"You know the toll: tens of thousands of young lives lost in the war between
Ethiopia and Eritrea; thousands killed and disfigured at unbelievably young
ages in the civil war that nearly destroyed Sierra Leone; 2 million killed
by famine and war in Sudan, where government sees diversity as a threat
rather than a strength, and denies basic relief to citizens it claims to
represent."
Transcript of Clinton Remarks at Opening of Africa Summit
Story Filed: Thursday, February 17, 2000 2:45 PM EST
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript of remarks
by President Clinton at the opening of a national summit on Africa (part 2
of 2):
Still, I felt we should do more. So in September, I announced that we would
completely write off all the debts owed to us by the countries that
qualified for the G-7 program -- as many as 27 African nations in all. The
first countries, including Uganda and Mauritania, have begun to receive the
benefits. Mozambique, Benin, Senegal and Tanzania are expected to receive
benefits soon. Mozambique's debt is expected to go down by more than $3
billion. The money saved will be twice the health budget -- twice the health
budget -- in a country where children are more likely to die before the age
of five than they are to go on to secondary school.
Last year, I asked Congress for $970 million for debt relief. Many of you
helped to persuade our Congress to appropriate a big share of that. Keep in
mind, this is a program religious leaders say is a moral imperative, and
leading economists say is a practical imperative. It's not so often that you
get the religious leaders and the economists telling us that good business
is good morals. (Applause.) It's probably always true, but they don't say it
all that often. (Laughter.) We must finish the job this year; we must
continue this work to provide aggressive debt relief to the countries that
are doing the right thing, that will take the money and reinvest it in their
people and their future. I ask you, especially the Americans in this
audience, if you believe in what brought you here, help us to continue this
important effort. (Applause.)
A third step we must take is to give better and deeper support to African
education. Literacy is crucial -- to economic growth, to health, to
democracy, to securing the benefits of globalization. Sub-Saharan Africa has
the developing world's lowest school enrollment rate. In Zambia, over half
the schoolchildren lack a simple notebook. In rural parts of Tanzania, there
is one textbook for every 20 children. That's why I proposed in our budget
to increase by more than 50 percent the assistance we provide to developing
countries to improve basic education, targeting areas where child labor is
prevalent. I ask other nations to join us in this. (Applause.)
I'll never forget the schools I visited on my trip to Africa -- the bright
lights in the eyes of the children, how intelligent they were, how eager
they were. It is wrong for them to have to look at maps of nations that no
longer exist, without maps of nations in their own continent that do exist.
It is wrong for them to be deprived the same opportunities to learn that our
young people have here. If intelligence is equally distributed throughout
the human race -- and I believe it is -- then every child in the human race
ought to have a chance to develop his or her intelligence in every country
in the world. (Applause.)
A fourth step we must take is to fight the terrible diseases that have
afflicted so many millions of Africans, especially AIDS and also TB and
malaria. Last year, ten times as many people died of AIDS in Africa as were
killed in all the continent's wars combined. It will soon double child
mortality and reduce life expectancy by 20 years.
You all laughed when Andy Young said that I was going to get out of the
presidency as a young man. Depending on the day, I sometimes feel young or I
feel that I'm the oldest man my age in America. (Laughter.) The life
expectancy in this country has gone from 47 to 77 in the 20th century. An
American who lives to be 65 has a life expectancy in excess of 82 years.
AIDS is going to reduce the life expectancy in Africa by 20 years. And even
that understates the problem, because the people that escape it will live
longer lives as African economies grow and strengthen.
The worst burden in life any adult can bear is to see a child die before
you. The worst problem in Africa now is that so many of these children with
AIDS have also already lost their parents. We must do something about this.
In Africa there are companies that are hiring two employees for every job on
the assumption that one of them will die. This is a humanitarian issue, a
political issue and an economic issue.
Last month, Vice President Gore opened the first-ever United Nations
Security Council session on health issues, on a health issue, by addressing
the AIDS crisis in Africa. I've asked Congress for another $100 million to
fight the epidemic, bringing our total to $325 million. I've asked my
administration to develop a plan for new initiatives to address prevention,
the financial dimensions of fighting AIDS, the needs of those affected, so
that we can make it clear to our African partners that we consider AIDS not
just their burden but ours, as well.
But even that will not be enough. Recently, Uganda's Health Minister pointed
out that to provide access to currently available treatments to every
Ugandan afflicted with AIDS would cost $24 billion. The annual budget of
Uganda is $2 billion.
The solution to this crisis, and to other killer diseases like malaria and
TB, has to include effective and expensive vaccines. Now, there are four
major companies in the world that develop vaccines, two in the United States
and two in Europe. They have little incentive to make costly investments in
developing vaccines for people who cannot afford to pay for them. So in my
State of the Union address, I proposed a generous tax credit that would
enable us to say to private industry, if you develop vaccines for AIDS,
malaria and TB, we will help to pay for them. So go on and develop them, and
we'll save millions of lives. (Applause.)
But I have to tell you, my speech -- and I don't want anybody else but me to
be responsible; my speechwriters were so sensitive, they didn't put this in
the speech. But I want to say this: AIDS was a bigger problem in the United
States a few years ago than it is today. AIDS rates are not going up in
African countries, all African countries. They're actually going down in a
couple of African countries.
Now, I know that this is a difficult and sensitive issue. I know there are
cultural and religious factors that make it very difficult to tackle this
issue from a preventive point of view. We don't have an AIDS vaccine yet. We
have drugs that will help to prevent the transmission from pregnant mothers
to their children, which I want to be able to give out. We have other drugs
that have given people with AIDS in our country normal lives, in terms of
their health and the length of their lives. I want those to be available.
But the real answer is to stop people from getting the HIV virus in the
first place. (Applause.)
