[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 106 (Tuesday, June 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9186-S9188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                THE U.N. CHARTER--50 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

 Mr. DODD. Mr. President, yesterday, June 26, 1995, marked the 
50-year anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Charter. To commemorate 
the event, President Clinton traveled to San Francisco to participate 
in ceremonies at the very site where representatives of some 50 nations 
first gathered to hammer out that historic document.
  Mr. President, I believed that President Clinton spoke for all of us 
yesterday when he said:

       Today we honor the men and women who gave shape to the 
     United Nations. We celebrate 50 years of achievement. We 
     commit ourselves to real reforms. We reject the siren song of 
     the new isolationists. We set a clear agenda worthy of the 
     visions of our founders. The measure of our generation will 
     be whether we give up because we cannot achieve a perfect 
     world or strive on to build a better world.

  In recalling that historic day, President Clinton reminded listeners 
as well that, ``The 50 nations who came here * * * to lift the world 
from the ashes of war * * * included giants of diplomacy and untested 
leaders of infant nations. They were separated by tradition, race and 
language, sharing only a vision of a better safer future.'' It was that 
shared vision, in the final analysis, that made it possible to set 
aside differences, grievances and suspicions. It was that shared vision 
that empowered conference participants to craft a charter that 
President Truman described as, ``a declaration of great faith by the 
nations of the Earth--faith that war is not inevitable, faith that 
peace can be maintained.'' I believe that all freedom loving peoples of 
the world continue to share that same faith and vision today.
  Much has transpired since that day, in 1945, when the 50 founding 
nations of the United Nations pledged their faith and cooperation in 
this new world organization. Today, the U.N. family has grown nearly 
fourfold to 184 member states. Many of the old threats to peace have 
receded only to be replaced by new and more intractable ones. And, 
despite the many criticisms leveled against the United Nations, member 
states have largely heeded the words expressed by President Truman, in 
speaking about the charter that had just been signed, ``You have 
created a great instrument for peace and security and human progress in 
the world. The world must now use it''.
  Much has been accomplished by the United Nations during its first 50 
years. Even its severest critics have to acknowledge that during the 
cold war, the United Nations served to mitigate the ideological 
conflict between East and West that threatened the world with nuclear 
chaos. It also smoothed the path for new nation states seeking to break 
with old, outdated colonial empires.
  The United Nation's various affiliate agencies have served to make 
the world a better place to live. The world health organization, to 
mention but one, has been a major player in the world-wide campaign to 
eradicate smallpox, measles, polio, and other dreaded but preventable 
diseases. The accomplishments of the United Nations have been 
recognized and honored by the world community. On four separate 
occasions, U.N. activities and agencies have been recipients of Nobel 
peace prizes--the blue helmet peacekeepers, the U.N. Children's Fund, 
the U.N. Office of High Commissioner for Refugees.
  Clearly the world is a different place than it was 50 years age. The 
acts of aggression and threats to peace once posed by the East/West 
conflict have been replaced by a growing number of equally bedeviling 
ethnic rivalries, civil wars and humanitarian calamities throughout the 
globe. The demands on the United Nations for policing these conflicts, 
for marshaling humanitarian aid, for dispensing economic and social 
services in response to these events, have grown geometrically--and so 
too have the financial costs associated with them.
  Some of the criticism leveled against the United Nations have been 
unfair. In the final analysis, the United Nations is only as strong and 
decisive as its membership. In the final analysis it can only continue 
to undertake activities that its membership is
 willing and able to support, both financially and politically.

  However, the United Nations and U.N. management must share some of 
the responsibility for the criticisms that have arisen. Some of the 
more problematic endeavors clearly fall in the peacekeeping arena--
Bosnia, Somalia, and others. Organizationally and managerially there 
have been problems, as well, throughout the U.N. system. Historically, 
internal financial controls and safeguards have been inadequate and 
ineffective in ensuring that members' contributions have been 

