Nicaraguan president's visit. (remarks by President Bush, President Violeta Chamorro, and Assistant Secretary Bernard W. Aronson, includes profile of Nicaragua) (transcript)

Presidents Bush and

Violeta Chamorro,

April 17, 1991

Remarks at arrival ceremony.

President Bush. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the United States a woman of courage, a leader of conviction, a person of morality and vision: Mrs. Violeta Chamorro, President of Nicaragua.

We stand here at the White House almost a year to the day after the extraordinary moment when you stood at Managua's national stadium to be sworn in as your nation's first freely elected president.

What a moment that was. In you we saw the exhilarating victory of democracy of the glorious new breeze that, in 1 amazing year, swept out oppression and dictatorship, from Prague to Managua. In you we saw your nation's peacemaker, the person who would close the books on 11 years of cruel civil war.

In you we saw the symbol of national reconciliation with the inner strength and resolve to turn the face of your country toward the path of healing.

In you we saw what your countrymen saw when they cast their ballots In their first fair, open election. We all saw the person who inspired her people to believe in the triumphant return of peace and freedom.

On that Inauguration Day we saw Dona Violeta, candidate of compassion, become President Chamorro, leader of reconciliation. On that day you closed a painful chapter in your nation's history, and you began to forge a new one. The beautiful land of Ruben Dario had been exhausted by strife, embittered by repression, polarized by government attempts to dominate every single aspect of society, impoverished by a cynical and mismanaged regime.

But you are the leader who once said: "As a mother, I feel with great intensity the obligation to teach …