    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 14, 1993]
    [Pages 1742-1747]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's News Conference
    October 14, 1993

    Somalia

        The President. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry I am a
    little late, but I just finally got through to Ambassador Oakley, and I
    wanted to have a chance to speak with him directly for a couple of
    minutes before I came out here.
        I also spoke with Mrs. Durant this morning to congratulate her and
    to wish her well. Obviously, she is very happy. She has now had an
    extended conversation with her husband. And he is, as you know, in the
    U.N. field hospital in Mogadishu. But he will be going to Germany as
    soon as the doctors say that he can travel. And then, as soon as
    possible, he'll be back home with his family and his friends. I welcome
    his release, and I want to express my deepest thanks to the African
    leaders who pressed hard for it and to Bob Oakley, the International Red
    Cross, and to the United Nations, to all who have worked on this for the
    last several days.
        Over the past week, since the United States announced its intention
    to strengthen our forces in Somalia, as well as to revitalize the
    diplomatic initiative and send Bob Oakley back, we have seen some
    hopeful actions: the release of Michael Durant and the Nigerian
    peacekeeper, the cessation of attacks on the United States and U.N.
    peacekeepers. That demonstrates that we are moving in the right
    direction and that we are making progress.
        Our firm position on holding Durant's captors responsible for his
    well-being and demanding his release, I think, sent a strong message
    that was obviously heard. Now we have to maintain our commitment to
    finishing the job we started. It's not our job to rebuild Somalia's
    society or its political structure. The Somalis have to do that for
    themselves. And I welcome the help of the African leaders who have
    expressed their commitment to working with us and with them. But we have
    to give them enough time to have a chance to do that, to have a chance
    not to see the situation revert to the way it was before the United
    States and the United Nations intervened to prevent the tragedy late
    last year.
        I want to also emphasize that we made no deals to secure the release
    of Chief Warrant Officer Durant. We had strong resolve. We showed that
    we were willing to support the resumption of the peace process, and we
    showed that we were determined to protect our soldiers and to react when
    appropriate by strengthening our position there. I think the policy was
    plainly right. But there was no deal.
        If you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them.
        Q. Mr. President, there's still a $25,000 bounty on Mr. Aideed.
    Would you still like to see Mr. Aideed arrested? Do you think that's
    appropriate? And do you think that the United Nations now should release
    Mr. Aideed's forces

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    that it's captured recently?
        The President. Well, let me answer the first question. The United
    States position is that we have a U.N. resolution which says that there
    must be some resolution of the unconscionable incident which started
    this whole thing, which was the murder of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers who
    were not there in battle but were simply there doing the job that we all
    went there to do, the humanitarian mission. I think that it's very
    important to remember that.
        It is further our position that we cannot afford to have any police
    work that we were asked to do as part of the U.N. mission be transformed
    into a military endeavor that, in effect, made many people believe that
    there was no longer a diplomatic initiative going on in Somalia. So
    there still has to be some resolution of that. We have a U.N.
    resolution, and we ought to pursue it. Now, there may be other ways to
    do it, and I am open to that.
        As far as the release of any people is concerned, that will
    obviously be up to the United Nations. But they have to consider what
    our obligations are with regard to the murder of the Pakistani
    peacekeepers. That's what started this whole thing.
        Q. Mr. President, isn't it pretty clear, though, that Aideed must
    have been given some immunity from arrest, because he talked to
    reporters? He seems to be pretty available. You don't seem to be laying
    a glove on him. Have you called off the dogs?
        The President. There was no deal made, I can tell you that. We have
    taken account of the behavior of others on the ground there, and we will
    continue to do that. But for the next few days, we have to work through
    what the resolution will be of the U.N. requirement that got us all into
    the position we were in last week, which is that we have to have some
    means of resolving what happened to the Pakistanis, who were clearly not
    in anybody's combat, were just doing their jobs. And we have to do it.
        Q. Well, do you hold him responsible?
        The President. Well, he offered, if you remember, an independent
    commission to look into that. The United Nations asked the United States
    to attempt to arrest him and to go out of our way not to hurt him while
    arresting him because he was suspected of being responsible. So if he's
    willing to have somebody that we can all trust look into that, then
    that's something I think that Mr. Oakley is certainly willing to
    entertain over there.

