    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [October 13, 1997]
    [Pages 1345-1347]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Citizens of Venezuela in Caracas
    October 13, 1997

        Mr. President, let me begin by thanking you for your warm
    introduction and your invitation to speak at this sacred place. I am
    deeply honored to be the first foreign leader ever to address the people
    of Venezuela at the Tomb of Simon Bolivar.
        To the people of this city, I thank you for the extraordinary
    welcome you have given to Hillary and me and to our entire delegation.
    Todo esta chevere en Caracas. Todo esta chevere en Venezuela.
        Let me welcome especially all the young people who have come here
    today and say a special word of appreciation to the National Youth
    Orchestra, which played our national anthems and my favorite march so
    magnificently. It is the young and their future that I wish to speak on
    this day.
        It is especially fitting that we meet here at the Panteon National,
    for the liberator belongs not only to Venezuela and the other nations of
    the Andes; Bolivar belongs to all the Americas. He stands alongside
    Washington and San Martin and the pantheon of liberty's heroes. He was
    the first to imagine a hemisphere of democracies, united by shared goals
    and common values. His example stirred the hearts of men and women
    throughout our region. Indeed, today, we in the United States can still
    mark the frontier of our Nation in the 1820's by finding our towns, our
    counties, our villages named Bolivar in the States of Missouri, Ohio,
    Tennessee, and West Virginia.
        When the liberator died, his vision of freedom and peace in the
    Americas seemed an impossibility. How I wish he were here today to see
    his spiritual heirs here in Venezuela and throughout the Americas
    turning his dream into a reality.
        Our hemisphere is growing closer every day. Driven by shared values
    and common purposes, we have put the age-old dream of a democratic and
    prosperous family of the Americas within our reach. In the last decade,
    every nation in the Americas but one has embraced democracy, giving its
    people a vibrant free press, free elections, and the rule of law.
    Decades of coups and bloody civil wars have given way to the peaceful
    transition of power. Stifling command economies have been replaced by
    free markets, giving innovation and more jobs and higher incomes. We are
    joined in the search for social justice within market economies. And we
    are all working to leave our children a planet as healthy and bountiful
    as the one we inherited.
        I come here today to salute the people of Venezuela for the
    extraordinary part you are playing in this quiet revolution of the
    Americas, and especially to salute President Caldera for a lifetime of
    leadership for liberty. You, Mr. President, have carried the torch that
    Bolivar lit for more than half a century, and we are all in your debt.
        Other nations in our hemisphere have been drawn to the path you have
    blazed. For Venezuela is a world center of energy: oh, yes, petroleum,
    but also energy for peace and freedom; energy for democracy and
    prosperity; and I might add, energy for world-class baseball players.

    [[Page 1346]]