[[Page S 9187]]
judiciously spent, with U.N. procurement fairly allocated among 
contributors.
  There is clearly consensus within the U.N. membership that reforms 
should and must be undertaken. The United Nations has already made 
progress in implementing some of these reforms. Still more will have to 
occur in order to strengthen its capacity to address the challenges of 
the coming decade. Despite its shortcomings and problems, however, I 
continue to believe, Mr. President, that President Truman's fundamental 
conclusion about the United Nations some 50 years ago remains true 
today: ``The charter of the United Nations which you have signed is a 
solid structure upon which we can build a better world.'' We must 
endeavor to do just that--build a better and safer world for our 
children and grandchildren. A vibrant and effective United Nations can 
help us to accomplish that goal.
  Mr. President, I ask that the full text of President Clinton's 
remarks yesterday in San Francisco be printed in the Record.
  The remarks follow:

                        Remarks by the President

       Thank you very much. Secretary Christopher, Mr. Secretary 
     General, Ambassador Albright, Bishop Tutu. My good friend, 
     Maya Angelou, thank you for your magnificent poem. 
     (Applause.) Delegates to the Charter Conference, 
     distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps, the President 
     of Poland, members of Congress, honored guests, Mayor Jordan, 
     Mr. Shorenstein, people of San Francisco, and friends of the 
     United Nations:
       The 800 delegates from 50 nations who came here 50 years 
     ago to lift the world from the ashes of war and bring life to 
     the dreams of peacemakers included both giants of diplomacy 
     and untested leaders of infant nations. They were separated 
     by tradition, race and language, sharing only a vision of a 
     better, safer future. On this day 50 years ago, the dreams 
     President Roosevelt did not live to see of a democratic 
     organization of the world was launched.
       The Charter the delegate signed reflected the harsh lessons 
     of their experience; the experience of the '30s, in which the 
     world watched and reacted too slowly to fascist aggression, 
     bringing millions sacrificed on the battlefields and millions 
     more murdered in the death chambers.
       Those who had gone through this and the second world war 
     knew that celebrating victory was not enough; that merely 
     punishing the enemy was self-defeating; that instead the 
     world needed an effective and permanent system to promote 
     peace and freedom for everyone. Some of those who worked at 
     that historic conference are still here today, including our 
     own Senator Claiborne Pell, who to this very day, every day, 
     carries a copy of the U.N. Charter in his pocket. (Applause.)
       I would last like to ask all of the delegates to the 
     original conference who are here today to rise and be 
     recognized. Would you please stand? (Applause.)
       San Francisco gave the world renewed confidence and hope 
     for the future. On that day President Truman said, ``This is 
     proof that nations, like men, can state their differences, 
     can face them, and than can find common ground on which to 
     stand.'' Five decades later, we see how very much the world 
     has changed. The Cold War has given way to freedom and 
     cooperation. On this very day, a Russian spacecraft and an 
     American spacecraft are preparing to link in orbit some 240 
     miles above the Earth. From Jericho to Belfast, ancient 
     enemies are searching together for peace. On every continent 
     nations are struggling to embrace democracy, freedom and 
     prosperity. New technologies move people and ideas around the 
     world, creating vast new reservoirs of opportunity.
       Yet we know that these new forces of integration also carry 
     within them the seeds of disintegration and destruction. New 
     technologies and greater openness make all our
      borders more vulnerable to terrorists, to dangerous weapons, 
     to drug traffickers. Newly-independent nations offer rip 
     targets for international terminals and nuclear smugglers. 
     Fluid capital markets make it easier for nations to build 
     up their economies, but also make it much easier for one 
     nation's troubles first to be exaggerated, then to spread 
     to other nations.
       Today, to be sure, we face no Hitler, no Stalin, but we do 
     have enemies--enemies who share their contempt for human life 
     and human dignity and the rule of law; enemies who put lethal 
     technology to lethal use, who seek personal gains in age-old 
     conflicts and new divisions.
       Our generation's enemies are the terrorists and their 
     outlaw nation sponsors--people who kill children or turn them 
     into orphans; people who target innocent people in order to 
     prevent peace; people who attack peacemakers, as our friend 
     President Mubarak was attacked just a few hours ago; people 
     who in the name of nationalism slaughter those of different 
     faiths or tribes, and drive their survivors from their own 
     homelands.
       Their reach is increased by technology. Their communication 
     is abetted by global media. Their actions reveal the age-old 
     lack of conscience, scruples and morality which have 
     characterized the forces of destruction throughout history.
       Today, the threat to our security is not in an enemy silo, 
     but in the briefcase or the car bomb of a terrorist. Our 
     enemies are also international criminals and drug traffickers 
