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Nicaragua Relations with the United States
Although it had provided substantial support to UNO
forces
for the elections, the United States did not prove a
staunch and
uncritically supportive ally of the Chamorro government.
Although
initially the United States did gave signals that it was
willing
to support the Chamorro government strongly, the
relationship
deteriorated, when some officials within the United States
government began to object to the Chamorro government's
conciliatory policy toward the Sandinistas.
On March 13, 1990, in a first gesture to the Chamorro
government-elect, United States president George H.W. Bush
lifted
the United States trade embargo imposed five years
earlier. Bush
also announced that he was presenting the United States
Congress
with a proposal for US$300 million in emergency
supplemental
appropriations for Nicaragua for the 1990 fiscal year
(FY--see Glossary),
which would extend through September 30, 1990.
He also
asked the United States Congress to add more than US$200
million
for Nicaraguan aid to the budget request for FY 1991,
which began
on October 1, 1990. The emergency supplemental proposal
included
US$128 million for immediate economic needs and US$75
million for
other economic, social, and political programs. The United
States
also contributed US$50 million to help clear Nicaragua's
US$234
million arrearages with international financial
institutions, in
the hope that other countries also would contribute
sizable
funds. For repatriation efforts, the Bush administration's
request included US$32 million for the demobilization and
repatriation of the Contras and their families, and US$15
million
for the repatriation of other Nicaraguan refugees.
In addition, Bush announced an immediate US$21 million
aid
package for the Chamorro government. The package included
US$650,000 toward the Chamorro government's transition
period
expenses, US$13 million in surplus foodstuffs, and US$7.5
million
for Contra repatriation. The Bush administration also
announced
that it had begun the process of restoring Nicaragua's
sugar
quota, its eligibility for preferential treatment under
the
Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and the Generalized
System of
Preferences, and its access to benefits of the
Export-Import Bank
and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
In its first action to assist President Chamorro, the
United
States Congress, although not acting as quickly as the
Chamorro
government wished on funds critical to its spring planting
season, approved the emergency supplemental package on May
24,
1990. For FY 1991, the United States Congress did not
specifically earmark funds for Nicaragua, but it indicated
in the
report accompanying the foreign aid legislation that it
expected
to provide Nicaragua with as much as possible of the
administration's US$200 million request for the country.
(The
United States Congress also specified that no funds were
to be
provided for Contras who had not disarmed and were not
abiding by
the terms of the April 1990 cease-fire.) Continuing
resolutions
from October 1, 1991, through September 30, 1992,
providing
appropriations for FY 1992, allowed the Bush
administration to
continue funding Nicaragua at the FY 1991 US$200 million
level,
just under the administration's US$204.7 million request.
The
Bush administration obligated US$262.2 million in FY 1990,
US$268.9 million in FY 1991, and an estimated US$185.5
million in
FY 1992.
As a result of the actions, during FY 1991 and FY 1992
Nicaragua was the second-largest recipient of United
States aid
to Central America, behind El Salvador. In addition, in
September
1991, the Bush administration signed an agreement with
Nicaragua
cancelling US$259.5 million in bilateral debt to the
United
States.
In exchange for its assistance, however, the United
States
expected the Chamorro government to adopt free-market
reforms,
privatize industries, restore property to former owners,
and drop
the international lawsuit that the Sandinista government
had
brought against the United States for the Contra war. All
these
provisions proved highly problematic for the new
government.
Complicating the matter, the United States conditioned
disbursements of certain obligated funds on progress
toward
fulfillment of economic objectives. At times, pressures
from the
Bush administration and members of the United States
Congress for
political reform in Nicaragua appeared to be prerequisites
for
further aid from the United States.
