Thank you, Mr. President. First, let me thank you, Mr. President, and
Vice President Kagame, 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. 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, he 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. 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. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful
name: genocide. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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. 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.
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.
You spoke
passionately this morning in our private meeting about the need for
grassroots effort in this direction. We will deepen our support for
those grassroots 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 wll 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.
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.
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.
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. 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 s 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. That is what I wish for you.
Thank you and God bless you.
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