YouSaid · the spoken record

William Clinton

lines on the record: 64
first: 1993-09-24
most recent: 1994-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And we have shown that we can carry forward humanity’s ancient quest for freedom to build a world where democracy knows no borders but where nations know their borders will always be secure, a world that gives all people the chance to realize their potential and to live out their dreams.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“A new resolve by the United Nations to enforce its resolutions is now necessary to save Sarajevo, and NATO stands ready to act. The situation in Bosnia is yet another reminder of the greatest irony of this century we are leaving. This century, so full of hope and opportunity and achievement, has also been an age of deep destruction and despair. We cannot help but remember the millions who gave their lives during two world wars and the half century of 9 struggle by men and women in the East and West who ultimately prevailed in the name of freedom. But we must also think of our children and the world we will leave them in the twenty-first century. History has given us a very rare opportunity - the chance to build on the greatest legacy of this century without reliving its darkest moments.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“United Nations actions in Bosnia, like those in Haiti, demonstrate that progress can be made when a coalition backs up diplomacy with military power. For the first time ever, NATO has taken, since we met last year, military actions beyond the territory of its members. The threat of NATO air power helped to establish the exclusion zone around Sarajevo and to end the Bosnian Serbs’ spring offensive against Gorazde. NATO’s February ultimatum boosted our mediation efforts, which helped to end the war between the Bosnian Government and the Bosnian Croats and forged a federation between those two communities. To that extent the situation in Bosnia has improved, but in recent weeks the situation around Sarajevo has deteriorated substantially, and Sarajevo once again faces the prospect of strangulation.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This will include regularly scheduled air flights when the airport becomes available, financial transactions and travel restrictions. I urge all other nations to do the same. In Haiti, the United States has demonstrated that it would lead a multinational force when our interests are plain, when the cause is right, when the mission is achievable and the nations of the world stand with us. But Haiti’s people will have to muster the strength and the patience to travel the road of freedom. They have to do this for themselves. Every new democratic nation is fragile. But we will see the day when the people of Haiti fulfil their aspirations to liberty and when they are once again making genuine economic progress.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“During this time a multinational development effort will make available more than $1 billion to begin helping the Haitians rebuild their country. In the spirit of reconciliation and reconstruction, President Aristide yesterday called for the immediate easing of sanctions so that the work of rebuilding can begin immediately. Accordingly, I intend to act expeditiously, within Security Council resolutions 917 (1994) and 940 (1994) to enable us to restore health care, water and electrical services, construction materials for humanitarian efforts, and communications, agricultural and educational materials. Today I am also announcing that the United States will suspend all unilateral sanctions against Haiti except those that affect the military leaders and their immediate supporters.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Under the sponsorship of the United Nations, American troops, now being joined by the personnel of an ever-growing international coalition of over two dozen nations, are giving the people of Haiti their chance at freedom. Creative diplomacy, the influence of economic power and the credible threat of military force - all have contributed to this moment of opportunity. Essential civil order will be restored. Human rights violations will be curbed. The first refugees will be returning within hours, on this day. The military leaders will step down. The democratic Government will be restored. President Aristide will return. The multinational mission will turn its responsibilities over to the United Nations mission, which will remain in Haiti throughout 1995, until a new president is elected.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Let me suggest that it is time for the members of the Assembly to consider seriously President Menem’s suggestion for the creation of a civilian rapid-response capability for humanitarian crises. And let us not lose sight of the special role that development and democracy can play in preventing conflicts once peace has been established. Never before has the United Nations been in a better position to achieve the democratic goals of our founders. The end of the cold war has freed us from decades of paralysing divisions. And we all know that multilateral cooperation is not only necessary to address the new threats we face but possible to succeed. The efforts we have undertaken together in Haiti are a prime example.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We call on the Secretary-General to name a working group so that by the time we meet next year we will have a concrete action plan to revitalize the obligations of the United Nations to address the security, economic and political challenges ahead - obligations we must all be willing to assume. Our objectives should include ready, efficient and capable United Nations peace-keeping forces, and I am happy to report that, as I pledged last year and thanks to support in the United States Congress, $1.2 billion is now available from the United States for this critical account. We must also pledge to keep United Nations reform moving forward so that we do more with less, and we must improve our ability to respond to urgent needs.