United States discomfort with the continuing Sandinista
leadership of the Nicaraguan military was highlighted in
late
1990 and early 1991. During this period, Salvadoran
guerrillas
shot down two Salvadoran air force aircraft and a United
States helicopter with Soviet surface-to-air missiles
obtained
from the Nicaraguan military. The ancients resulted in the
deaths
of three United States soldiers. Even though the Chamorro
government arrested four officers in connection with the
October
1990 sale of the missiles to the Salvadorans and the
Nicaraguans
said that the Salvadoran guerrillas would be forced to
return
unfired missiles, the incident accentuated United States
fears
that the Chamorro government was being used by the
Sandinistas.
Subsequent reports that Nicaraguan army soldiers had
tried to
smuggle arms and munitions to a Marxist group in Honduras,
the
assassination in Managua of former Contra leader Enrique
Bermúdez, and the Salvadoran guerrillas' continued use of
Nicaragua as a safe haven exacerbated United States
concerns. For
its part, the Nicaraguan government objected to the United
States
request to the Soviet Union that it cut the supply of
spare parts
needed by the Nicaraguan army to maintain its helicopters
and
trucks.
In April 1991, President Chamorro paid a state visit to
the
United States. She addressed a joint session of Congress
in the
hope of easing growing United States doubts about her
administration and obtaining a long-term commitment for
United
States aid. Although President Bush and the United States
Congress praised and applauded President Chamorro. she
received
no commitments other than a promise that the United States
would
lead efforts to obtain aid to clear Nicaragua's arrearages
with
international financial institutions, opening the way for
new
support.
At the time of President Chamorro's visit, a central
issue in
United States-Nicaraguan relations was unresolved. The
United
States wanted the Chamorro government to drop the suit
that the
Sandinista government had brought against the United
States in
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on April 9, 1984.
In the
suit, the Sandinista government charged that the United
States
had violated international law in recruiting, training,
arming,
equipping, financing, supplying, and otherwise
encouraging,
supporting, aiding, and directing military and
paramilitary
actions in and against Nicaragua. The ICJ ruled against
the
United States on June 27, 1986. But because the United
States
rejected the decision the case remained unresolved in
April 1991.
In its decision, the ICJ ruled, twelve to three, that
the
United States had violated obligations not to intervene in
another state's affairs, not to use force against another
state,
not to violate the sovereignty of another state, and not
to
interrupt peaceful maritime commerce. The ICJ also ruled
that the
United States had not abided by its 1956 Friendship,
Commerce,
and Navigation Treaty with Nicaragua. The ICJ ordered the
United
States to make reparations to Nicaragua but left a first
attempt
at setting the form and amount of reparations to agreement
between the two parties. Because the United States
rejected the
ICJ's decision, no attempts were ever made at agreement,
and in
the 1990 transition period the National Assembly passed a
law
requiring future governments to proceed with the claim.
Although
the Chamorro government initially resisted spending its
political
capital to meet United States demands to drop the claim,
President Chamorro told President Bush during her April
1991
state visit that she had introduced legislation to the
National
Assembly to repeal the law. In June 1991, forty-nine to
one after
the Sandinista deputies had walked out, the UNO coalition
in the
National Assembly voted to revoke the law. The Chamorro
government subsequently notified the ICJ that it was
dropping the
claim.
Despite the Bush administration's public words of firm
support for the Chamorro government's ongoing economic
reforms,
the Nicaraguan government's relations with the Sandinistas
were a
continuing irritant and a cause for the Bush
administration's
difficulties in shaping and implementing its Nicaragua
policy. As
Nicaragua sought foreign funds to help sustain the army,
in late
1991 the United States discouraged an offer from Taiwan to
give
between US$2 million and US$3 million for nonlethal
assistance to
the Sandinista military. Earlier, the United States
apparently
had ignored a request from the Chamorro government to help
fund
retirement and retraining benefits for 2,700 army
officers. Without indications that the Sandinista military
and
police were firmly under President Chamorro's control,
there
seemed little prospect in 1992 that the United States
would
endorse her reconciliation policy.
Data as of December 1993
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