29 August 2000
Obtaining Peace in Burundi Requires Courage, Clinton Says
President addresses delegates to Arusha peace talks
By Charles W. Corey
Washington File Correspondent
Arusha, Tanzania -- Achieving peace in Burundi will require courage
and vision on the part of all parties involved, President Clinton told
delegates to Burundi peace talks in Arusha, Tanzania, on August 28,
concluding his visit to sub-Saharan Africa.
Peacemaking requires courage, the president said at Simba Hall Arusha
International Conference Center, "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 this far, suggests that you have the courage and
vision
to finish the job and we pray that you will," he said of the peace
process being coordinated in Arusha by former South African President
Nelson Mandela.
Clinton spoke prior to a ceremony in which 14 of the 19 parties to the
peace process signed a framework agreement for peace.
In his remarks Clinton said "there will be no agreement unless there
is a compromise," even though people, "hate compromise, because it
requires all those who participate in it to be less than satisfied."
Still, Clinton insisted, "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 that no one
will be asked to accept complete defeat."
The alternative here, he said, is 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 hope is completely
irreversible."
Over the next five or ten years, he said, the issues will not change,
but the gulf between Burundi and the rest of the world will grow wider
"if you let this moment slip away."
Clinton urged everyone, including those rebel groups which do not
belong to
the process, to "begin taking your own risk for peace. No one can have
a free
ride here. Now that there is the prospect for resolving differences
peacefully, they should lay down their arms."
Signing the agreement, he said, would be a "first step" in the
process. However, he cautioned that success depends not only on what
"you say or sign in Arusha," but also upon "what you do in the weeks
and months and years ahead in Burundi."
Any agreements reached, he said, must be implemented both in letter
and
spirit and everyone must admit there are to be no victors. "If one
sides feels defeated it will be likely to fight again and no Burundian
will be secure and security for all is one of the main arguments for
doing this."
Clinton said the past must be confronted and those responsible for
perpetrating violence against innocent people must be held
accountable, but
just as important, the goal must be to "end the cycle of violence, not
to
perpetuate it."
"Children must be taught to remember their history but not to relive
it," he
said. "They deserve to live in their tomorrows and not in your
yesterdays."
Whether it be in the Middle East, Balkans or Northern Ireland, he
said, what
it comes down to for peace is finding "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 shard benefits from you living together."
The United States, he pledged, will "strongly support an appropriate
role
for the U.N. in helping to implement it... support your efforts to
demobilize combatants and to integrate them into a national army, to
bring refugees home and to meet the needs of displaced children and
orphans."
The United States, he said, will help promote sustainable development,
from agricultural development to child immunization to the prevention
of AIDS.
Clinton pointed to Mozambique as a once war-ravaged country that has
achieved a respectable level of development -- after a civil war that
took one million lives. Today that nation "has found a way to include
everyone" in its political process and to develop one of the world's
fastest growing economies.
"You can do that," he told the Burundians, "but you have to change and
have to...create a lot of room in your heart and spirit and let some
things go."
Clinton stopped briefly for talks in Cairo with Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, before returning to Washington. He began his
sub-Saharan Africa trip in Abuja, Nigeria on August 26.
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