[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E667-E669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REMARKS OF AMBASSADOR MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT

                                 ______


                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 30, 1996

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in bringing to the 
attention of my colleagues excerpts from a speech recently delivered by 
our Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, at the 
Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY, on ``Initiatives for World 
Peace.'' Ambassador Albright was the guest speaker in The Honorable 
Benjamin Gilman Lecture Series sponsored by that college. I commend 
Congressman Gilman for his leadership in foreign affairs and for 
inviting Ambassador Albright to speak at this important function. I ask 
that excerpts of her speech reviewing U.S. foreign policy initiatives 
and the U.S. role in the United Nations be included in the 
Congressional Record.

  Remarks of Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, Representative to the 
                             United Nations

       Dr. Fitzpatrick, Chairman Gilman, faculty, students and 
     friends, I am delighted to be here. As a former professor, I 
     get a little homesick every time I visit a university campus, 
     especially a beautiful campus such as this, especially in 
     spring.
       So I feel very much at home. I am pleased to play a part in 
     your celebration this week of Dr. Fitzpatrick's inauguration. 
     And I am honored to deliver a lecture named for our mutual 
     friend, Representative Ben Gilman.
       I have known Ben Gilman for many yerars. Throughout his 
     career, he has been a thoughtful and principled public 
     servant and a virgorous advocate of American leadership 
     around the world. He has been an especially strong defender 
     of human rights. I hope that those of you who live in this 
     District are as proud of your representative as I am sure he 
     is of you.
       This morning, I would like to discuss America's role at the 
     United Nations within the context of our overall foreign 
     policy, and with an eye towards past lessons, present 
     realities and future challenges.
       Today's threats include the spread of nuclear and other 
     advanced arms, the rise of international criminal cartels, 
     the poisoning of our environment, the mobility of epidemic 
     disease, the persistence of ethnic conflict and--as we have 
     seen too often in recent weeks--the deadly and cowardly 
     threat of terror.
       Despite all this, the trend towards isolationism in America 
     is stronger today than it has been in 70 years. As I know 
     Representative Gilman would agree, this trend must be 
     rejected.
       We must, of course, devote primary attention to problems at 
     home. Our position in the world depends on good schools, a 
     healthy economy, safe neighborhoods and the unity of our 
     people.
       Today, under President Clinton, we are called upon to 
     develop a new framework--to

[[Page E668]]

