THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Kampala, Uganda)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 25, 1998
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO GENOCIDE SURVIVORS, ASSISTANCE WORKERS,
AND U.S. AND RWANDA GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Kigali Airport
Kigali, Rwanda
12:25 P.M. (L)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. First, let me thank
you, Mr. President, and Vice President Kasame, and your wives for making
Hillary and me and our delegation feel so welcome. I'd also like to
thank the young students who met us and the musicians, the dancers who
were outside. I thank especially the survivors of the genocide and
those who are working to rebuild your country for spending a little time
with us before we came in here.
I have a great delegation of Americans with me, leaders of our
government, leaders of our Congress, distinguished American citizens.
We're all very grateful to be here. We thank the Diplomatic Corps for
being here, and the members of the Rwandan government, and especially
the citizens.
I have come today to pay the respects of my nation to all who
suffered and all who perished in the Rwandan genocide. (Applause.) It
is my hope that through this trip, in every corner of the world today
and tomorrow, their story will be told; that four years ago in this
beautiful, green, lovely land, a clear and conscious decision was made
by those then in power that the peoples of this country would not live
side by side in peace.
During the 90 days that began on April 6 in 1994, Rwanda
experienced the most intensive slaughter in this blood-filled century
we are about to leave. Families murdered in their home, people hunted
down as they fled by soldiers and militia, through farmland and woods
as if they were animals.
From Kibuye in the west to Kibungo in the east, people gathered
seeking refuge in churches by the thousands, in hospitals, in schools.
And when they were found, the old and the sick, women and children
alike, they were killed -- killed because their identity card said they
were Tutsi or because they had a Tutsi parent, or because someone
thought they looked like a Tutsi, or slain like thousands of Hutus
because they protected Tutsis or would not countenance a policy that
sought to wipe out people who just the day before, and for years before,
had been their friends and neighbors.
The government-led effort to exterminate Rwanda's Tutsi and
moderate Hutus, as you know better than me, took at least a million
lives. Scholars of these sorts of events say that the killers, armed
mostly with machetes and clubs, nonetheless did their work five times as
fast as the mechanized gas chambers used by the Nazis.
It is important that the world know that these killings were not
spontaneous or accidental. It is important that the world hear what
your President just said -- they were most certainly not the result of
ancient tribal struggles. Indeed, these people had lived together for
centuries before the events the President described began to unfold.
These events grew from a policy aimed at the systematic
destruction of a people. The ground for violence was carefully
prepared, the airwaves poisoned with hate, casting the Tutsis as
scapegoats for the problems of Rwanda, denying their humanity. All of
this was done, clearly, to make it easy for otherwise reluctant people
to participate in wholesale slaughter.
Lists of victims, name by name, were actually drawn up in
advance. Today the images of all that haunt us all: the dead choking
the Kigara River, floating to Lake Victoria. In their fate we are
reminded of the capacity in people everywhere -- not just in Rwanda,
and certainly not just in Africa -- but the capacity for people
everywhere to slip into pure evil. We cannot abolish that capacity,
but we must never accept it. And we know it can be overcome.
The international community, together with nations in Africa, must
bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. (Applause.)
We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not
have allowed the refugee camps to become safe haven for the killers.
(Applause.) We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful
name: genocide. (Applause.) We cannot change the past. But we can
and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without
fear, and full of hope. (Applause.)
We owe to those who died and to those who survived who loved them,
our every effort to increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand
against those who would commit such atrocities in the future -- here or
elsewhere. (Applause.) Indeed, we owe to all the peoples of the world
who are at risk -- because each bloodletting hastens the next as the
value of human life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the
unimaginable becomes more conceivable -- we owe to all the people in the
world our best efforts to organize ourselves so that we can maximize the
chances of preventing these events. And where they cannot be prevented,
we can move more quickly to minimize the horror.
So let us challenge ourselves to build a world in which no branch
of humanity, because of national, racial, ethnic or religious origin, is
again threatened with destruction because of those characteristics, of
which people should rightly be proud. Let us work together as a
community of civilized nations to strengthen our ability to prevent and,
if necessary, to stop genocide.
To that end, I am directing my administration to improve, with the
international community, our system for identifying and spotlighting
nations in danger of genocidal violence, so that we can assure worldwide
awareness of impending threats. It may seem strange to you here,
especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over
the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day
after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with
which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.
We have seen, too -- and I want to say again -- that genocide can
occur anywhere. It is not an African phenomenon and must never be
viewed as such. We have seen it in industrialized Europe; we have seen
it in Asia. We must have global vigilance. And never again must we be
shy in the face of the evidence. (Applause.)
Secondly, we must as an international community have the ability
to act when genocide threatens. We are working to create that capacity
here in the Great Lakes region, where the memory is still fresh. This
afternoon in Entebbe leaders from central and eastern Africa will meet
with me to launch an effort to build a coalition to prevent genocide in
this region, where the memory is still fresh.
This afternoon in Entebbe, leaders from central and eastern Africa
will meet with me to launch an effort to build a coalition to prevent
genocide in this region. I thank the leaders who have stepped forward
to make this commitment. We hope the effort can be a model for all the
world, because our sacred task is to work to banish this greatest crime
against humanity.