     who threaten the stability of new democracies and the future 
     of our children. Our enemies are the force of natural 
     destruction--encroaching deserts that threaten the Earth's 
     balance, famines that test the human spirit, deadly new 
     diseases that endanger whole societies.
       So, my friends, in this increasingly interdependent world, 
     we have more common opportunities and more common enemies 
     than ever before. It is, therefore, in our interest to face 
     them together as partners, sharing the burdens and costs, and 
     increasing our chances of success.
       Just months before his death, President Roosevelt said, 
     ``We have learned that we cannot live alone at peace, that 
     our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other 
     nations far away.'' Today, more than ever, those words ring 
     true. Yet some here in our own country, where the United 
     Nations was founded, dismissed Roosevelt's wisdom. Some of 
     them acknowledge that the United States must play a strong 
     role overseas, but refuse to supply the nonmilitary resources 
     our nation needs to carry on its responsibilities. Others 
     believe that outside our border America should only act 
     alone.
       Well, of course, the United States must be prepared to act 
     alone when necessary, but we dare not ignore the benefits 
     that coalitions bring to this nation. We dare not reject 
     decades of bipartisan wisdom. We dare not reject decades of 
     bipartisan support for international cooperation. Those who 
     would do so, these new isolationists, dismiss 50 years of 
     hard evidence.
       In those years we've seen the United Nations compile a 
     remarkable record of progress that advances our nation's 
     interest and, indeed, the interest of people everywhere. From 
     President Truman in Korea to President Bush in the Persian 
     Gulf, America has built United Nations' military coalitions 
     to contain aggressors. U.N. forces also often pick up where 
     United States' troops have taken the lead.
       As the Secretary of State said, we saw it just yesterday, 
     when Haiti held parliamentary and local elections with the 
     help of U.N. personnel. We saw the U.N. work in partnership 
     with the United States and the people of Haiti, as they labor 
     to create a democracy. And they have now been given a second 
     chance to renew that promise.
       On every continent the United Nations has played a vital 
     role in making people more free and more secure. For decades, 
     the U.N. fought to isolate South Africa, as that regime 
     perpetuated apartheid. Last year, under the watchful eyes of 
     U.N. observers, millions of South Africans who had been 
     disenfranchised for life cast their first votes for freedom.
       In Namibia, Mozambique, and soon we hope in Angola, the 
     United Nations is helping people to bury decades of civil 
     strife and turn their energies into building new democratic 
     nations. In Cambodia, where a brutal regime left more than 
     one million dead in the Killing Fields, the U.N. helped 
     hundreds of thousands of refugees return to their native 
     land, and stood watch over democratic elections that brought 
     90 percent of the people to the polls. In El Salvador, the 
     U.N. brokered an end to 12 years of bloody civil war, and 
     stayed on to help reform the army and bring justice to the 
     citizens and open the doors of democracy.
       From the Persian Gulf to the Caribbean, U.N. economic and 
     political sanctions have proved to be a valuable means short 
     of military action to isolate regimes and to make aggressors 
     and terrorists pay at least a price for their actions: In 
     Iraq, to help stop that nation from developing weapons of 
     mass destruction, or threatening its neighbors again. In the 
     Balkans, to isolate aggressors; in North Africa, to pressure 
     Libya to turn over for trial those indicted in the bombing of 
     Pan Am flight 103.
       The record of the United Nations includes a proud battle 
     for child survival, and against human suffering and disease 
     of all kinds. Every year UNICEF oral vaccines save the lives 
     of three million children. Last year alone the World Food 
     Program, using the contributions of many governments 
     including our own, fed 57 million hungry people. The World 
     Health Organization has eliminated smallpox from the face of 
     the Earth, and is making great strides in its campaign to 
     eliminate polio by the year 2000. It has helped to contain 
     fatal diseases like the Ebola virus that could have 
     threatened an entire continent.
       To millions around the world, the United Nations is not 
     what we see on our news programs at night. Instead it's the 
     meal that keeps a child from going to bed hungry, the 
     knowledge that helps a farmer coax strong crops from hard 
     land, the shelter that keeps a family together when they're 
     displaced by war or natural disasters.
       In the last 50 years, these remarkable stories have been 
     too obscured, and the capacity of the United Nations to act 
     too limited by the Cold War. As colonial rule broke down, 
     differences between developing and industrialized nations and 
     regional rivalries added new tensions to the United Nations 
     so that too often there was too much invective and too little 
     debate in the general assembly.
       But now the end of the Cold War, the strong trend toward 
     democratic ideals among all nations, the emergence of so many 
     problems that can best be met by collective 

