28 August 2000
Clinton August 28 Address at Burundi Peace Talks in Arusha
(Thank you very much, President Museveni, President Mkapa,
distinguished leaders of the OAU and various African nations and other
nations supporting this peace process. It is a great honor for me to
be here today with a large delegation from the United States,
including a significant number of members of our Congress, and my
Special Envoy to Africa, Reverend Jesse Jackson and Howard Wolpe and
others who have worked on this for a long time.
This is a special day in America and for Reverend Jackson. I think I
should just mention it in passing. This is the 37th anniversary of the
most important civil rights meeting we ever had: The great March on
Washington, where Jesse Jackson was present and Martin Luther King
gave his "I Have A Dream" speech. I say that not because I think the
situations are analogous, but because everybody needs a dream. And I
think whether you all decide to sign this or not depends in part on
what your dream is.
I thank my friend, President Mandela, for coming in to replace the
marvelous late President Nyerere to involve himself in this process.
After 27 years in prison and four years as president of his country,
which some people think is another form of prison -- he could be
forgiven if he had pursued other things. But he came here because he
believes in peace and reconciliation. He knows there is no guarantee
of success; but if you don't try, there is a guarantee of failure. And
failure is not an acceptable option.
So I thank him, I thank the OAU and, Mr. President, you are here
today. I thank the regional leaders; in addition to Presidents
Museveni and Mkapa, President Moi, President Kagame, Prime Minister
Meles for their work. I thank the Nyerere Foundation, Judge Bomani,
Judge Warioba and I thank the people of Tanzania for hosting us here
in a city that has become the Geneva of Africa, thanks to many of you.
I say again, I am honored to be in a place that is a tribute to the
memory of President Nyerere, and I'm glad that Madame Nyerere is here
today; I met her a few moments ago, and I thank her for her presence.
I thank President Buyoya and all the Burundians from all the parties
who have come to Arusha and for the efforts you have made. Peacemaking
requires courage and vision -- courage because there are risks
involved, and vision because you have to see beyond the risks to
understand that however large they are, they are smaller than the
price of unending violence. That you have come so far suggests you
have the courage and vision to finish the job, and we pray that you
will.
I confess that I come here with some humility. I have spent a great
deal of time in the last eight years trying to talk people into laying
down their arms and opening their hands to one another -- from the
Middle East to Northern Ireland to the Balkans. I have had some
measure of success and known some enormously painful failures. But I
have not been here with you all this long time and maybe I have
nothing to add to your deliberations. But I would like to share some
things that I have learned in eight years of seeing people die, seeing
people fight with one another because they're of different ethnic or
racial or tribal or religious groups, and of seeing the miracles that
come from normal peace.
First, to state the obvious, there will be no agreement unless there
is a compromise. People hate compromise because it requires all those
who participate in it to be less than satisfied. So it is by
definition not completely satisfying. And those who don't go along can
always point their finger at you and claim that you sold out: Oh, it
goes too fast in establishing democracy. Oh, it goes too slow in
establishing democracy. It has absolutely too many protections for
minority rights. No, it doesn't have enough protections for minority
rights.
And there's always a crowd that never wants a compromise. A small
group that actually would, by their own definition, at least, benefit
from continued turmoil and fighting. So if you put the compromise on
the table, they will use it like salt being rubbed into old wounds.
And they're always very good. They know just where the break points
are to strike fear into the hearts of people who have to make the hard
decisions. I have seen this all over the world.
But I know that honorable compromise is important, and requires people
only to acknowledge that no one has the whole truth, that they have
made a decision to live together, and that the basic aspirations of
all sides can be fulfilled by simply saying no one will be asked to
accept complete defeat.
Now, no one ever compromises until they decide it's better than the
alternative. So I ask you to think about the alternative. You're not
being asked today to sign a comprehensive agreement, you're being
asked to sign onto a process which permits you to specify the areas in
which you still have disagreements, but which will be a process that
we all hope is completely irreversible.
Now, if you don't do it, what is the price? If you don't do it, what
is the chance that the progress you have made will unravel? If you
come back in five or 10 years, will the issues have changed? I think
not. The gulf between you won't narrow, but the gulf between Burundi
and the rest of the world, I assure you, will grow wider if you let
this moment slip away. More lives will be lost. And I have a few basic
questions. I admit, I am an outsider. I admit I have not been here
with you. But I have studied this situation fairly closely. I don't
understand how continued violence will build schools for your
children, bring water to your villages, make your crops grow, or bring
you into the new economy. I think it is impossible that that will
happen.
Now, I do think it is absolutely certain that if you let this moment
slip away, it will dig the well of bitterness deeper and pile the
mountain of grievances higher, so that someday, when somebody else has
to come here and sit at a table like this, they will have an even
harder job than you do. So I urge you to work with President Mandela,
I urge you to work with each other to seize the opportunity that
exists right now.
