amy’s direction, the Wisconsin Partners in Nicaragua donate fire trucks and bicycles, provide clothing and sports equipment, repair houses and schools, and sponsor educational and cultural exchanges, among many other endeavors.
Susan Dix Lyons, who came to Nicaragua as a young journalist 20 years ago and who today lives near San Francisco, California, has dedicated herself for the past four years to building an eco-friendly health clinic near Boaco. To date, she and her committee, including her husband, Dr. Tim Lyons, have raised a million dollars and now have completed Clinica Verde. They will dedicate it soon. Once operational, the clinic’s doctors will care for expectant mothers and give them the kind of attention that will ensure a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. And the Clinica Verde foundation will assume the annual costs of operating and maintaining the hospital, including the salaries of doctors and support staff, and the purchase of medicines and supplies.
Kevin Marinacci, then a recent graduate of Georgetown University, came to Nicaragua at about the same time that Susan Dix Lyons did. Encouraged by the Jesuit fathers at Georgetown to go out and help the less fortunate, he decided to volunteer for a while at the Fabretto Foundation. When Father Fabretto died unexpectedly, Kevin took on the direction of the operation, which he still runs. He persuaded his father Carl to serve on the board, and together the Marinaccis have raised millions of dollars to feed, teach, and give hope to thousands of young Nicaraguans in eight Fabretto educational centers and fifty public schools throughout the country.
I know these people, and others, and what they do because I have talked to them and visited their projects. But there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, whom I do not know personally. Some are affiliated with churches or charitable groups. Some work with medical or dental organizations. Others come alone. All of them do good work. They repair hare lips and cleft palates in Matagalpa, distribute toys to sick children in Leon, deliver medicine to remote villages along the Rio Coco, teach farming techniques to poor campesinos in Somoto. They do it because it’s the right thing to do. They do it because it is the American way, embraces American values, shows the American spirit. They do it because they enjoy doing it.
They do, however, complain about red tape and petty harassment. They come to the embassy, baffled and often angry, and tell us that they have great quantities of medicine that they cannot get out of customs. They tell us that they have hundreds of donated wheelchairs, used but in good condition, that the authorities at the airport will not release because they do not have a bill of sale – the equipment, I repeat, was donated. They tell us that they had toys to give to poor children for Christmas, but that the crates are still locked in an airport warehouse, caught in a bureaucratic snare. And it is now long after Christmas.
This happens repeatedly to voluntary organizations that are operating on a small budget. And while their donations are awaiting clearance, they are charged up to a thousand dollars a week in storage fees, something they cannot afford and should not have to pay. I know that countries need to protect their borders, and can enact their own customs regulations and set their own storage prices, but every consideration should be given to those who have come here not to seek profit, but to offer help. If this kind of treatment continues, it will almost certainly lead some of these groups to go elsewhere. The Nicaraguan people, especially the neediest, will be the ones who suffer if this comes to pass.
I have heard complaints from the Nicaraguan government, too, mostly about the amount of our support and conditions we place on our bilateral aid. Let me take each in turn.
Our bilateral assistance of all types to Nicaragua comes to over 60 million dollars a year. Yet Nicaraguan officials claim that this is woefully insufficient, especially the part destined to law enforcement. Well, we have contributed 24-million dollars since 2007 to Nicaragua to help in combating crime, including drug trafficking, and we hope to increase significantly that amount in the years ahead.
Still, certain people find fault with the program. I therefore find it odd, and not a little ironic, that the Nicaraguan government last year decided not to sign an agreement that would have provided seven-hundred thousand dollars to study penal reform and establish anti-gang programs.
And what about the conditions we place on our money? What should be the alternative? Senior Nicaraguan officials have told me that we should simply turn over a check, that they know better than we what Nicaragua needs. Maybe so, but I somehow doubt that our elected officials will agree to spending the American taxpayers money in such a manner. It could easily lead to their losing the next election.