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“And this week I will send legislation to the Congress to implement the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the largest trade agreement in all of history. GATT - and its successor, the World Trade Organization - holds the promise for all of us of increased exports, higher wages and improved living standards. In the months and years to come we will work no less to extend the reach of open markets, starting with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and the Summit of the Americas later this year. Here at the United Nations we must develop a concrete plan to meet the challenges of the next 50 years even as we celebrate the last 50 years. I believe we 8 should declare next year’s fiftieth anniversary not just a year of celebration but a year of renewal.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“It is time that we think anew about the structures of this global economy as well, tearing down walls that separate nations instead of hiding behind them. At the Group of Seven meeting at Naples this year we committed ourselves to this task of renewal, to re- examining the economic institutions that have served us so well in the past. In the interests of shared prosperity, the United States actively promotes open markets. Though still in its infancy, the North American Free Trade Agreement has dramatically increased trade between the United States and Mexico and has produced in the United States alone an estimated 200,000 new jobs. It offers a model to nations throughout the Americas which we hope to build on.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Our progress in the last year also provides confidence that in the post-cold-war years we can adapt and construct global institutions that will help to provide security and increase economic growth throughout the world. Since I spoke here last year, 22 nations have joined the Partnership for Peace of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The first joint exercises have been conducted, helping to give Europe the chance to become a more unified continent in which democratic nations live within secure borders. In Asia, security talks and economic cooperation will lead to further stability. By reducing nations’ fears about their borders and allowing them to spend less on military defences, our coalition for democracy can give nations in transition a better chance to offer new freedoms and opportunities to their own people.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The United States will also advance a wide-ranging non-proliferation agenda: a global convention to halt production of fissile materials; efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions; transparent procedures for dismantling nuclear warheads; and our work to ban testing and to extend the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. And today I am proposing a first step toward the eventual elimination of a less visible but still deadly threat: the world’s 85 million anti-personnel land- mines - one for every 50 persons on the face of the earth. I ask all nations concerned to join with us and conclude an agreement to reduce the number and availability of those mines. Ridding the world of those often hidden weapons will help to save the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and innocent children in the years to come.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The United States and Russia also recognize that we must cooperate to control the emerging danger of terrorists who traffic in nuclear materials. To secure nuclear materials at their sources, we have agreed with Russia to stop plutonium production by the year 2000; to construct a storage facility for fissile materials and buy up stocks of weapons-grade fuel; and to combat the criminals who are trying to smuggle materials for nuclear explosives. Our two nations and Germany have increased cooperation and engaged in joint anti-terrorist training. Soon, under the leadership of our Federal Bureau of Investigation, we will open a law enforcement training academy in Europe, where police will learn how to combat more effectively trafficking of nuclear weapons components, as well as the drug trade, organized crime and money laundering.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This is a partnership that is rooted in democracy, a partnership that is working, a partnership of, not complete agreement, but genuine mutual respect. After so many years of nuclear terror, our two nations are taking dramatic steps to ease tensions around the world. For the first time since the Second World War, foreign troops do not occupy the nations of Central and Eastern Europe. The Baltic nations are free. Russian and American missiles no longer target each other’s people. Three of the four nuclear members of the former Soviet Union have agreed to remove all nuclear weapons from their soil. And we are working on agreements to halt production of fissile materials for nuclear explosives; to make dismantling of nuclear warheads transparent and irreversible; and further to reduce our nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Who, a decade ago, would have dared predict the startling changes in South Africa, in the Middle East and in Ireland; the stunning triumph of democracy and majority rule and the redemption of the purpose of Nelson 7 Mandela’s life; the brave efforts of Israel and its Arab neighbours to build bridges of peace between their peoples; the earnest search by the people of Northern Ireland and Great Britain and Ireland to end centuries of division and decades of terror? In each case, credit belongs to those nations’ leaders and their courageous people. But in each instance the United States and other nations were privileged to help in these causes. The growth of cooperation between the United States and the Russian Federation also should give us all great cause for confidence.