     protect our citizens both from old and emerging threats and 
     to reinforce principles that will carry us safely into the 
     next century.
       That framework begins with our armed services.
       As we have seen in recent years in the Persian Gulf, Haiti 
     and the Balkans, the U.S. military is the most potent 
     instrument for international order and law in the world 
     today. And it is keeping America safe.
       That is why our armed forces must remain modern, mobile, 
     ready and strong. And as President Clinton has pledged, they 
     will.
       America must also maintain vigorous alliances--and we are.
       In Europe, the trans-Atlantic alliance is defying those who 
     thought it would fall apart as soon as the Soviet empire 
     disappeared. NATO air strikes played a key role in ending the 
     Balkans War. And for the first time in history, there exists 
     a real possibility of a fully democratic Europe, fully at 
     peace.
       In Asia, our core relationships with Japan and South Korea 
     remain strong and our commitments are being met. During the 
     President's visit to the Far East this week, he made it clear 
     to North Korea that there is no future in military 
     adventurism but that the door to multilateral discussion and 
     negotiation is open. And he re-iterated our insistence that 
     the problems between China and Taiwan must be resolved 
     without violence.
       This brings us to the third element in our foreign policy 
     framework: creative diplomacy in support of peace. Here, our 
     goal is to build an environment in which threats to our 
     security and that of our allies are diminished, and the 
     likelihood of American forces being sent into combat is 
     reduced.
       One way to do that is lower the level of armaments around 
     the world. Last year, we were able to gain a global consensus 
     to extend indefinitely and without conditions the Treaty 
     barring new nations from developing nuclear weapons. That is 
     a gift to the future.
       Currently, we are working hard to build a similar consensus 
     achieve the total elimination of anti-personnel landmines--
     weapons that kill or maim 26,000 people per year around the 
     world, mostly innocent civilians.
       This brings us to a fourth essential element in our foreign 
     policy framework, and one of particular interest to me, and 
     that is the United Nations.
       The UN performs many indispensable functions, from 
     establishing airplane safety standards to feeding children, 
     but its most conspicuous role--and the primary reason it was 
     established--is to help nations preserve peace.
       The Clinton Administration has continued efforts, begun 
     under President Bush, to improve and reform UN peacekeeping. 
     We know that the better able the UN is to contain or end 
     conflict, the less likely it is that we will have to send our 
     own armed forces overseas.
       UN peacekeepers have shown that they can separate rivals in 
     strategic parts of the world, such as Cyprus, South Asia and 
     the Persian Gulf.
       They can assist democratic transitions as they have done 
     successfully in Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique 
     and Haiti.
       And they can save lives, ease suffering and lower the 
     global tide of refugees, as they have done in Africa and 
     former Yugoslavia.
       During the Cold War, most UN peace missions were limited to 
     separating rival forces, with their consent, until permanent 
     peace agreements could be forged. Today's more complex 
     operations include a menu of functions from humanitarian 
     relief to disarming troops to repatriating refugees to laying 
     the groundwork for national reconstruction.
       There is a limit, however, to how ambitious these new 
     peacekeeping mandates should be. The challenge of keeping a 
     peace is far simpler than that of creating a secure 
     environment in the midst of ongoing conflict. In Somalia and 
     Bosnia, the Security Council sent forces equipped for 
     peacekeeping into situations with which they could not cope. 
     We are determined not to make that mistake again.
       So, at out insistence, the Council has adopted rigorous 
     guidelines for determining when to begin a peace operation. 
     We are insisting on good answers to questions about cost, 
     size, risk, mandate, and exit strategy before a mission is 
     started or renewed.
       We are also working to make the UN more professional.
       Five years ago, the UN's peacekeeping office consisted of a 
     handful of people--mostly civilians--working nine to five. 
     Today, a 24 hour situation center links UN headquarters to 
     the field and a host of military officers are on hand. A 
     Mission Planning service helps assure that lessons learned 
     from past missions are incorporated in future plans. And 
     special units focused on training, civilian police, de-
     mining, logistics and financial management all contribute to 
     an integrated whole.
       The goal of these efforts is to design peacekeeping 
     operations that don't go on forever, don't cost too much, 
     don't risk lives unnecessarily and do give peoples wracked by 
     conflict a chance to get back on their feet.
       The UN's role in responding to conflicts and other 
     emergencies is especially important now, when we have so many 
     emergencies is especially important now, when we have so many 
     of them. Like other eras of historical transition, ours is 
     beset by political upheaval. The human costs are high. Over 
     the past decade, the number of regional conflicts has 
     quintupled and the population at risk is up sixty percent.
       Americans are a generous people, but we could not begin to 
     cope with such a crisis alone. Today, twenty-seven million 
     people are under the care of the UN High Commissioner for 
     Refugees. Millions more benefit from the efforts of the UN 
     Development Program, the World Food Program and the UN 
     Children's Fund.
       Working with the Red Cross and other nongovernmental 
     organizations, UN agencies provide the shelter, food, 
     medicine and protection that help families displaced by 
     violence or disaster to rebuild and resume normal lives. The 
     work is always difficult and often dangerous. It is tempting 
     to ask those who believe the U.S. should get out of the UN 
     what their choice would be. Are they prepared to do this work 
     themselves? Or would they simply let the displaced and 
     impoverished die?
       Peacekeeping and emergency response are two UN functions 
     that contribute to our security and wellbeing; another is 
     international economic sanctions.
       Since the end of the Persian Gulf war, strict economic and 
     weapons sanctions have been in place against Iraq. Our 
     purpose has been to prevent that country from once again 
     developing weapons of mass destruction or threatening its 
     neighbors with aggression.
       We do not wish to hurt the Iraqi people, but Saddam Hussein 
     has still not formally accepted the chance we have offered to 
     sell oil to buy humanitarian supplies. He continues to 
     squander Iraq's money building palaces for his cronies. He 
     continues to demonstrate ruthless brutality towards those who 
     oppose him--even within his own family. And he continues to 
     evade full compliance with the Resolutions of the UN Security 
     Council.
       Until last summer, Iraq denied outright the existence of a 
     biological warfare program. Because the UN refused to accept 
     that lie, Iraq finally confessed to producing more than 
     500,000 liters on anthrax and botulinin toxin--enough poison 
     to kill everyone on Earth.
       Before the Persian Gulf war, the Iraqis had placed much of 
     this material in artillery shells, ready to use. The danger 
     to American forces and to our allies could not have been more 
     real. And that danger will remain real until we have hard 
     evidence that this material and the capacity to produce it 
     have been destroyed.
       So the burden of proof is not on us; it is on Iraq. Iraq 
     must demonstrate through actions, not words, that its 
     intentions are now peaceful and that it respects the law of 
     nations. After years of deceit, that proof will not come 
     easy.
       Saddam Hussein's complaints about the unfairness of all 
     this remind me of the story about the schoolboy who came home 
     with his face damaged and his clothes torn. When his mother 
     asked him how the fight started, he said: ``It started when 
     the other guy hit me back.''
       From our perspective near millennium's end, we can look 
     back at centuries of arrangements developed to deter 
     aggression and prevent war. Before the UN, there was the 
     League of Nations; before that the Congress of Vienna; before 
     that the Treaty of Westphalia; before that medieval 
     nonagression pacts; and before that the Peloponnesian League.
       No perfect mechanism has been found. We have little reason 
     to believe it ever will. Certainly, the UN is no panacea.
       But, the UN does give us military and diplomatic options we 
     would not otherwise have. It helps us to influence events 
     without assuming the full burden of costs and risks. And it 
     lends the weight of law and world opinion to causes and 
     principles we support.
       That is why former President Reagan urged us to ``rely more 
     on multilateral institutions''. It is why former President 
     Bush said recently that we should ``pay our debts to the 
     UN.'' And it is why the Clinton Administration will continue 
     to place a high priority on our leadership there.
       Force, strong alliances, active diplomacy and viable 
     international institutions all contribute to American 
     security. But the final element in our foreign policy 
     framework is even more fundamental. To protect American 
     interests in the coming years and into the next century, we 
     must remain true to American principles.
       Some suggest that it is softheaded for the United States to 
     take the morality of things into account when conducting 
     foreign policy.
       I believe a foreign policy devoid of moral considerations 
     can never fairly represent the American people. It is because 
     we have kept faith with our principles that, in most parts of 
     the world, American leadership remains not only necessary, 
     but welcome. And central to our principles is a commitment to 
     democracy.
       The great lesson of this century is that democracy is a 
     parent to peace. Free nations make good neighbors. Compared 
     to dictatorships, they are far less likely to commit acts of 
     aggression, support terrorists, spawn international crime or 
     generate waves of refugees.
       Democracy is not an import; it must find its roots 
     internally. But we can help to nourish those roots by opening 
     the doors to economic integration, granting technical 
     assistance, providing election monitors and backing efforts 
     to build democratic institutions.
       Not all of these tools work quickly, but none should be 
     discounted. Remember that, for half a century, we refused to 
     recognize the Soviet conquest of the Baltics. For decades, 
     with Representative Ben Gilman in the lead, we pled the cause 
     of emigration for