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     action, all these things enable the United Nations at this 50-year 
     point finally to fulfill the promise of its founders.
       But if we want the U.N. to do so, we must face the fact 
     that for all its successes and all its possibilities, it does 
     not work as well as it should. The United Nations must be 
     reformed. In this age of relentless change, successful 
     governments and corporations are constantly reducing their 
     bureaucracies, setting clearer priorities, focusing on 
     targeted results.
       In the United States we have eliminated hundreds of 
     programs, thousands of regulations. We're reducing our 
     government to its smallest size since President Kennedy 
     served here, while increasing our efforts in areas most 
     critical to our future. The U.N. must take similar steps.
       Over the years it has grown too bloated, too often 
     encouraging duplication, and spending resources on meetings 
     rather than results. As its board of directors, all of us--
     we, the member states--must create a U.N. that is more 
     flexible, that operates more rapidly, that wastes less and 
     produces more, and most importantly, that inspires confidence 
     among our governments and our people.
       In the last few years we have seen some good reforms--a new 
     oversight office to hold down costs, a new system to review 
     personnel, a start toward modernization and privatization. 
     But we must do more.
       The United Nations supports the proposal of the President 
     of the General Assembly, Mr. Essyi, who spoke so eloquently 
     here earlier this morning, to prepare a blueprint for 
     renewing the U.N. and to approve it before the 50th General 
     Assembly finishes its work next fall.
       We must consider major structural changes. The United 
     Nations simply does not need a separate agency with its own 
     acronym, stationery and bureaucracy for every problem. The 
     new U.N. must peel off what doesn't work and get behind what 
     will.
       We must also realize, in particular, the limits to 
     peacekeeping and not ask the Blue Helmets to undertake 
     missions they cannot be expected to handle. Peacekeeping can 
     only succeed when the parties to a conflict understand they 
     cannot profit from war. We have too often asked our 
     peacekeepers to work miracles while denying them the military 
     and political support required, and the modern command-and-
     control systems they need to do their job as safely and 
     effectively as possible. Today's U.N. must be ready to handle 
     tomorrow's challenges. Those of us who most respect the U.N. 
     must lead the charge of reform.
       Not all the critics of today's United Nations are 
     isolationists. Many are supporters who gladly would pay for 
     the U.N.'s essential work if they were convinced their money 
     was being well-spent. But I pledge to all of you, as we work 
     together to improve the United Nations, I will continue to 
     work to see that the United States takes the lead in paying 
     its fair share of our common load. (Applause.)
       Meanwhile, we must all remember that the United Nations is 
     a reflection of the world it represents. Therefore, it will 
     remain far from perfect. It will not be able to solve all 
     problems. But even those it cannot solve, it may well be able 
     to limit in terms of the scope and reach of the problem, and 
     it may well be able to limit the loss of human life until the 
     time for solution comes.
       So just as withdrawing from the world is impossible, 
     turning our backs on the U.N. is no solution. It would be 
     shortsighted and self-destructive. It would strengthen the 
     forces of global disintegration. It would threaten the 
     security, the interest and the values of the American people. 
     So I say especially to the opponents of the United Nations 
     here in the United States, turning our back on the U.N. and 
     going it alone will lead to far more economic, political and 
     military burdens on our people in the future and would ignore 
     the lessons of our own history. (Applause.)
       Instead, on this 50th anniversary of the charter signing, 
     let us renew our vow to live together as good neighbors. And 
     let us agree on a new United Nations agenda to increase 
     confidence and ensure support for the United Nations, and to 
     advance peace and prosperity for the next 50 years.
       First and foremost, the U.N. must strengthen its efforts to 
     isolate states and people who traffic in terror, and support 
     those who continue to take risks for peace in the face of 
     violence. The bombing in Oklahoma City, the deadly gas attack 
     in Tokyo, the struggles to establish peace in the Middle East 
     and in Northern Ireland--all of these things remind us that 
     we must stand against terror and support those who move away 
     from it. Recent discoveries of laboratories working to 
     produce biological weapons for terrorists demonstrate the 
     dangerous link between terrorism and the weapons of mass 
     destruction.