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“All of us will make these decisions in part based on the distance of the problem from our shores, the interests of our nation, the difference we think we can make, the costs required, or the threat to our own citizens in the endeavour. Hard questions will remain, and cannot be erased by some simple formula. But we should have the confidence that these efforts can succeed, whether they are efforts to keep people alive in the face of terrible tragedy, as in Rwanda, or our efforts to avert a tragedy, as in the Horn of Africa, or our efforts to support processes that are literally changing the future of millions. History is on our side. We should have confidence about this. Look at the march of freedom we have seen in the last year alone.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In my nation, as in all of your nations, there are many people who are understandably reluctant to undertake these efforts because often the distances are great or the cultures are different. There are good reasons for the caution that people feel. Often, the chances of success or its costs are unclear. And, of course, in every common endeavour there is always the potential for failure and often the risk of loss of life. And yet our people - as we have seen in the remarkable global response to the terrible crisis in Rwanda - genuinely want to help their neighbours around the world and to make some effort in our common cause. We have seen that progress can be made as well. The problem is deciding when we must respond and how we shall overcome our reluctance. This will never be easy. There are no simple formulas.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In every corner of the globe, from South Africa to Asia, to Central and Eastern Europe, to the Middle East and Latin America, and now to a small island in the Caribbean, ordinary citizens are striving to build their own future. Promoting their cause is our generation’s great opportunity, and we must do it together. A coalition for democracy is good for America. Democracies, after all, are more likely to be stable, less likely to wage war; they strengthen civil society and can provide people with the economic and political opportunities to build their futures in their own homes - not to flee their borders. Our efforts to help build more democracies will make us all more secure, more prosperous and more successful as we try to make this era of terrific change our friend, and not our enemy.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We will use diplomacy when we can, but force if we must. The United States recognizes that we also have a special responsibility in these common endeavours that we are undertaking, the responsibility that goes along with great power and also with our long history of democracy and freedom. But we seek to fulfil that responsibility in cooperation with other nations. Working together increases the impact and the legitimacy of each of our actions, and sharing the burdens lessens everyone’s load. We have no desire to be the world’s policeman, but we will do what we can to help civil societies emerge from the ashes of repression, to sustain fragile democracies, to add more free markets to the world, and of course to restrain the destructive forces that threaten us all.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“These are the dangers we face today. We must address these threats to our future. Thankfully, the end of the cold war gives us a chance to address them together. In our efforts, different nations may be active in different situations in different ways, but their purposes must be consistent with freedom and their practices consistent with international law. Each nation will bring to our common task its own particular strengths - economic, political or military. Of course, the first duty of every Member of the United Nations is to its own citizens, to their security, their welfare and their interests. As President of the United States, my first duty is to the citizens of my country. When our national security interests are threatened, we will act with others when we can, but alone if we must.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“6 The dangers we face are less stark and more diffuse than those of the cold war, but they are still formidable: the ethnic conflicts that drive millions from their homes; the despots ready to repress their own people or conquer their neighbours; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the terrorists wielding their deadly arms; the criminal syndicates selling those arms, or drugs, infiltrating the very institutions of fragile democracies; a global economy that offers great promise but also deep insecurity, and in many places declining opportunity; diseases like AIDS that threaten to decimate nations; the combined dangers of population explosion and economic decline, which prompted the world community to reach the remarkable consensus at the Cairo Conference; global and local environmental threats that demand that sustainable development become a part of the lives of people all around the world; and, finally, within many of our nations, high rates of drug abuse and crime and family breakdown, with all their terrible consequences.