AMBASSADOR SPEECHES

Speech by Ambassador Robert J. Callahan
(English translation – original remarks in Spanish)

American Chamber of Commerce Luncheon

Managua, Nicaragua
October 15, 2008

Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to discuss a few issues that interest the American Embassy and, I hope, you all as well.  I especially want to note the generosity of our host today, the American Chamber of Commerce, AMCHAM, which has shown me many kindnesses during my first two months in your lovely country.

I spoke briefly a month ago at the Competitiveness Forum sponsored by COSEP and the AMCHAM, but this will be my first public talk that will explore themes that go beyond business and the economy.  Today, I want to discuss our complex and often-conflicted history in Nicaragua, because if we cannot come to terms with what we have done we will fail in what we are attempting to do. 

Then I want to look at our policies toward Nicaragua.  I will first discuss them on a somewhat philosophical plane – how we define and understand democracy, what we mean by free trade, open markets, and economic development – and follow by looking at how we apply those values in our programs and what we hope to achieve through them.  When I finish, I will gladly welcome your questions and comments. 

I plan to speak politely but frankly, to avoid obscure metaphors and vague references.  I’m of the mind that friends can talk to each other in that manner, and I certainly regard this group and the Nicaraguan people as friends.  Relations between my country and yours, of every imaginable sort, now go back over 150 years.  That’s a lot of history.  And that is where I will begin.

Just a month ago, on September 14, Nicaraguans celebrated a holiday to commemorate the defeat of William Walker at San Jacinto.  I think that most Americans today would join you in that celebration, and I suspect that many in 1856 would also have been pleased with the result of the battle.  Filibustero Walker was an appalling man – a strutting bigot half mad with ambition and power.  He was not the ideal person to introduce America to Nicaraguans.

There have been many American interventions since then.  Several Nicaraguans have told me that the Untied States has invaded Nicaragua five times.  Other Nicaraguans have countered that Nicaraguans themselves, or at least one faction or another, asked  America’s help in resolving partisan rivalries, which had plunged the country into chaos and near anarchy, and the United States had dispatched the Marines.

When Americans have not been here in uniform, many Nicaraguans would argue, they have still been able to exercise political and economic control through pliable politicians and big business.  A series of American governments condoned personal abuses of all types, they maintain, ignored the wrenching poverty and encouraged the perpetuation of a semi-feudal society.  Others might contend that, despite some excesses, America helped to bring social order and material progress to Nicaragua, enabling the country to become Central America’s most vibrant economy in the middle years of the last century.  

I will leave it to the historians, both Nicaraguan and foreign, to debate those issues.  I will say, however, that no matter the motive, no matter the intention, no matter the geo-political considerations of the times, the United States made many mistakes here, some of commission, more of omission.  And not a few Nicaraguans, in and out of government, did too.

But as conflicted as this history is, is it any more so than, say, that between France and Germany?  The fathers of those who govern those two countries today fought each other in the Second World War, and their fathers’ fathers killed each other by the millions a generation earlier on the Western Front, a cataclysm of epic proportions.  In fact, since the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and up until the 1950s, those who called France and Germany home had a pretty rocky relationship.  That’s fifteen-hundred years of discord and ill-will.

And today?  Not only is war unlikely between Germany and France, it is unthinkable.   Both countries are among the most prosperous and democratic in the world, leading members of the European Union, allies and friends.  To be sure, there are still friendly rivalries between those proud peoples, but they now compete through sports, language, food, the arts, and other benign pursuits.  They work together, legislate together, live together.  They have become members of the same European family. 

My first point is simply that history, culture, and geography are important, but they need not be determinative.  My next point is that if we nurture trust, engage in intelligent discourse, make enlightened compromises, and demonstrate good will, we can tame historic suspicions and overcome ancient enmities.  

And that’s what we – Nicaraguans and Americans – must do here.   The parallels I have drawn between Germany and France and the relationship between Nicaragua and the United State are not perfect.  Our history is not nearly so long or so confrontational and there are greater disparities in wealth, power, and size in our case.  We are aware of that and, as the larger party, must guard against arrogance and neglect, something that we have sometimes failed to do. 

That’s rather a circuitous way of saying that we understand why some Nicaraguans, but certainly not all, perhaps not even most, look askance at our presence here.  Knowing that, we would have to be naïve, obtuse, almost insensate to engage in anything that would put in jeopardy our diplomatic activities in Nicaragua.  We don’t and we won’t.  When we conduct a program on modern political-campaigning methods, for example, we invite every party, front, movement, and alliance to participate.  Each can choose to attend or not, but it is their choice, not ours.  We welcome all of them.
 
