    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [October 22, 1995]
    [Pages 1654-1657]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City
    October 22, 1995

        Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, distinguished
    guests. This week the United Nations is 50 years old. The dreams of its
    founders have not been fully realized, but its promise endures. The
    value of the United Nations can be seen the world over in the nourished
    bodies of once-starving children; in the full lives of those immunized
    against disease; in the eyes of students eager to learn; in the
    environment sustained, the refugees saved, the peace kept; and most
    recently, in standing up for the human rights and human possibilities of
    women and their children at the Beijing conference.
        The United Nations is the product of faith and knowledge: Faith that
    different peoples can work together for tolerance, decency, and peace;
    knowledge that this faith will be forever tested by the forces of
    intolerance, depravity, and aggression. Now we must summon that faith
    and act on that knowledge to meet the challenges of a new era.
        In the United States, some people ask, ``Why should we bother with
    the U.N.? America is strong; we can go it alone.'' Well, we will act, if
    we have to, alone. But my fellow Americans should not forget that our
    values and our interests are also served by working with the U.N.
        The U.N. helps the peacemakers, the care providers, the defenders of
    freedom and human rights, the architects of economic prosperity, and the
    protectors of our planet to spread the risk, share the burden, and
    increase the impact of our common efforts.
        Last year I pledged that the United States would continue to
    contribute substantially to the U.N.'s finances. Historically, the
    United States has been, and today it remains, the largest contributor to
    the United Nations. But I am determined that we must fully meet our
    obligations, and I am working with our Congress on a plan to do so.
        All who contribute to the U.N.'s work and care about its future must
    also be committed to reform, to ending bureaucratic inefficiencies

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    and outdated priorities. The U.N. must be able to show that the money it
    receives supports saving and enriching people's lives, not unneeded
    overhead. Reform requires breaking up bureaucratic fiefdoms, eliminating
    obsolete agencies, and doing more with less. The U.N. must reform to
    remain relevant and to play a still stronger role in the march of
    freedom, peace, and prosperity.
        We see it around the world in the Middle East and Northern Ireland,
    people turning from a violent past to a future of peace. In South Africa
    and Haiti, long nights and fears have given way to new days of freedom.
    Throughout this hemisphere, every nation except one has chosen
    democracy, and the goal of an integrated, peaceful, and democratic
    Europe is now within our reach for the first time. In the Balkans, the
    international community's determination and NATO's resolve have made
    prospects for peace brighter than they have been for 4 long years.
        Let me salute the U.N.'s efforts on behalf of the people of Bosnia.
    The nations that took part in UNPROFOR kept the toll of this terrible
    war in lives lost, wounds left unhealed, children left unfed from being
    far graver still.
        Next week, the parties to the war in Bosnia will meet in Dayton,
    Ohio, under the auspices of the United States and our Contact Group
    partners, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, to intensify
    the search for peace. Many fundamental differences remain. But I urge
    the parties to seize this chance for a settlement. If they achieve
    peace, the United States will be there with our friends and allies to
    help secure it.
        All over the world, people yearn to live in peace. And that dream is
    becoming a reality. But our time is not free of peril. As the cold war
    gives way to the global village, too many people remain vulnerable to
    poverty, disease, and underdevelopment. And all of us are exposed to
    ethnic and religious hatred, the reckless aggression of rogue states,
    terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, the proliferation of
    weapons of mass destruction.
        The emergence of the information and technology age has brought us
    all closer together and given us extraordinary opportunities to build a
    better future. But in our global village, progress can spread quickly,
    but trouble can, too. Trouble on the far end of town soon becomes a
    plague on everyone's house. We can't free our own neighborhoods from
    drug-related crime without the help of countries where the drugs are
    produced. We can't track down terrorists without assistance from other
    governments. We can't prosper or preserve our environment unless
    sustainable development is a reality for all nations. And our vigilance
    alone can't keep nuclear weapons stored half a world away from falling
    into the wrong hands.
        Nowhere is cooperation more vital than in fighting the increasingly
    interconnected groups that traffic in terror, organized crime, drug
    smuggling, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. No one is
    immune: not the people of Japan, where terrorists unleash nerve gas in
    the subway and poison thousands; not the people of Latin America or
    Southeast Asia, where drug traffickers wielding imported weapons have
    murdered judges, journalists, police officers, and innocent passers-by;
    not the people of Israel and France where hatemongers have blown up
    buses and trains full of children with suitcase bombs made from smuggled
    explosives; not the people of the former Soviet Union and Central
    Europe, where organized criminals seek to weaken new democracies and
    prey on decent, hard-working men and women; and not the people of the
    United States, where homegrown terrorists blew up a Federal building in
    the heart of America and foreign terrorists tried to topple the World
    Trade Center and plotted to destroy the very hall we gather in today.
        These forces jeopardize the global trend toward peace and freedom,
    undermine fragile new democracies, sap the strength from developing
    countries, threaten our efforts to build a safer, more prosperous world.
        So today I call upon all nations to join us in the fight against
    them. Our common efforts can produce results. To reduce the threat of
    weapons of mass destruction, we are working with Russia to reduce our
    nuclear arsenals by two-thirds. We supported Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and
    Belarus in removing nuclear weapons from their soil. We worked with the
    states of the former Soviet Union to safeguard nuclear materials and
    convert them to peaceful use. North Korea has agreed to freeze its
    nuclear program under international monitoring. Many of the nations in
    this room succeeded in getting the indefinite extension of the Non-
    Proliferation Treaty.
        To stem the flow of narcotics and stop the spread of organized
    crime, we are cooperating

