Nicaragua Leader Asks Congress for Aid : Diplomacy: ‘Let us rise from the ashes left for us by past dictatorships,’ Chamorro urges.

Nicaraguan President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro declared her country free of “the delirium of a totalitarian ideology” Tuesday but pleaded with Congress for at least 10 years of financial aid to save the nation from economic disaster after a long and bloody civil war.

“We need steadfast financial assistance from the United States throughout this entire decade in order to reconstruct our economy following the terrible damage incurred during the past decade,” she said in a speech to a joint session of the House and Senate.

“We urgently need foreign investment, credit and international cooperation . . . to permit our people to develop their creative talents and to let us rise from the ashes left for us by past dictatorships,” Chamorro said. “Our efforts to strengthen freedom, to establish democracy and set up a state of law have to be accompanied by economic prosperity.”

But Chamorro, paying her first visit to the United States as president, is facing an uphill fight. Nicaragua and Central America--once among the hottest political issues faced by Congress--seem to have become passe in Washington. And the United States is facing a budget crunch that may preclude major increases in foreign aid.

Only about 100 of the 535 members of Congress attended the speech despite years of debate over aid to the Contra rebels who provided the military muscle to the political movement that brought Chamorro to power.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said before Chamorro’s speech that aid to Nicaragua is limited by Washington’s budget problems. “It’s difficult to do as much as we would like to do in many parts of the world,” he said.

Instead, he said, Congress may urge the Bush Administration to speed delivery of already appropriated aid. The United States has earmarked $537 million for Nicaragua since Chamorro defeated the leftist Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega at the polls in February, 1990. Only about $207 million has been disbursed.

But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. government already has reached understandings with Nicaragua on a schedule to deliver the remaining $330 million.

The Administration is seeking an added $179 million for Nicaragua in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Speaking through an interpreter, Chamorro interspersed proud claims of political triumph with dire warnings of economic collapse.

“Our economy has been destroyed,” she said. “Our productive capacity has remained dismantled. The country was totally decapitalized. In addition, we have to protect our natural resources and promote policies that will protect the environment.”

Nevertheless, she said, “we’re transforming our country and giving it dignity by setting up the solid framework for a republican democracy. Now the principle of freedom prevails so that people can speak openly, move within their country freely, work and run their own businesses profitably.”

Responding to charges that Nicaragua remains a conduit for weapons to the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, Chamorro denied that her government condones the sale of weapons to neighboring countries.