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“More have embraced the values of tolerance and liberty and civil society that allow us all to make the most of our lives. But while the ideals of democracy and free markets are ascendant, they are surely not the whole story. Terrible examples of chaos, repression and tyranny also mark our times. The twentieth century has proved that the forces of freedom and democracy can endure against great odds; our job is to see that in the twenty-first century these forces triumph.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Our generation has a difficult task: the cold war is over. We must secure the peace. It falls to us to avoid the complacency that followed the First World War - without the spur of the imminent threat to our security that followed the Second World War. We must ensure that those who fought and found the courage to end the cold war - those from both East and West who loved freedom - did not labour in vain. Our sacred mission is to build a new world for our children - more democratic, more prosperous, more free of ancient hatreds and modern means of destruction. That is no easy challenge; but we accept it with confidence. After all, the walls that once divided nations in this very Hall have come down. More nations have chosen democracy than ever before. More have chosen free markets and economic justice.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Our struggle today - in a world more high-tech, more fast-moving, more chaotically diverse than ever - is the age-old fight between hope and fear. Three times in this century - from the trenches of the Somme to the island of Iwo Jima to the shattered Wall in Berlin - the forces of hope were victorious. But the victors of the First World War squandered their triumph when they turned inward, bringing on a global depression, and allowing fascism to rise and reignite global war. After the Second World War, the Allies learned the lesson of the past. In the face of a new totalitarian threat and the nuclear menace, great nations did not walk away from the challenge of the moment. Instead they chose to reach out, to rebuild and to lead. They chose to create the United Nations and they left us a world stronger, safer and freer.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Let me first congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election as President of the General Assembly for its forty-ninth session. The American people look forward to working with you to celebrate the United Nations fiftieth anniversary. We meet today at a time of great hope and change. The end of the cold war, the explosion of technology and trade and enterprise have given people the world over new opportunities to live up to their dreams and their God-given potential. This is an age of hope -yet in this new world, we face a contest as old as history. It is a struggle between freedom and tyranny; between tolerance and bigotry; between knowledge and ignorance; between openness and isolation. It is a fight between those who would build free societies governed by laws and those who would impose their will by force.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“I believe - I know - that together we can extend this moment of miracles into an age of great works and new wonders.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Now history has granted to us a moment of even greater opportunity, when old dangers are ebbing and old walls are crumbling. Future generations will judge us, every one of us, above all by what we make of this magic moment. Let us resolve that we will dream larger, that we will work harder, so that they can conclude that we did not merely turn walls to rubble, but instead laid the foundations for great things to come. Let us ensure that the tide of freedom and democracy is not pushed back by the fierce winds of ethnic hatred. Let us ensure that the world’s most dangerous weapons are safely reduced and denied to dangerous hands. Let us ensure that the world we pass to our children is healthier, safer and more abundant than the one we inhabit today.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Our nation has at last renewed its commitment to work with the United Nations to expand the availability of the world’s family planning education and services. We must ensure that there is a place at the table for every one of the world’s children. We can do this. At the birth of this Organization, 48 years ago - another time of both victory and danger - a generation of gifted leaders from many nations stepped forward to organize the world’s efforts on behalf of security and prosperity. One American leader during that period said this: "It is time we steered by the stars rather than by the light of each passing ship." His generation picked peace, human dignity and freedom. Those are good stars. They should remain the highest in our firmament.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Just as our own nation has launched new reforms to ensure that every child has adequate health care, we must do more to get basic vaccines and other treatments for curable diseases to children all over the world. It’s the best investment we’ll ever make. We can find new ways to ensure that every child grows up with clean, drinkable water - that most precious commodity of life itself. And the United Nations can work even harder to ensure that each child has at least a full primary education - and I mean that opportunity for girls as well as boys. To ensure a healthier and more abundant world, we simply must slow the world’s explosive growth in population. We cannot afford to see the human race double by the middle of the next century.