[[Page E669]]

     Syrian and Soviet Jews. And despite the resistance of some, 
     the west ultimately joined the developing world in isolating 
     South Africa's racist regime.
       There were times when these efforts seemed almost hopeless. 
     We could not stop the tanks that entered Budapest in 1956 or 
     Prague 12 years later. We could not save the victims of 
     apartheid. But over the past decade, almost two billion 
     people, on five continents, in more than five dozen 
     countries, have moved towards more open economic and 
     political systems.
       Today, a global network exists helping new democracies to 
     succeed. America belongs at the head of this movement. For 
     freedom is perhaps the clearest expression of national 
     purpose and policy ever adopted--and it is America's purpose.
       My own family came to these shores as refugees. Because of 
     this nation's generosity and commitment, we were granted 
     asylum after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. The 
     story of my family has been repeated in millions of 
     variations over two centuries in the lives not only of 
     immigrants, but of those overseas who have been liberated or 
     sheltered by American soldiers, empowered by American 
     assistance or inspired by American ideals.
       I will remember all my life the day the PLO-Israeli 
     agreement was signed. I will remember, in particular, 
     something that was said by then-Israeli Foreign Minister 
     Shimon Peres. When the history books are written, he said:
       ``Nobody will really understand the United States. You have 
     so much force and you didn't conquer anyone's land. You have 
     so much power and you didn't dominate another people. You 
     have problems of your own and you have never turned your back 
     on the problems of others.''
       Now this generation, our generation, of Americans has a 
     proud legacy to fulfill.
       We have been given an opportunity, at the threshold of a 
     new century, to build a world in which totalitarianism and 
     fascism are defeated, in which human liberty is expanded, in 
     which human rights are respected and in which our people are 
     as secure as we can ever expect them to be.
       By rejecting the temptations of isolation, and by standing 
     with those who stand against terror and for peace around the 
     world, we will advance our own interests; honor our best 
     traditions; and help to answer a prayer that has been offered 
     over many years in a multitude of tongues, in accordance with 
     diverse customs, in response to a common yearning. We cannot 
     guarantee peace; but we can--and will--do all we can to 
     minimize the risks of peace.
       That is our shared task as we prepare for the future.
       And if we are together, it is a task in which we will 
     surely succeed.