    Foreign Policy Accomplishments

        Q. Mr. President, despite your success today, there's been a lot of
    criticism that U.S. foreign policy has been run in a naive and somewhat
    disorganized way. What's your response to that?
        The President. Well, I can tell you first of all, I've had people
    who were involved in the two previous administrations say that our
    national security decision-making process was at least as good as the
    two in the previous ones, perhaps better. Secondly, I think on the
    biggest issues affecting the future and the security of the United
    States, we have a good record. We have done very well with Russia, the
    most important issue. We have set up a system that did not exist before
    we came to office to deal with the other republics of the former Soviet
    Union and to work on nuclear issues and other issues. I think we have
    done quite well with the Middle East peace process and with its
    aftermath. I think we have done well to establish the groundwork of a
    new basis of a relationship with Japan and with Asia generally. We have
    certainly put nonproliferation on a higher plane than it was there
    before. I think we did very well. The United States had the most
    successful meeting of the G-7 in over a decade. That was clear: the
    first time in 10 years we were complimented instead of criticized,
    making real progress there.
        So I think that the people who say that, because of what happened in
    Somalia last week, have a pretty weak reed to stand on. And in terms of
    Haiti,--and maybe we can get to that--when I took office, what we had
    was everybody in Haiti thinking about whether they could leave and come
    to the United States because they thought there was no way that anybody
    would ever stick up for the democratic process in Haiti, and the fact
    that two-thirds of the people voted for somebody to lead their country
    that was then ousted by the old regime. At least we have made an effort
    to try to change that. And I assure you that my determination there is
    as strong as ever.
        It's easy to second-guess. When you get into something like Somalia,
    I think anybody who really thought about it at the time the decision was
    made--I supported it. I think it was the right thing to do. I think we
    went there for the right motives. But you had to know when

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    we went there that (a) that there was no way America was going to get
    out in January because there was no political process in place there
    that could have given the Somalis a chance to survive, and (b) that
    there was every chance that someone, for their own reasons, at some
    point during this mission might kill some peacekeepers, which would
    complicate the mission.
        We are living in a new world. It's easy for people who don't have
    these responsibilities to use words like ``naive'' or this or that or
    the other thing. The truth is, we're living in a new and different
    world, and we've got to try to chart a course that is the right course
    for the United States to lead, while avoiding things that we cannot do
    or things that impose costs in human and financial terms that are
    unacceptable for us. But I think that in this new world, we've made a
    pretty good beginning and clearly on the things that affect us most.

    Haiti

        Q. Mr. President, you were very clear last week in saying that you
    did not want your reaction to events in Somalia to be the wrong signal
    to the world's thugs and bullies. I wonder, sir, if it occurs to you
    that the events of Haiti may indicate that that signal was sent anyway?
        The President. No. The problem we had in Haiti with the boat was
    that we sent 200 Seabees over there who were commissioned specifically
    to train military officers to do more work to rebuild the country. They
    were lightly armed; they were not in any way--they were not peacekeepers
    or peacemakers.
        I would remind you that the Governors Island Agreement basically was
    an agreement among all the major parties in Haiti which clearly set
    forth the fact that they did not want other countries' forces or a U.N.
    force coming in there to provide law and order. They wanted French-
    speaking forces to come in and retrain the police force. They wanted
    French-speaking Canadians and the United States to come in and retrain
    the army to rebuild the country.
        So those people were simply not able or ever authorized to pursue
    any mission other than that. I was not about to put 200 American Seabees
    into a potentially dangerous situation for which they were neither
    trained nor armed to deal with at that moment. And I did not want to
    leave the boat in the harbor so that that became the symbol of the
    debate. I pulled the boat out of the harbor to emphasize that the
    Haitian parties themselves who were still there in Haiti are responsible
    for violating the Governors Island Agreement. We moved immediately to
    reimpose sanctions to include oil. We are going to do some more things
    unilaterally in the next day or two. And I think that we still have a
    chance to get this done, because the people who were there who don't
    want to give up power agreed to the Governors Island Agreement, and
    we're going to do our best to hold them to it.
        Q. You don't think that those thugs on the dock there in Haiti were
    encouraged by the events in Somalia to try what they tried?
        The President. They may or may not have been, but they're going to
    be sadly disappointed. I think those people on the docks in Haiti were
    probably the hired hands of the elites that don't want democracy to come
    to Haiti. So I don't think they had drawn any sophisticated
    interpretation from world events. But if they did, they ought to look at
    what else has happened in Somalia. Look at the way we have bolstered our
    forces. Look at the reports in the newspaper today.
        What we've done in Somalia--let me go back to that--is consistent
    with our original mission. We did not go there to prove we could win
    military battles. No one seriously questions the fact that we could
    clean out that whole section of Mogadishu at minimum loss to ourselves
    if that's what we wanted to do. The reports today say that 300 Somalis
    were killed and 700 more were wounded in the firefight that cost our
    people their lives last week. That is not our mission. We did not go
    there to do that. We cannot let a charge we got under a U.N. resolution
    to do some police work--which is essentially what it is, to arrest
    suspects--turn into a military mission.
        But the people in Haiti would be sadly misguided if they think the
    United States has weakened its resolve to see that democracy--the
    expressed will of two-thirds of the people of Haiti. I noticed
    Congressman Kennedy on the television this morning saying that President
    Aristide won an election victory with a higher percentage of the vote
    than any leader in the Western Hemisphere. And he can't even get into
    office. We're going to try to change that.
        Let me just make one other comment about Haiti. This is very
    important to me. In addition to President Aristide, there is a
    government that has been struggling mightily to function in Haiti,