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“And let us make a new commitment to the world’s children. It is tragic enough that one and a half million children have died as a result of wars over the past decade. But it is far more unforgivable that during that same period 40 million children have died from diseases completely preventable with simple vaccines or medicines. Every day - this day, as we meet here - over 30,000 of the world’s children will die of malnutrition and disease. As the Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Jim Grant, has reminded me, "each of [those children] had a name and a nationality, a family, a personality and a potential". We are compelled to do better by the world’s children.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“During the course of our campaign in the United States last year, Vice President Gore and I promised the American people major changes in our nation’s policy towards the global environment. Those were promises to keep, and today the United States is doing so. Today we are working with other nations to build on the promising work of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. We are working to make sure that all nations meet their commitments under the global climate Convention. We are seeking to complete negotiations on an accord to prevent the world’s deserts from further expanding. And we seek to strengthen the World Health Organization’s efforts to combat the plague of AIDS, which is not only killing millions, but also exhausting the resources of the nations that can least afford it.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“As Secretary of State Christopher stressed at the recent Vienna Conference, human rights are not something conditional, bounded by culture but, rather, something universal, granted by God. This General Assembly should create, at long last, a high commissioner for human rights. I hope it will do this soon, and with vigour and energy and conviction. Let us also work far more ambitiously to fulfil our obligations as custodians of this planet, not only to improve the quality of life for our citizens and the quality of our air, water and the earth itself, but also because the roots of conflict are so often entangled with the roots of environmental neglect and the calamities of famine and disease.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“That means, in every country, the teachers, the workers, the farmers, the professionals, the fathers, the mothers, the children, from the most remote village in the world to the largest metropolis - they are why we gather in this great Hall; it is their futures that are at risk when we act or fail to act; and it is they who ultimately pay our bills. As we dream new dreams in this age when miracles seem possible, let us focus on the lives of those people, and especially on the children who will inherit this world. Let 12 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session us work with a new urgency, and imagine what kind of world we could create for them over the coming generation. Let us work with new energy to protect the world’s people from torture and repression.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“I applaud the initial steps the Secretary-General has taken to reduce and reform the United Nations bureaucracy. Now we must all do even more to root out waste. Before this General Assembly is over, let us establish a strong mandate for an office of inspector general, so that it can attain a reputation for toughness, for integrity, for effectiveness. Let us build new confidence among our people that the United Nations is changing with the needs of our times. Ultimately, the key for reforming the United Nations, as for reforming our own government, is to remember why we are here and whom we serve. It is well to recall that the first words of the United Nations Charter are not, "We the Governments", but "We the peoples of the United Nations".”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Changes in the United Nations peace-keeping operations must be part of an even broader programme of United Nations reform. I say that, again, not to criticize the United Nations but to help improve it. As our Ambassador, Madeleine Albright, has suggested, the United States has always played a twin role in regard to the United Nations: "First friend and first critic." Today, corporations around the world are finding ways to move from the industrial age into the information age - improving service, reducing bureaucracy and cutting costs. Here in the United States, Vice President Al Gore and I have launched an effort literally to reinvent how our Government operates. We see this going on in other Governments around the world. Now the time has come to reinvent the way the United Nations operates as well.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Within the next few weeks, the United States will be current on our peace-keeping bills. I have worked hard with the Congress to get this done. I believe the United States should lead the way in being timely in its payments, and I will work to ensure that we continue to pay our peace-keeping bills in full. But I am also committed to working with the United Nations to reduce our nation’s assessment for these missions. The assessment system has not been changed since 1973, and everyone in our country knows that our percentage of the world’s economic pie is not as great as it was then. Therefore, I believe our rate should be reduced to reflect the rise of other nations that can now bear more of the financial burden. That will make it easier for me as President to make sure my country pays in a timely and full fashion.