I want to aver publicly that everything we do here, every program that supports development, democracy, health, and education, every exchange of a student, soldier, or artist, every donation to the police or the armed forces – everything, all of it – we do in a public and transparent fashion.  So when you hear accusations that the United States is secretly attempting to undermine Nicaragua’s democracy, or is furtively involved in partisan politics, please remember what I just said:  everything we do, we do openly.

What, then, is it that we do?  As I have said on several occasions, our intention here is to support those Nicaraguans who want to strengthen their democracy and develop their economy.  Before I mention some of the ways we are supporting Nicaraguans as you pursue those ends, I thought I would take a moment to describe what we mean by democracy and how we think a country can best create prosperity.

First of all, we do not now and have never thought that the American democratic model is the most appropriate for other countries.  Our system of governance, our Constitution, emerged naturally from our experiences in the New World and our uniquely American culture.  It derives from the Anglo-Saxon tradition of common law and takes much of its inspiration from the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, as interpreted by America’s Founding Fathers. 

If you read the Federalist Papers, primarily written by James Madison, the most underappreciated of our Founders and a political philosopher of the first rank, you will discover the rationale for our system – checks and balances, separation of powers, limited government, and a diffusion of influence among many competing groups and factions. 

And if you read Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville’s brilliant observations on America’s early experiment in self-government from the perspective of an aristocratic Frenchman, you will see how Americans turned Madison’s rationale into reality.  De Tocqueville was most impressed by how democracy functioned at the local level, with all the different elements of a free society, few of them governmental, cooperating and competing with each other.

But, again, it’s our creation.  It has served us well for over 200 years.  But democracies, like flowers, come in many shapes, sizes, and colors, all of them appealing, none of them flawless.  As Winston Churchill once remarked, “Democracy is the worst of systems, except for all the others.”   The Costa Rican democracy is different from the Italian, and the Canadian version looks not at all like the Japanese.  But no one would doubt that the peoples in all four of those countries live in robust democracies. 

If they are not much alike in structure, what distinguishes them as democracies?   What makes them democracies?

Those questions would make for a fine debate, but I suppose we could identify some qualities that characterize all democracies:

free and fair elections, held regularly, that have the confidence of the majority of the citizens;

the periodic alternation of parties in power;

opposition parties with a voice in government;

an independent, uncorrupted, and apolitical judiciary, which establishes and ensures the rule of law;

respect for such basic rights as freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion; and,

an active civil society that reflects the views of various factions and interests – churches, labor and business organizations, ethnic, racial, and women’s groups, fraternal societies, universities and think tanks, and a host of others.

If a government lacks any of these structural elements or guarantees of personal liberties, I would not consider it a democracy.  And if it lacks most of the attributes of a civil society, or does not permit them to function effectively, I would argue that it is not a democracy in full, even if it has the structure of one. 

Although competitive politics is a free-wheeling and passionate practice everywhere, there is another quality to the most vibrant and mature democracies, something easier to describe than define, and that is a climate of tolerance, a reasoned regard for dissenting views, a respect for the spirit as well as the letter of the law, and a belief that the judgment of your peers, and eventually of history, is far more important than the daily exercise of power.

If democracies differ one from the other but still share certain attributes, so too do successful economies.  There is no one model, no one way to make a country prosperous.  But all successful economies, by definition, need to produce goods and services to meet the requirements of their people.  All successful economies must generate wealth before they can distribute it.

The world’s most successful economies rely on a free market, as do the fastest growing.  Look at China, Vietnam, Brazil, and India.  Some free-market economies, such as in Singapore and Switzerland, involve the government hardly at all.  Others – think of Sweden and Spain – reserve a larger role for the state.  

But again, they all share certain characteristics:  respect for private property; equal opportunities for all citizens; access to credit; low tariffs, or none at all; ample and fairly treated private investment, both domestic and foreign; and, honest, effective, and transparent governments, including the court system, which must uphold the inviolability of legal contracts and private property.

There are other factors, of course, and among them are an educated and healthy workforce, good roads, bridges, and ports, and modern telecommunications.

You will note, I trust, that I did not mention natural resources.  What natural resources does Switzerland or Singapore possess?  Ireland or Israel?  But they are among the wealthiest nations in the world.  Why?  They have established the necessary conditions for a successful free market economy and educated their populations to take advantage of the opportunities.

I will add that there are a handful of prosperous countries that do not subscribe to a free-market model, but in every case these countries sit atop vast fields of oil and natural gas.  Unless they make provision for the future by adopting the right economic measures, and many of them are doing that, their wealth will diminish as their hydrocarbon reserves decline. 

In describing this combination of free governments and free economies, of one style or another, I have identified what the world has come to call democratic capitalism.  It takes many shapes, but no matter the form, it has proven to be the best manner to sustain representative government, personal liberties, and the rule of law, and the best way to create and distribute wealth.