       In 1937, President Roosevelt called for a quarantine 
     against aggressions, to keep the infection of fascism from 
     seeping into the bloodstream of humanity. Today, we should 
     quarantine the terrorists, the terrorist groups, and the 
     nations that support terrorism. (Applause.)
       Where nations and groups honestly seek to reform, to 
     change, to move away from the killing of innocents, we should 
     support them. But when they are unrepentant in the delivery 
     of death, we should stand tall against them (Applause.) My 
     friends, there is no easy way around the hard question: If 
     nations and groups are not willing to move away from the 
     delivery of death, we should put aside short-term profits for 
     the people in our countries to stop, stop their conduct. 
     (Applause.)
       Second, the U.N. must continue our efforts to stem the 
     proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. There are some 
     things nations can do on their own. The U.S. and Russia today 
     are destroying our nuclear arsenals rapidly. (Applause.) But 
     the U.N. must also play a role. We were honored to help 
     secure an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-
     Proliferation Treaty under U.N. auspices. (Applause.)
       We rely on U.N. agencies to monitor nations bent on 
     acquiring nuclear capabilities. We must work together on the 
     Chemical Weapons Convention. We must strengthen our common 
     efforts to fight biological weapons. We must do everything we 
     can to limit the spread of fissile materials. We must work on 
     conventional weapons like the land mines that are the curse 
     of children the world over. (Applause.) And we must complete 
     a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. (Applause.)
       Third, we must support through the United Nations the fight 
     against manmade and natural forces of disintegration, from 
     crime syndicates and drug cartels, to new diseases and 
     disappearing forests. These enemies are elusive; they cross 
     borders at will. Nations can and must oppose them alone. But 
     we know, and the Cairo Conference reaffirmed, that the most 
     effective opposition requires strong international 
     cooperation and mutual support.
       Fourth, we must reaffirm our commitment to strengthen U.N. 
     peacekeeping as an important tool for deterring, containing 
     and ending violent conflict. The U.N. can never be an 
     absolute guarantor of peace, but it can reduce human 
     suffering and advance the odds of peace.
       Fifth--you may clap for that--(applause.) Fifth, we must 
     continue what is too often the least noticed of the U.N.'s 
     missions; its unmatched efforts on the front lines of the 
     battle for child survival and against disease and human 
     suffering.
       And finally, let us vote to make the United Nations an 
     increasing strong voice for the protection of fundamental 
     human dignity and human rights. After all, they were at the 
     core of the founding of this great organization. (Applause.)
       Today we honor the men and women who gave shape to the 
     United Nations. We celebrate 50 years of achievement. We 
     commit ourselves to real reforms. We reject the siren song of 
     the new isolationists. We set a clear agenda worthy of the 
     vision of our founders. The measure of our generation will be 
     whether we give up because we cannot achieve a perfect world 
     or strive on to build a better world.
       Fifty years ago today, President Truman reminded the 
     delegates that history had not ended with Hitler's defeat. He 
     said, it is easier to remove tyrants and destroy 
     concentration camps than it is to kill the ideas which give 
     them birth. Victory on the battlefield was essential, but it 
     is not good enough for a lasting, good peace. (Applause.)
       Today we know that history has not ended with the Cold War. 
     We know, and we have learned from painful evidence, that as 
     long as there are people on the face of the Earth, 
     imperfection and evil will be a part of human nature; there 
     will be killing, cruelty, self-destructive abuse of our 
     natural environment, denial of the problems that face us all. 
     But we also know that here today, in this historic chamber, 
     the challenge of building a good and lasting peace is in our 
     hands and success is within our reach.
       Let us not forget that each child saved, each refugee 
     housed, each disease prevented, each barrier to justice 
     brought down, each sword turned into a ploughshare, brings us 
     closer to the vision of our founders--closer to peace, closer 
     to freedom, closer to dignity. (Applause.)
       So my fellow citizens of the world, let us not lose heart. 
     Let us gain renewed strength and energy and vigor from the 
     progress which has been made and the opportunities which are 
     plainly before us. Let us say no to isolation, yes to reform; 
     yes to a brave, ambitious new agenda; most of all, yes to the 
     dream of the United Nations.
       Thank you.
       

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