Anyway, what are those conditions? Are they onerous and intrusive? Are they unfair?
To begin with, we do not condition our humanitarian aid. If people are suffering, we help. We have given food to North Korea during famines and offered relief supplies to Cuba after hurricanes and to Iran after earthquakes, and we do not maintain diplomatic relations with those countries. We have spent over a billion dollars combating AIDs in Africa, and much of that money goes to organizations working in countries governed by regimes that are authoritarian and barely responsive to our diplomacy.
In most countries, though, and on most programs, we do place conditions on our aid. We insist on respect for human rights and individual freedoms, credible elections, and budget transparency. We require a regular accounting of how our money has been spent.
Why should any country, especially one identifying itself as a democracy, object to these simple standards? It is somewhat akin to electoral observation. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
And that leads me to this: we have nothing to hide in Nicaragua. The goals of the United States in Nicaragua have not changed since my arrival over 30 months ago and will not change in the future. We seek to support those Nicaraguans who are attempting to strengthen their democracy and develop their economy. We are confident that these are the right policies. We conduct them openly and without preference for party or person.
When we talk about democracy, we mean more than free, fair, and transparent elections, although they are essential. We mean rule of law, due process, separation of powers, checks and balances, and respect for those individual rights common to all liberal democracies: freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.
We mean that no one is above the law, that elected officials serve the people by governing, not ruling, and that they owe the people an explanation of their policies, decisions, and spending. We mean that institutions are more important than individuals and that the cult of personality is inimical to true democracy.
We also mean something a bit more, something amorphous but real, and that is a tolerance for other opinions and a belief that no person and no party has a monopoly on truth and wisdom.
When enough people in any country come to believe and practice this, even when the belief is fragile and the practice flawed, democracy takes root and begins to prosper. To be sure, the process is messy, often chaotic, and the results mixed. But if there is a better way to preserve order while ensuring freedom, I have not come across it.
About 20 years ago we began supporting groups and organizations that shared some or most of those beliefs. We continue to support them. To my mind, and despite accusations of partisanship, these groups promote values, not people or parties, and have proven their worth through many years.
They have worked to strengthen civil society, protected basic freedoms, monitored elections, and criticized governments of every ideological stripe when they have disagreed with that government’s policies or found fault with that government’s behavior. That’s responsible. That’s democracy.
They have defended the handicapped and advocated for minority and women’s rights. They have lived among the most desperate and given them voice. They have reached out to the poorest to teach them about disease, nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation. That’s noble. That’s selfless.
What they are doing, always and everywhere, whether it involves politics or development, is good for the people and good for the country. It is to be welcomed, not feared; supported, not suppressed; applauded, not condemned.
This is how countries grow confident and prosperous. This is how democracies get strong and durable. This is how people gain dignity and self-respect. When the people themselves create these conditions and construct these institutions, they secure democracy and promote prosperity.
But however democracy comes, it must come from the people. It cannot come from without. It cannot come from another country or an international body. It cannot be imposed. It cannot be conjured into existence.
If takes courage, patience, good leaders, and constant vigilance. It takes tolerance and sacrifice and compromise. It takes hard work and energy. It takes the people.
It always comes to that – the people. Whether in mature and wealthy democracies, those of more recent vintage, or those countries struggling to create representative government, the people themselves ultimately must take responsibility for their own affairs. The people themselves must fashion their future, determine their destiny.
Here the United States will support the Nicaraguan people where appropriate and their organizations when they advocate those universal values that promote peace, freedom, and democracy. But it is you, the Nicaraguans, who must carry the burden.
In my two and a half years here I have traveled widely and spoken to thousands of Nicaraguans in schools and city halls, in factories and hospitals, on farms and softball fields. They have impressed me with their intelligence, determination, vision, and optimism. They have convinced me that this lovely country, rich in human and natural resources, will inevitably realize its enormous potential, will take its rightful place among the world’s wealthy democracies.
It will be a struggle. It will take time. But it will come.
Thank you.