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    headed by Prime Minister Malval, a business person, a person who
    basically did not ask for the responsibilities that he has undertaken. I
    want to send a clear signal today, too, that the United States is very
    concerned about his ability to function and his personal safety and the
    safety of his government. That is very important to us. Malval is key to
    making this whole thing work. He is recognized as a stabilizing figure,
    as a person who will work with all sides, as a person who will be fair
    to everybody. And it would be again a grave error to underestimate the
    extent to which this country regards him as an important part of the
    ultimate solution.

    Somalia

        Q. Mr. President, I'd like to go back to what you said about Aideed,
    because it appears that you've opened the door to leave him a way out
    this morning when you said that we have to take into account what others
    did on the ground there. Do you think there's a possibility that Aideed
    was not directly responsible for the attack on the Pakistani U.N.
    forces? And do you believe there's also a possibility that Aideed could
    now become part of the political process and indeed may someday become
    President?
        The President. Well, let me answer the questions somewhat
    separately. First of all, to take the second question, what happened
    over the last several weeks--and let me back up and say I understood why
    the United States was thought to have the only capacity to pursue the
    police function once the Pakistanis were killed. But keep in mind what
    that function was: That function was to arrest people suspected of being
    involved in that, not to be judge and jury, not to say we know exactly
    what happened, not to find people guilty in advance.
        So our young soldiers, at significant risk to themselves, went out
    of their way to capture people without killing them. As a consequence,
    however, because of the circumstances, as we all know, several of them
    lost their lives, and hundreds of Somalis who were fighting them, either
    with weapons or by getting in their way, lost their lives. Now, that
    never should have been allowed to supplant--as I said at the United
    Nations before this incident occurred--that never should have been
    allowed to supplant the political process that was ongoing when we were
    in effective control up through last May.
        So we had to start the political process again. We have no interest
    in keeping any clan or subclan or group of Somalis out of the political
    process affecting the future of their people. The clan structure seems
    to be the dominant structure in the country. It is not for the United
    States or for the United Nations to eliminate whole groups of people
    from having a role in Somalia's future. The Somalis must decide that
    with the help and guidance, I believe, primarily of the African states
    and leadership around them, first of all.
        Secondly, with regard to the specific incident, what I want to do is
    to see the U.N. resolution honored. That is, we want to know that there
    is some effort, honest, unencumbered effort, to investigate what
    happened to those Pakistanis and to have some resolution of that
    consistent with international law. We cannot expect the United Nations
    to go around the world, whether it's in Cambodia or Somalia or any of
    the many other places we're involved in peacekeeping, and have people
    killed and have no resolution of it.
        Aideed, himself, as you know, offered in a letter to President
    Carter to have a genuinely unbiased commission look into this and have
    evidence presented to it. The United Nations may choose to take a
    different course in this, but we should honor the resolution. That is,
    you asked me a question about Aideed personally. I can't answer that. I
    can say that I believe in the strongest terms that the United States
    should continue to say, if you want us to be involved in peacekeeping,
    if peacekeepers get murdered doing their job the way the Pakistanis did,
    and others, there has to be an effort to look into who did it and to
    hold those accountable. If there is another way to do that, that's fine.
    What I said at the U.N., I will reiterate: The United States being a
    police officer in Somalia was turned into the waging of conflict in a
    highly personalized battle which undermined the political process. That
    is what was wrong, and that is what we have attempted to correct in the
    last few days.

