[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

[[Page 1743]]

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

[[Page 1744]]

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,

[[Page 1745]]

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

[[Page 1746]]

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.