Because we think it is the best system – not perfect, not without flaws or defects, as the current economic crisis shows, but the best available over time – we have encouraged others to adopt it.  We would never impose it on another country.  We would never dictate what shape it ought to take.  In fact, we’d strongly suggest that each country adapt it to their culture, history, society, and traditions. 

The result, we are convinced, would be a freer, safer, richer world.

We want Nicaragua to be an active part of that world.  That is the intention of our programs.  We seek to support Nicaraguans as you strengthen your democracy and develop you economy.  We cannot, and do not want to, do it for you; just help as you do it for yourselves.

You have all heard many times and in many places about our programs, so I will skip the usual recitations of names and numbers.  Instead, I will mention briefly one of our democracy programs and note what it has achieved.  I will then describe for you two programs in the north, a large one sponsored by the Millennium Challenge Account around Leon, and a smaller one in Esteli, financed in part by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

For several years the American Embassy, through USAID, worked with Nicaraguans to secure passage of the Arbitration and Mediation Law, which came into effect in 2005.  Since then, USAID’s rule of law program has assisted in the establishment of over 20 mediation centers and has trained over 300 mediators and arbiters, especially those who work in indigenous communities and speak Miskito, Creole English, Mayagna, and of course Spanish.

Since then, these mediators have resolved over 7,500 disputes, the majority of them related to child support and small property claims, usually by helping the parties renegotiate repayment schedules.   The process is faster and much less expensive than going to court.  At the same time, it teaches peaceful dispute resolution and enhances respect for contracts and the law.

USAID’s rule of law project is one of our mission’s democracy programs.  We know that democracy is multifaceted, and we try to take a broad and mutually reinforcing approach to our efforts to promote it.  When citizens learn that the law can be applied fairly, they come to repose more trust in other state institutions, and that in turn encourages them to participate more fully in civil society and the political process.  In such a way does democracy, in its many dimensions, take hold and grow.

That same comprehensive approach is also true for economic development, something that I witnessed personally in a trip to Leon in late September.   There I saw how the Millennium Challenge Account integrates various developmental components to generate results that benefit the rural population.

It begins with land titling.  Once families have clear title to their land, they have collateral that allows them to borrow.  At the same time, they have an incentive to invest in their property and produce more. 

To help them do that, the MCA has a program that teaches farmers more effective techniques in animal husbandry, land cultivation, reforestation, and sanitary dairy production.  Local representatives identify a prosperous lead farm, which they call a “nucleo,” and offer assistance to farmers from the area to showcase new technologies. 

I spoke to one, a man who owns a small cattle ranch with forty head, and he told me that he learned at the nucleo that a scrub grass, or weed, was excellent fodder for his steers.  In addition, this plant grew everywhere and was highly resistant to dry, hot weather.  He therefore could continue to keep his cattle fat, even in the summer, and realize greater profits by producing milk through the entire year.

The last variable in this integrated approach is infrastructure.  If farmers produce more they will need to market more.  So the MCA has embarked on a program of primary and secondary road construction.  This not only allows for cheaper and more rapid delivery of goods to distribution centers for national and international markets, but also serves to bring communities closer together, in every sense.

I spoke to dozens of people around Leon, from the suppliers of seeds and saplings to the owners of two nucleos, and they all demonstrated a determination and spirit that has turned theory into practice.  It is something, I am sure, that will serve as a development model elsewhere, and not just in Nicaragua.

My final example is a project called Alianzas, which is a partnership between USAID and private groups.  It seeks to address basic education, health, and nutrition issues throughout Nicaragua.  Let me tell you about one of their endeavors in the north, in Esteli, Mataglapa, and Nueva Segovia, among other cities.  Let’s look at one case, in which USAID contributed the seed money and Handicap International and the Stammbach Foundation each donated a like amount, for a total of about $300,000. 

In consultation and concert with parents and children, school administrators and teachers, the project coordinators decided to improve physical access in 15 of the region’s 50 primary schools, by building ramps, erecting handrails, and widening doorways.  This now will allow those students with special needs to get into school by themselves, or at least with more ease, and to continue their studies.

In the long term, this project may contribute to democracy in some indirect way by serving as an example of community action.  Or it may enhance economic development by encouraging a number of bright but physically limited students to continue their studies and become contributors to the country’s welfare.

But that’s not why we did it.  We did it because it is the right thing to do. 

Yes, we act in our national interests – all nations do – but we also respond to the dictates of our conscience. 

Motivated by both self interest and morality, we are here to support those Nicaraguans who want to nurture and bring to fruition a democratic and prosperous country. 

We remain committed to that vision and dedicated to that goal, looking to the future as we acknowledge the past, and we hope our Nicaraguan partners agree to do the same. 

Many thanks.  

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