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“From now on the United Nations should address these and other questions for every proposed mission before we vote and before the mission begins. The United Nations simply cannot become engaged in every one of the world’s conflicts. If the American people are to say "Yes" to United Nations peace-keeping, the United Nations must know when to say "No". The United Nations also must have the technical means to run a modern, world-class peace-keeping operation. We support the creation of a genuine United Nations peace- keeping headquarters with a planning staff; with access to timely intelligence; with a logistics unit that can be deployed on a moment’s notice; and with a modern operations centre with global communications. United Nations operations must not only be adequately funded but also fairly funded.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“As the Secretary-General and others have argued, if United Nations peace-keeping is to be a sound security investment for our nation and for other United Nations Members, it must adapt to new times. Together, we must prepare United Nations peace-keeping for the twenty-first century. We need to begin by bringing the rigours of military and political analysis to every United Nations peace mission. In recent weeks in the Security Council, our nation has begun asking harder questions about proposals for new peace-keeping missions. Is there a real threat to international peace? Does the proposed mission have clear objectives? Can an end point be identified for those who will be asked to participate? How much will the mission cost?”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Peace-keeping cannot be a substitute for our own national defence efforts, but it can strongly supplement them. Today there is wide recognition that the United Nations peace-keeping ability has not kept pace with its rising responsibilities and challenges. Just six years ago, about 10,000 United Nations peace-keepers were stationed around the world. Today the United Nations has some 80,000 deployed in 17 operations on four continents. Yet until recently, if a peace-keeping commander called in from across the globe when it was night-time here in New York, there was no one in the peace-keeping office even to answer the call. When lives are on the line, we cannot let the reach of the United Nations exceed its grasp.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Many still criticize United Nations peace-keeping, but those who do should talk to the people of Cambodia, where the United Nations operations helped turn the killing fields into fertile soil for reconciliation. Last May’s elections in Cambodia marked a proud accomplishment for that war-- weary nation and for the United Nations. And I am pleased to announce that the United States has recognized Cambodia’s new Government. United Nations peace-keeping holds the promise to resolve many of this era’s conflicts. But the reason we have supported such missions is not, as some critics in the United States have charged, to subcontract American foreign policy, but to strengthen our security, to protect our interests, and to Forty-eighth session - 27 September l993 11 share among nations the costs and effort of pursuing peace.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“And if the parties to that conflict take the hard steps needed to make a real peace, the international community - including the United States - must be ready to help in its effective implementation. In Somalia, the United States and the United Nations have worked together to achieve a stunning humanitarian rescue, saving literally hundreds of thousands of lives and restoring conditions of security to almost the entire country. United Nations peace-keepers from over two dozen nations remain in Somalia today - and some, including brave Americans, have lost their lives - to ensure that we complete our mission and that anarchy and starvation do not return just as quickly as they were abolished.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Indeed, it simply removed the lid from many cauldrons of ethnic, religious and territorial animosity. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin has said that a wounded nationalism is like a bent twig, forced down so severely that when released, it lashes back with fury. The world today is thick with both bent and recoiling twigs of wounded communal identities. This surge of bitter conflicts has placed high demands on the United Nations peace-keeping forces. Frequently, the Blue Helmets have worked wonders. In Namibia, El Salvador, the Golan Heights and elsewhere, United Nations peace-keepers have helped to stop the fighting, restore civil authority and enable free elections. In Bosnia, United Nations peace-keepers, against the danger and frustration of that continuing tragedy, have maintained a valiant humanitarian effort.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We will also reform our own system of export controls in the United States to reflect the realities of the post-cold- war world, where we seek to enlist the support of our former adversaries in the battle against proliferation. At the same time as we stop deadly technologies from falling into the wrong hands, we will work with our partners to remove outdated controls that unfairly burden legitimate commerce and unduly restrain growth and opportunity all over the world. As we work to keep the world’s most destructive weapons out of conflicts, we must also strengthen the international community’s ability to address those conflicts themselves. For as we all now know so painfully, the end of the cold war did not bring us to the millennium of peace.