I got to see firsthand some of the things that were being done in Uganda
that were instrumental in driving down the AIDS rate. Now, I don't care how
hard or delicate or difficult this is; this is your children's lives we're
talking about. (Applause.) You know, we who are adults, when our children's
lives are at stake, have to get over whatever our hang-ups or problems are
and go out there and do what is necessary to save the lives of our children.
(Applause.)
And I'll help you do that, too. That's not free; that costs money. Systems
have to be set up. But we shouldn't pretend that we can give injections and
work our way out of this. We have to change behavior, attitudes. And it has
to be done in an organized, disciplined, systematic way. And you can do more
in less time for less money in a preventive way, to give the children of
Africa their lives back, and the nations of Africa their futures back, with
an aggressive prevention campaign than anything else. And there is no excuse
for not doing it; it has to be done. (Applause.)
Finally, let me say there is one more huge obstacle to progress in Africa,
that we are committed to doing our part to overcome. We must build on the
leadership of Africans to end the bloody conflicts killing people and
killing progress. (Applause.)
You know the toll: tens of thousands of young lives lost in the war between
Ethiopia and Eritrea; thousands killed and disfigured at unbelievably young
ages in the civil war that nearly destroyed Sierra Leone; 2 million killed
by famine and war in Sudan, where government sees diversity as a threat
rather than a strength, and denies basic relief to citizens it claims to
represent.
Most of the world's conflicts pale in complexity before the situation in the
Congo. At least seven nations and countless armed groups are pitted there
against each other in a desperate struggle that seems to bring no one
victory, and everyone misery -- especially the innocent people of the Congo.
They deserve a better chance. Secretary Albright has called the Congo
struggle Africa's first world war. As we search for an end to the conflict,
let us remember the central lesson of the First World War: the need for a
good peace. If you mess up the peace, you get another world war.
A year ago, I said if the nations of the region reached an agreement that
the international community could support, I would support a peacekeeping
operation in the Congo. The region has now done so. The Lusaka cease-fire
agreement takes into account the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
Congo; the withdrawal of foreign forces; the security of Congo's neighbors;
the need for dialogue within the nation; and most important, the need for
the countries within Central Africa to cooperate in managing the region's
security. It is more than a cease-fire; it is a blueprint for building
peace. Best of all, it is a genuinely African solution to an African
problem.
There is still fighting in Congo. Peace will not happen overnight. It will
require steady commitment from the parties and the unwavering support of the
international community. I have told our Congress that America intends to do
its part by supporting the next phase of the U.N.'s peacekeeping operation
in the Congo, which will send observers to oversee the implementation of the
agreement.
We need to think hard about what is at stake here. African countries have
taken the lead -- not just the countries directly affected, either. They are
not asking us to solve their problems or to deploy our military. All they
have asked is that we support their own efforts to build peace, and to make
it last. We in the United States should be willing to do this. It is
principled and practical.
I know -- I see the members of Congress here. I say again -- I see
Congressman Payne, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Congresswoman Barbara
Lee, Congressman Royce -- we need to stand by the people of Africa who have
decided how to solve this most complex and troubling problem. (Applause.) We
have learned the hard way in the United States, over decades and decades,
that the costliest peace is far cheaper than the cheapest war. And we need
to remember that as we approach our common responsibilities in central
Africa.
Finally, let me say that I intend to continue to work hard on these things
for every day that I am President. For me, the remarkable decade of the
1990s began with the liberation symbolized by Nelson Mandela's first steps
from Robben Island. (Applause.) In a few days, I will have the opportunity
to join by satellite the conference in Tanzania that President Mandela is
organizing to build peace in Burundi.
A lot of people look at Africa and think, oh, these problems are just too
complicated. I look at Africa and I see the promise of Africa, and think, if
the problems are complicated now, think how much worse they'll be if we
continue to ignore them. (Applause.)
Other people grow frustrated by bad news, and wish only to hear good news.
But empty optimism does Africa no more service than groundless cynicism.
What we need is not empty optimism or groundless cynicism, but realistic
hope. We need to see the promise, the beauty, the dreams of Africa. We need
to see the problems clear and plain, and stop ignoring the evident
responses. We in the United States need to understand that our obligations
to be good partners with Africa are not because we are certain that
everything will turn out all right, but because it is important. Because
we're human beings, we can never expect everything to turn out all right.
Africa is so incredibly diverse. Its people speak nearly 3,000 languages. It
is not a single, monolithic place with single, monolithic truths. A place of
many places, each defined by its own history and aspirations, its own
successes and failures. I was struck on my trip to Africa by the differences
between Ghana and Uganda, Botswana and Senegal -- between Capetown and
Soweto. I was also struck by what bound people together in these places.
In George Washington's first draft of his Farewell Address, he wrote, "we
may all be considered as the children of one common country." The more I
think about globalization and the interdependence it promises and demands,
the more I share that sentiment. Now, we must think of ourselves as children
of one common world. If we wish to deepen peace and prosperity and democracy
for ourselves, we must wish it also for the people of Africa. Africa is the
cradle of humanity, but also a big part of humanity's future.
I leave you with this thought: when I think of the troubles of Africa,
rooted in tribal differences; when I think of the continuing troubles in
America, across racial lines, rooted in the shameful way we brought slaves
here from West Africa so long ago, and our continuing challenges as we
integrate wave after wave after wave of new immigrants from new places
around the world; I am struck by the fact that life's greatest joy is our
common humanity, and life's greatest curse is our inability to see our
common humanity.
In Africa, life is full of joy and difficulty. But for too long, the African
people have lacked for friends and allies to help the joys overcome the
difficulties. The United States will be a friend for life.
Thank you. (Applause.)
END 11:28 A.M. EST
Copyright (c) 2000, U.S. Newswire, all rights reserved.