[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[May 12, 1995]
[Pages 683-685]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at Schevchenko University in Kiev
May 12, 1995

    Thank you very much.
    I first would thank Olexiy Meleshchuk for that fine introduction. I 
thank Olena Sheveliova for her fine remarks and for representing the 
university students here. I thank the rector, Viktor Skopenko, for his 
remarks and for the honorary degree, which I will treasure and display 
in the White House.
    I am delighted to be joined here by my wife and by ministers and 
other important members of our administration, by the mayor of Kiev and 
members of your National Government, and by former President Kravchuk. I 
am glad to see them all here, and I thank them for being here with me 
today. I am deeply honored to be the first American President to appear 
before the people of a free and independent Ukraine.
    Today we celebrate the alliance of our peoples, who defeated fascism 
50 years ago. We shared victory then, but the cost to your people of 
that victory was almost unimaginable. More than 5 million Ukrainians 
died in the conflict. I am pleased that now after all these years we can 
pay tribute to the extraordinary sacrifice here in the Ukrainian 
homeland.
    It is fitting that we are meeting at this institution, named for 
Taras Schevchenko. More than 30 years ago, America recognized his 
passion for freedom by erecting a statue of Schevchenko in the heart of 
our Nation's Capital. Now, at last, America also honors this great 
champion of liberty in the heart of Ukraine's capital.
    I am also glad that we are meeting here at this university because 
so much of your nation's

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future depends upon this place of learning and others like it throughout 
your land. Here, the knowledge that Ukraine needs to build itself will 
be found. Here, the dreams of a new Ukraine will be dreamed.
    I would like to say a special word to the students and scholars 
here. I know the times are difficult now, and I commend you for taking 
the hard road, for putting the needs of your future and your nation 
above immediate personal concerns. Your efforts will be repaid, for your 
independent country has a better chance to create freedom and prosperity 
than it has had in centuries, and to do it in a way that is uniquely 
your own as one of Europe's oldest peoples forging one of its newest 
democracies.
    Ukraine is rising to the historic challenge of its reemergence as a 
nation on the world's stage. Already your nation can claim 
responsibility for a major contribution to global peace. Your wise 
decision to eliminate nuclear weapons on your territory has earned your 
nation respect and gratitude everywhere in the world.
    Your accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has sent an 
unmistakable message for peace and against weapons of mass destruction. 
Without those farsighted acts, the historic vote yesterday by the 
world's nations to extend the Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely and 
unconditionally would not have been possible. This will make the people 
of the world for generations to come safer and more secure.
    For 25 years, this treaty has been the cornerstone of the world's 
efforts to reduce the dangers of nuclear weapons. I am proud of the 
leadership of the United States in securing the extension of the treaty. 
But I am also proud of the role that Ukraine played, and you should be 
proud as well. In the short period of your independence, you have helped 
make the world a safer, more hopeful place, and I thank you for that. 
[Applause] Thank you.
    A few moments ago Rector Skopenko quoted Taras Schevchenko's 
question, ``When will we receive our Washington with a new and righteous 
law?'' The answer is now, because so many Ukrainians are striving to 
build a nation ruled by law and governed by the will of the people. 
Holding free, fair, and frequent elections, protecting the rights of 
minorities, building bridges to other democracies, these mark the way to 
a ``new birth of freedom,'' in the phrase of our great President Abraham 
Lincoln.
    Already you have held a landmark election that produced the first 
transfer of power from one democratic government to another in any of 
the nations that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. You 
have put tolerance at the heart of your law and law at the heart of your 
state. You have claimed your place in the ranks of the world's great 
democracies, as demonstrated by the sight of your flag flying next to 
the American flag at the White House during President Kuchma's historic 
visit last November.
    You have earned the admiration of the free world by setting on a 
course of economic reform and staying on that course despite the pain of 
adjustment. President Kuchma's decision to launch ambitious economic 
reforms and to press ahead with them was truly bold. We know that after 
so many decades of a command-and-control economy, reform carries real 
human cost in the short term in lost jobs, lower wages, lost personal 
security.
    But your efforts will not be in vain, because the course is right, 
even if the path is difficult. The toil is bitter, but the harvest is 
sweet, as the old proverb says. In time, your transformation will 
deliver better, more prosperous lives and the chance for you and your 
children to realize your God-given potential. You and your children will 
reap the harvest of today's sacrifices.
    In the pursuit of peace and prosperity, you have been well served by 
President Kuchma and his government's bold and farsighted leadership. 
You should know this: As you build your future, the United States will 
stand with you.
    For America, support for an independent Ukraine secure in its 
recognized borders is not only a matter of sympathy, it is a matter of 
our national interest as well. We look to the day when a democratic and 
prosperous Ukraine is America's full political and economic partner in a 
bulwark of stability in Europe.
    Fifty years ago, Americans and Ukrainians engaged in a common 
struggle against fascism, and together we won. When U.S. troops met a 
Soviet force at the Elbe for the first time and made that legendary 
handshake across a liberated Europe, the unit they met was the First 
Ukrainian Army.
    Cruel events made that embrace brief. During the decades of East-
West separation, it was left to a million Ukrainian-Americans to keep 
alive the ties between our people. They fought hard