    Haiti

        Q. Mr. President, your statement reassuring Prime Minister Malval of
    Haiti about his personal security raises the question, of course: Is
    there a threat to his personal security, and what happens if something
    happens to Prime Minister Malval?
        The President. If something happens to him, it would be a very
    difficult situation for the

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    Haitians. It would make President Aristide's job more difficult, and it
    would further isolate the military and police authorities there and the
    people who are sponsoring them from the international community. I hope
    that he is not in danger. I do not have any information that he is in
    imminent danger. He's continuing to function, but if you know how he
    works down there, I mean, he has very limited security, he does a lot of
    work out of his home, he has not constructed a military apparatus around
    himself. He really is a good citizen serving his country, and he is a
    necessary part of the glue that would permit President Aristide to go
    back down there.
        Keep in mind, Aristide gave these people amnesty. The truth is, a
    lot of them never thought he'd do it. I know there are people who have
    criticized Aristide, who say that, you know, maybe he's not really a
    political person, can't do this. All I know is that in our dealings with
    him, he has done what he said he would do. And I think they were
    disoriented by the fact that he issued the amnesty order when they
    didn't think he would. And I am genuinely concerned that the forces in
    Haiti--let me back up and say, they signed off on the Governors Island
    Agreement because they realized that the sanctions were having a
    crushing blow on them. And in the end, they and the people who were
    funding a lot of their activities understood that it was going to cost
    them more to stay with the present course than to permit this transition
    to democracy.
        And what we're trying to do now--our policy clearly is to remind
    them of why they signed off in the first place in the most forceful
    terms and to make it absolutely clear that no one in the international
    community is going to walk away from our previous policy toward Haiti if
    they don't honor their commitments under that agreement.

    Peacekeeping Missions

        Q. Mr. President, would your experiences this month in Somalia and
    Haiti make you more cautious about sending American peacekeepers to
    Bosnia?
        The President. Well, my experiences in Somalia would make me more
    cautious about having any Americans in a peacekeeping role where there
    was any ambiguity at all about what the range of decisions were which
    could be made by a command other than an American command with direct
    accountability to the United States here.
        Now, to be fair, our troops in Somalia were under an American
    commander. And even though General Bir was the overall commander, it was
    clear always that General Hoar here in the United States was the
    commanding officer of General Montgomery. But because we got a general
    charge from the U.N. to try to arrest people suspected of being involved
    in the killing of the Pakistani soldiers, not every tactical decision
    had to be cleared here through General Hoar.
        What I've made clear all along, the reason I've said that I thought
    that any Bosnian operation would have to be operated through NATO--the
    Supreme Allied Commander in Europe is an American general that talks
    every day to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that works in
    very clear cooperation with the other NATO forces. They have drilled
    together. They have trained together. They have worked together. It is a
    much more coherent military operation. And I would have a far higher
    level of confidence about not only the safety of our troops but our
    ability to deal with that as a NATO operation. It's a whole different
    issue, Bosnia, but I would have a much higher level of confidence there.
        With the U.N., let me just say, to go back to the U.N., I still
    believe that U.N. peacekeeping is important. And I still believe that
    America can play a role in that. But when you're talking about resolving
    longstanding political disputes, the United States as the world's only
    superpower is no more able to do that for other people than we were 30
    years ago, or 20 years ago.
        That's why if you go back and look at Somalia, what's going to
    happen here, and compare it to what the U.N. did in Cambodia, where the
    U.N. went into Cambodia first of all with this theory about what they
    had to do to or with the Khmer Rouge, and then they moved away from any
    kind of military approach and sent a lot of very brave peacekeepers,
    none of whom were Americans and some of whom lost their lives, Japanese
    and others, they worked through the politics of Cambodia by, in effect,
    creating a process in which the local people had to take responsibility
    for their own future. If we are going to do that kind of work, we ought
    to take the Cambodian model in Somalia and everyplace else.
        Where we have to do peacekeeping, if we're

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    going to do that in a unified command, even if the Americans are always
    under American forces, we have got to make the kind of changes in the
    United Nations that I advocated in my speech to the U.N. We have got to
    have that international peacekeeping apparatus far better organized than
    it is now. And if you go back to the U.N. speech, it received little
    notice because of the momentary and important crises in Somalia and
    elsewhere. But the reorganization of the peacekeeping apparatus of the
    U.N. is an urgent mission because keep in mind, the U.N. peacekeepers,
    with no American soldiers there, are involved all over the world now,
    and they have done an awful lot of good work. But we plainly have to
    reorganize that and strengthen that. Got to go. Thank you.

    Haiti

        Q. Would you support the blockade in Haiti, President Clinton? Would
    you support a blockade?
        The President. I support strongly enforcing the sanctions and--I
    want to answer that. I support strongly enforcing these sanctions,
    strongly. And over the next few days we will be announcing the form in
    which that sanctions enforcement will take place.
        Thank you.
        Q. Is that a yes or a no?
        The President. Well, the word ``blockade'' is a term of art in
    international law, which is associated with a declaration of war, so I
    have to----
        Q. How about patrols?
        The President. I have to be careful in using that word, but I think
    that we have to enforce the sanctions.

    Note: The President's 28th news conference began at 10:21 a.m. in the
    Briefing Room at the White House.