        Your democracy has weathered powerful challenges, but never wavered.
    Under the leadership of President Caldera, you are building a state that
    is popular, just, and moral; a state in which, as Bolivar said, the rule
    of law will signify the triumph of equality and freedom.
        Americans look to Venezuela and see a growing economy, renewed and
    strengthened by sacrifice. We know the hardships you have endured; but
    look what you have achieved. You have cut your debt and cut inflation by
    more than half. You are moving industries into the competitive free
    market. You are opening your doors to foreign investment to create new
    opportunities for Venezuelan workers. And your determination will pay
    off in more jobs, higher incomes, and better prospects for your children
    in the coming century.
        We Americans also look to Venezuela and see an example of how
    different people can come together as one community and one nation. On
    this day, we recall the moment when Columbus joined the peoples of the
    Old World and the New World. Venezuela shows all of us how we can draw
    strength from the joining of different peoples.
        From Bosnia to Central Africa, from Northern Ireland to the Middle
    East, one of the greatest challenges to peace and freedom in the world
    comes from people who hate others because of their religious or racial
    or ethnic differences. And they claim those differences as justification
    for taking away their political rights, their homes, their freedom,
    sometimes even their very lives.
        Venezuela has shown us a better way. Here, the children of
    Europeans, indigenous Americans, and Africans live together as one
    people. Here, every Venezuelan is a ciudadano.
        For all the progress we have made together to advance democracy,
    free markets, and full citizenship, we much acknowledge that a great
    challenge remains to make these forces work to the benefit of all our
    people. To do that we will have to intensify our efforts for economic
    growth, social justice, and environmental protection and against the
    common threats to our security.
        At the Summit of the Americas in Miami, our nations pledged to
    create a free-trade area of the Americas by 2005, uniting the creative
    energies of 800 million of us, from Alaska to Argentina. We will tear
    down the barriers of the past and open wide the doors of the 21st
    century. The speedy exchange of goods, ideas, and investment will bring
    benefits of the new economy to all people, including the people of
    Venezuela--from the oil workers of Monagas to the ranchers of Llanos to
    the entrepreneurs of Maracaibo.
        I want the United States to do its part, and I am seeking the fast-
    track negotiating authority from Congress that every American President
    has had for over 20 years, so that we can work with our partners to open
    markets, create jobs, and raise living standards for all.
        We must also recognize that no democracy, including the United
    States, has yet found the perfect formula for growing a free economy
    while preserving and extending the social contract for all our people.
    That is why we must work harder together to alleviate poverty, lift the
    conditions of working people throughout the hemisphere, and give
    everyone a chance to be a winner in the new economy.
        While we do not have all the answers, we do know we must begin with
    the reality that whether we all like it or not, global economic
    integration is on a fast track. And therefore, we must give all our
    people the tools necessary to compete and succeed in it.
        Because we want all our people to succeed we have, from the Summit
    of the Americas in Miami to next year's summit in Santiago, put
    education at the center of our cooperation. All our children must be
    ready for tomorrow.
        And we owe it to our children to see that today's progress does not
    come at tomorrow's expense. We must do more all across the Americas to
    improve our stewardship of the environment, clean our air, clear our
    water, keep toxic chemicals out of our soil, and reduce the volume of
    greenhouse gases we put into our atmosphere, risking dramatic and
    dangerous changes in the climate for our children and our grandchildren.
        And just as we work together to seize the opportunities of this new
    era, so we must also move together swiftly and strongly against the new
    threats it has produced. In both our countries, drugs poison our
    children and threaten our neighborhoods. The United States is working to
    reduce drug demand at home and to attack drugs all along the pipeline
    that brings them into our streets and our schools. Today our Governments
    signed wide-ranging agreements that join us in an alliance against
    drugs.

    [[Page 1347]]

    Thank you, Venezuela, for the tough stand you are taking in this fight
    for our common future.
        And I thank President Caldera for leading this hemisphere in the
    fight against corruption. Corruption destroys confidence in fragile
    democracies, erodes free markets, saps the strength of law enforcement.
    It undermines all we are working so hard to build. Venezuela's
    leadership has led to a common commitment to fight corruption, to beat
    it back, to stamp it out.
        To the people of Venezuela, I want you to know the United States is
    determined to work with you in a spirit of respect and equality, as
    friends and partners to claim the benefits and carry the burdens of this
    new era.
        Now, on this day when we remember Columbus' remarkable arrival over
    500 years ago in the Americas, we embark on a new voyage toward a new
    century and a new millennium, steering our course by the stars of
    freedom and democracy, partnership and respect, prosperity and security,
    not for just a few but for all our citizens.
        Here, before the Tomb of Simon Bolivar, let us pledge to redeem in
    full the vision of the liberator. More than 160 years ago, he spoke to
    us of a Western Hemisphere that commanded envy and respect, as he said,
    ``Not so much by virtue of her area and wealth, but by her freedom and
    her glory.''
        Today, I pledge to you, hijos de Bolivar, that by our work, now and
    into the new millennium, we will secure that freedom. And with it, the
    glory of all the people of the Americas.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:10 a.m. at the Plaza El Panteon.