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    with many nations, sharing information, providing military support,
    initiating anticorruption efforts. And results are coming. With
    Colombian authorities, we have cracked down on the cartels that control
    the world's cocaine market. Two years ago, they lived as billionaires
    beyond the law; now many are living as prisoners behind bars.
        To take on terrorists, we maintain strong sanctions against states
    that sponsor terrorism and defy the rule of law, such as Iran, Iraq,
    Libya, and Sudan. We ask them today again to turn from that path.
    Meanwhile, we increase our own law enforcement efforts and our
    cooperation with other nations.
        Nothing we do will make us invulnerable, but we all can become less
    vulnerable if we work together. That is why today I am announcing new
    initiatives to fight international organized crime, drug trafficking,
    terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, initiatives we
    can take on our own and others we hope we will take together in the form
    of an international declaration to promote the safety of the world's
    citizens.
        First, the steps we will take: Yesterday, I directed our Government
    to identify and put on notice nations that tolerate money laundering.
    Criminal enterprises are moving vast sums of ill-gotten gains through
    the international financial system with absolute impunity. We must not
    allow them to wash the blood off profits from the sale of drugs from
    terror or organized crimes. Nations should bring their banks and
    financial systems into conformity with the international anti-money-
    laundering standards. We will work to help them to do so. And if they
    refuse, we will consider appropriate sanctions. Next, I directed our
    Government to identify the front companies and to freeze the assets of
    the largest drug ring in the world, the Cali cartel, to cut off its
    economic lifelines and to stop our own people from dealing unknowingly
    with its companies. Finally, I have instructed the Justice Department to
    prepare legislation to provide our other agencies with the tools they
    need to respond to organized criminal activity.
        But because we must win this battle together, I now invite every
    country to join in negotiating and endorsing a declaration on
    international crime and citizen safety, a declaration which would first
    include a no-sanctuary pledge, so that we could say together to
    organized criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers, and smugglers, ``You
    have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.''
        Second, a counterterrorism pact, so that we would together urge more
    states to ratify existing antiterrorism treaties and work with us to
    shut down the gray markets that outfit terrorists and criminals with
    firearms and false documents.
        Third, an antinarcotics offensive. The international drug trade
    poisons people, breeds violence, tears at the moral fabric of our
    society. We must intensify action against the cartels and the
    destruction of drug crops. And we, in consumer nations like the United
    States, must decrease demand for drugs.
        Fourth, an effective police force partnership. International
    criminal organizations target nations whose law enforcement agencies
    lack the experience and capacity to stop them. To help police in the new
    democracies of Central Europe, Hungary and the United States established
    an international law enforcement academy in Budapest. Now we should
    consider a network of centers all around the world to share the latest
    crime-fighting techniques and technology.
        Fifth, we need an illegal arms and deadly materials control effort
    that we all participate in. A package the size of a child's lunch bag
    held the poison gas used to terrorize Tokyo. A lump of plutonium no
    bigger than a soda can is enough to make an atomic bomb. Building on
    efforts already underway with the states of the former Soviet Union and
    with our G-7 partners, we will seek to better account for, store, and
    safeguard materials with massive destructive power. We should strengthen
    the Biological Weapons Convention, pass the comprehensive test ban
    treaty next year, and ultimately eliminate the deadly scourge of
    landmines. We must press other countries and our own Congress to ratify
    the Chemical Weapons Convention and to intensify our efforts to combat
    the global illegal arms network that fuels terrorism, equips drug
    cartels, and prolongs deadly conflicts. This is a full and challenging
    agenda, but we must complete it, and we must do it together.
        Fifty years ago, as the conference that gave birth to the United
    Nations got underway in San Francisco, a young American war hero
    recorded his impressions of that event for a newspaper. ``The average GI
    in the street doesn't seem to have a very clear-cut conception of what
    this meeting's about,'' wrote the young John F. Kennedy. But one
    bemedaled Marine sergeant

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    gave the general reaction when he said, ``I don't know much about what's
    going on, but if they just fix it so we don't have to fight anymore,
    they can count me in.''
        Well, the United Nations has not ended war, but it has made it less
    likely and helped many nations to turn from war to peace. The United
    Nations has not stopped human suffering, but it has healed the wounds
    and lengthened the lives of millions of human beings. The United Nations
    has not banished repression or poverty from the Earth, but it has
    advanced the cause of freedom and prosperity on every continent. The
    United Nations has not been all that we wished it would be, but it has
    been a force for good and a bulwark against evil.
        So at the dawn of a new century so full of promise, yet plagued by
    peril, we still need the United Nations. And so, for another 50 years
    and beyond, you can count the United States in.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:30 a.m. in the General Assembly Hall at
    United Nations Headquarters. In his remarks, he referred to United
    Nations General Assembly President Diogo Freitas do Amaral and United
    Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.