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Today, only a handful of nations has ratified the chemical weapons Convention. I call on all nations - including my own - to ratify this accord quickly so that it may enter into force by 13 January 1995. We will also seek to strengthen the biological weapons Convention by making every nation’s biological activities and facilities open to more international scrutiny. I am proposing as well new steps to thwart the proliferation of ballistic missiles. Recently, working with Russia, Argentina, Hungary and South Africa, we have made significant progress toward that goal. Now we will seek to strengthen the principles of the Missile Technology Control Regime by transforming it from an agreement on technology transfer among just 23 nations into a set of rules that can command universal adherence.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We will pursue new steps to control the materials for nuclear weapons. Growing global stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium are raising the danger of nuclear terrorism for all nations. We will press for an international agreement that would ban production of these materials for weapons for ever. As we reduce our nuclear stockpiles, the United States has also begun negotiations towards a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. This summer I declared that to facilitate those negotiations, our nation would suspend our testing if all other nuclear States would do the same. Today, in the face of disturbing signs, I renew my call on the nuclear States to abide by that moratorium as we negotiate to stop nuclear testing for all time. I am also proposing new efforts to fight the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“They could turn a local conflict into a global human and environmental catastrophe. We simply have got to find ways to control these weapons and to reduce the number of States that possess them by supporting and strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency and by taking other necessary measures. 10 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session I have made non-proliferation one of our nation’s highest priorities. We intend to weave it more deeply into the fabric of all of our relationships with the world’s nations and institutions. We seek to build a world of increasing pressure for non-proliferation but increasingly open trade and technology for those States that live by accepted international rules. Today, let me describe several new policies that our Government will pursue to stem proliferation.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“One of our most urgent priorities must be attacking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - whether nuclear, chemical or biological - and the ballistic missiles that can rain them down on populations hundreds of miles away. We know this is not an idle problem. All of us are still haunted by the pictures of Kurdish women and children cut down by poison gas. We saw SCUD missiles drop during the Gulf War that would have been far graver in their consequences if they had carried nuclear weapons. And we know that many nations still believe it is in their interests to develop weapons of mass destruction or to sell them or the necessary technologies to others for financial gain. More than a score of nations likely possess such weapons and their number threatens to grow. These weapons destabilize entire regions.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“But as we work towards this vision, we must confront the storm clouds that may overwhelm our work and darken the march towards freedom. If we do not stem the proliferation of the world’s deadliest weapons, no democracy can feel secure. If we do not strengthen the capacity to resolve conflicts among and within nations, those conflicts will smother the birth of free institutions, threaten the development of entire regions and continue to take innocent lives. If we do not nurture our people and our planet through sustainable development, we will deepen conflict and waste the very wonders that make our efforts worth doing. Let me talk more about what I believe we must do in each of these three categories: non-proliferation, conflict resolution and sustainable development.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The United States believes that an expanding community of market democracies not only serves our own security interests, it also advances the goals enshrined in this body’s Charter and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For broadly based prosperity is clearly the strongest form of preventive diplomacy, and the habits of democracy are the habits of peace. Democracy is rooted in compromise, not conquest. It rewards tolerance, not hatred. Democracies rarely wage war on one another. They make more reliable partners in trade, in diplomacy, and in the stewardship of our global environment. And democracies, with the rule of law and respect for political, religious and cultural minorities, are more responsive to their own people and to the protection of human rights.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“As a country that has over 150 racial, ethnic and religious groups within our borders, our policy is and must be rooted in a profound respect for all the world’s religions and cultures. But we must oppose everywhere extremism that produces terrorism and hate. And we must pursue our humanitarian goals of reducing suffering, fostering sustainable development and improving health and living conditions, particularly for our world’s children. On efforts from export controls to trade agreements to peace-keeping, we will often work in partnership with others and through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. It is in our national interest to do so. But we must not hesitate to act unilaterally when there is a threat to our core interests or to those of our allies.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)