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to ensure that the hope for freedom for you never died out. Today, their 
dreams are being fulfilled by you. And on behalf of all Ukrainian-
Americans, I rejoice in standing here with you.
    In the months and years ahead, our partnership will grow stronger. 
Together we will help design the architecture of security in an 
undivided Europe so that Ukraine's security is strengthened. We will 
increase defense contacts between our nations, consult with one another 
as NATO prepares to expand, and foster ties between Ukraine and the 
West. Ukraine has already taken a strong leadership role in forming the 
Partnership For Peace, which is uniting Europe's democracies in military 
cooperation and creating a more secure future.
    We will work with one another as Ukraine becomes a full partner in 
the new Europe, and we will deepen the friendship between our peoples in 
concrete economic ways.
    The United States has shown its support for Ukraine in deeds, not 
just words: in the commitment of more than a billion dollars in 
assistance over 3\1/2\ years for political and economic reform, another 
$350 million to help eliminate nuclear weapons, in leading the world's 
financial institutions to commit $2.7 billion for Ukraine's future and 
urging our partners in the G-7 to do even more. We will continue to work 
to assist you to build a brighter future.
    Our nations have established vigorous trade and investment ties, and 
a group of American and Ukrainian business people are promoting these 
ties here in Ukraine this year and next year in their meeting in the 
United States. Together we will enter into exciting new ventures, such 
as a commercial space launch cooperation.
    All these efforts will help to build a Ukraine that is sovereign and 
democratic, confident and successful, a Ukraine that will fulfill the 
hopes of your 52 million citizens and provide an essential anchor of 
stability and freedom in a part of the world still reeling from rapid 
change, still finding its way toward the 21st century.
    Of course, in the end it is you who will make your own future. The 
people of Ukraine have it in their power to fulfill their oldest wishes 
and shape a very new destiny. To live up to that promise, to make the 
most of your role in this global economy in the information age, your 
ability to learn and learn and learn will be essential. And so I urge 
you to take to heart the words of Schevchenko: ``Study, my brothers, 
study and read, learn of foreign things, but don't forget that which is 
yours.''
    Our two nations are bound together by a common vision of freedom and 
prosperity. Together we shall make that vision real.
    As the great poet of our democracy, Walt Whitman, wrote a century 
ago, ``The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.'' Those 
strong, sweet songs are of free people fulfilling their hopes and 
dreams; they are the songs of Ukraine's tomorrows.
    God bless America. Slava Ukrainiy.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. at the Volodomyrs'ka Street Plaza. 
In his remarks, he referred to student speakers Olexiy Meleshchuk, Kyiv-
Mohyla Academy University, and Olena Sheveliova, Schevchenko University; 
Viktor Skopenko, rector, Schevchenko University; and Mayor Leonid 
Kosakivsky of Kiev.