Events here show how urgent the work is. In the northwest part of
your country, attacks by those responsible for the slaughter in 1994
continue today. We must work as partners with Rwanda to end this
violence and allow your people to go on rebuilding your lives and your
nation.
Third, we must work now to remedy the consequences of genocide.
The United States has provided assistance to Rwanda to settle the
uprooted and restart its economy, but we must do more. I am pleased
that America will become the first nation to contribute to the new
Genocide Survivors Fund. (Applause.) We will contribute this year $2
million, continue our support in the years to come, and urge other
nations to do the same, so that survivors and their communities can find
the care they need and the help they must have. (Applause.)
Mr. President, to you, and to you, Mr. Vice President, you have
shown great vision in your efforts to create a single nation in which
all citizens can live freely and securely. As you pointed out, Rwanda
was a single nation before the European powers met in Berlin to carve up
Africa. America stands with you, and we will continue helping the
people of Rwanda to rebuild their lives and society. (Applause.)
You spoke passionately this morning in our private meeting about
the need for grass-roots effort in this direction. We will deepen our
support for those grass-roots efforts, for the development projects
which are bridging divisions and clearing a path to a better future. We
will join with you to strengthen democratic institutions, to broaden
participation, to give all Rwandans a greater voice in their own
governance. The challenges you face are great, but your commitment to
lasting reconciliation and inclusion is firm.
Fourth, to help ensure that those who survived in the generations
to come never again suffer genocidal violence, nothing is more vital
than establishing the rule of law. There can be no peace in Rwanda that
lasts without a justice system that is recognized as such.
We applaud the efforts of the Rwandan government to strengthen
civilian and military justice systems. I am pleased that our Great
Lakes Justice Initiative will invest $30 million to help create
throughout the region judicial systems that are impartial, credible, and
effective. In Rwanda these funds will help to support courts,
prosecutors, and police, military justice and cooperation at the local
level.
We will also continue to pursue justice through our strong backing
for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The United States
is the largest contributor to this tribunal. We are frustrated, as you
are, by the delays in the tribunal's work. As we know, we must do
better. Now that administrative improvements have begun, however, the
tribunal should expedite cases through group trials, and fulfill its
historic mission. (Applause.)
We are prepared to help, among other things, with witness
relocation, so that those who still fear can speak the truth in safety.
And we will support the War Crimes Tribunal for as long as it is needed
to do its work, until the truth is clear and justice is rendered.
Fifth, we must make it clear to all those who would commit such
acts in the future that they too must answer for their acts, and they
will. In Rwanda, we must hold accountable all those who may abuse human
rights, whether insurgents or soldiers. Internationally, as we meet
here, talks are underway at the United Nations to establish a permanent
international criminal court. Rwanda and the difficulties we have had
with this special tribunal underscores the need for such a court. And
the United States will work to see that it is created. (Applause.)
I know that in the face of all you have endured, optimism cannot
come easily to any of you. Yet I have just spoken, as I said, with
several Rwandans who survived the atrocities, and just listening to them
gave me reason for hope. You see countless stories of courage around
you every day as you go about your business here -- men and women who
survived and go on, children who recover the light in their eyes remind
us that at the dawn of a new millennium there is only one crucial
division among the peoples of the Earth. And believe me, after over
five years of dealing with these problems I know it is not the division
between Hutu and Tutsi, or Serb and Croatian and Muslim in Bosnia, or
Arab and Jew, or Catholic and Protestant in Ireland, or black and white.
It is really the line between those who embrace the common humanity we
all share and those who reject it. (Applause.)
It is the line between those who find meaning in life through
respect and cooperation and who, therefore, embrace peace, and those who
can only find meaning in life if they have someone to look down on,
someone to trample, someone to punish and, therefore, embrace war.
(Applause.) It is the line between those who look to the future and
those who cling to the past. It is the line between those who give up
their resentment and those who believe they will absolutely die if they
have to release one bit of grievance. It is the line between those who
confront every day with a clenched fist and those who confront every day
with an open hand. That is the only line that really counts when all is
said and done.
To those who believe that God made each of us in His own image,
how could we choose the darker road? When you look at those children
who greeted us as we got off that plane today, how could anyone say they
did not want those children to have a chance to have their own children?
To experience the joy of another morning sunrise? To learn the normal
lessons of life? To give something back to their people?
When you strip it all away, whether we're talking about Rwanda or
some other distant troubled spot, the world is divided according to how
people believe they draw meaning from life.
And so I say to you, though the road is hard and uncertain, and
there are many difficulties ahead, and like every other person who
wishes to help, I doubtless will not be able to do everything I would
like to do, there are things we can do. And if we set about the
business of doing them together, you can overcome the awful burden that
you have endured. You can put a smile on the face of every child in
this country, and you can make people once again believe that they
should live as people were living who were singing to us and dancing for
us today.
That's what we have to believe. That is what I came here to say.
(Applause.) That is what I wish for you. (Applause.)
Thank you and God bless you. (Applause.)
END 12:43 P.M. (L)
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