cries@mtxinu.COM (09/28/89)
/* Written 4:50 pm Sep 27, 1989 by cries in ni:cries.regionews */
/* ---------- "Nica Campaign: I'vw Bolanos - UNO" ---------- */
NICARAGUAN CAMPAIGN TRAIL 1989-90
"THAT'S THE QUESTION..."
INTERVIEW WITH ENRIQUE BOLA%OS - PRIVATE SECTOR LEADER
(cries.regionews from Managua September 27, 1989
Enrique Bolanos was a contender for the presidential
nomination of the National Opposition Union (UNO) and a
possible running mate for Violeta Barrios de Chamorro,
selected on September 2 to be the UNO candidate. He is a
former president of the right-wing private sector umbrella
group COSEP (High Council for Private Enterprise), which
carries a lot of weight among a number of the opposition
parties. The FSLN daily newspaper Barricada published an
interview with him on September 19. His sarcastic wit and
anti-Sandinista attitude are shown in these extracts.
*******************
**Q. Why do you think that UNO didn't accept you?
**A. There's a suspicious presence of the [Sandinista] Front
in all this. There are people in UNO who make opposition in
the daytime and sleep with the Front at night. Do you think
that Eli Altimirano [leader of the Communist Party of
Nicaragua, a member of UNO] would have accepted me as
candidate?
**Q. Do you think that the US government would have accepted
such a dubious candidacy?
**A. You don't know how things work. They're nave. The
United States doesn't know what's happening here. [Jimmy]
Carter arrived... [and] he was with the president [Ortega]
and it was confirmed for us. They don't know what's
happening here. The Sandinistas are spoon feeding Carter.
**Q. Do you feel that the UNO candidates represent the
private sector groups inside COSEP?
**A. They don't have to represent COSEP. They represent all
of society, all Nicaraguans.
**Q. Do you think that Violeta has the necessary personal
qualities to be the candidate of a sector of the opposition?
**A. Clearly. She's Nicaraguan and more than 25 years old.
**Q. What is COSEP? An association or a party?
**A. It's a pressure group, no more.
**Q. For a pressure group, it's played a pretty strong
political leadership role in the opposition...
**A. It's that a man named Karl Marx decided that one year
when Sandinismo was to arrive here, the number one enemy was
going to be COSEP. What blame do I have for that?
**Q. But COSEP won't be represented in the elections...
**A. And neither will dentists or doctors.
**Q. Would you be willing to cooperate with the economic
reconstruction if the FSLN wins the elections?
**A. That depends. When the first negotiations between the
government and cotton growers happened, I said to [Vice-
president Sergio] Ramirez that if one is wearing the hat of
a cotton grower it is logical to ask for more and more. With
the hat of the government on, it is a big policy mistake to
say that if you spend more, I'll give you more because then
what would come is a lot of inflation.
Show me a cotton grower that has lost or has gone broke in
the last ten years. Show me a coffee grower that has lost or
gone broke as used to happen and as happens in any healthy
economy. In every economy, bankruptcies purify, cleanse, and
bring prosperity.
**Q. If the FSLN wins the elections, would you agree with a
continuation of the war against Nicaragua?
**A. That depends on how the FSLN wins.
**Q. If they win cleanly...?
**A. Ha ha... If you're aunt had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.
I don't see how the FSLN is going to win cleanly if every
day they do dirty tricks.
**Q. So how can you accept the elections if you know
beforehand they won't be clean?
**A. That's the question.
**Q. There will be international observers to guarantee that
the elections will be clean.
**A. Yeah, right, sure...
**Q. Don't you think that Carter would be an ideal observer?
**A. Ha ha... ahem! I won't comment. My silence is eloquent.
**Q. Do you think US policy towards Nicaragua has been
consistent?
**A. I don't know what they're doing and it doesn't interest
me.
**Q. It's been said that you're upset because of the support
given by the US to Violeta.
**A. My god! Ha ha. Imagine that. The only thing I can do is
laugh at these rumors.
**Q. It's been said that you made the comment that the slate
of Violeta and Virgilio [Godoy] is the best way to lose the
elections. Is that true?
**A. I never said that.
**Q. And what do you think about it?
**A. Well, one cannot say everything that one thinks. There
are so many things that I think.
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---
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