And I urge those groups, including the rebels who are not now part of
this process to join it and begin taking your own risks for peace. No
one can have a free ride here. Now that there is a process for
resolving differences peacefully, they should lay down their arms.
Now, if you take this step today, it is a first step. It can't restore
the bonds of trust by itself, it can't restore the sense of
understanding that is necessary for people to live together. So I will
also acknowledge that success depends not only on what you say or sign
in Arusha, also what you do in the weeks and months and years ahead in
Burundi. The agreements you reach have to be respected and implemented
both in letter and spirit. Again, I say, if you decide to do this,
everyone must acknowledge there must be no victors and no vanquished.
If one side feels defeated, it will be likely to fight again and no
Burundian will be secure. And, after all, security for all is one of
the main arguments for doing this.
Now, let me say something else. Of course, you must confront the past
with honesty. There is hardly a Burundian family that has not felt the
sorrow of losing a loved one to violence. The history must be told,
the causes must be understood. Those responsible for violence against
innocent people must be held accountable. But what is the goal here?
The goal must be to end the cycle of violence, not perpetuate it.
So I plead with you. I've seen this a lot of places, and it's always
the same. You have to help your children remember their history, but
you must not force them to relive their history. They deserve to live
in their tomorrows, not in your yesterdays. Let me just make one other
point. When all is said and done, only you can bring an end to the
bloodshed and sorrow your country has suffered. Nelson Mandela will be
a force for peace. The United States will try to be a force for peace.
But no one can force peace.; you must choose it.
Now, again, I say, I watched the parties in Ireland fight for 30
years. I've watched the parties in the Middle East fight for 50 years.
I've watched the parties in the Balkans now go at it and then quit and
then go at it again, and then I've watched -- saw a million people
driven out of Kosovo. And when we began to talk about peace in Bosnia,
the three different ethnic and religious groups didn't even want to
sit down together in the same room.
But when it's all said and done, it always comes down to the same
thing. You have to find a way to support democracy and respect for the
majority, and their desires. You have to have minority rights,
including security. You have to have shared decision-making, and there
must be shared benefits from your living together.
Now, you can walk away from all this and fight some more and worry
about it and let somebody come back here 10 years from now. No matter
how long you take, when it comes down to it, they'll still be dealing
with the same issues. And I say, if you let anybody else die because
you can't bring this together now, all you will do is make it harder
for people to make the same decision you're going to have to make here
anyway.
So I will say again: If you decide, if you choose, not because anybody
is forcing you but because you know it is right to give your children
their tomorrows, if you choose peace, the United States and the world
community will be there to help you make it pay off. We will strongly
support an appropriate role for the U.N. in helping to implement it.
We will support your efforts to demobilize combatants and to integrate
them into a national army. We will help you bring refugees home and to
meet the needs of displaced children and orphans.
We will help you to create the economic and social conditions
essential to a sustainable peace -- from agricultural development to
child immunization, to the prevention of AIDS. I know this is hard,
but I believe you can do it. Consider the case of Mozambique. A civil
war there took a million lives, most of them innocent civilians. Of
every five infants born in Mozambique during the civil war, three --
three -- died before their fifth birthday, either murdered or stricken
by disease.
Those who survived grew up knowing nothing but war. Yet today,
Mozambique is at peace, it has found a way to include everyone in its
political life, and out of the devastation, last year it had one of
the five fastest-growing economies in the entire world. Now, you can
do that. But you have to choose. And you have to decide if you're
going to embrace that, you have to create a lot of room in your mind
and heart and spirit for that kind of future. So you have to let some
things go.
Now, Mr. Mandela -- he's the world's greatest example of letting
things go. But when we got to be friends, I said to him one day, in a
friendly way, I said, you know, Mandela, you're a great friend, but
you're also a great politician. It was quite smart to invite your
jailers to your inauguration. Good politics. But tell me the truth
now. When they let you out of jail the last time and you were walking
to freedom, didn't you have a moment when you were really, really
angry at them again? You know what he said, he said, yes, I did -- a
moment. Then, I realized I had been in prison for 27 years, and if I
hated them after I got out, I would still be their prisoner, and I
wanted to be free.
Sooner or later, hatred, vengeance, the illusion that power over
another group of people will bring security in life, these feelings
can be just as iron, just as confining as the doors of a prison cell.
I don't ask you to forget what you went through in the bitter years.
But I hope you will go home to Burundi not as prisoners of the past,
but builders of the future. I will say again: If you decide, America
and the world will be with you. But you, and only you, must decide
whether to give your children their own tomorrows. Thank you very
much.
(end text)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
