    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [December 22, 1997]
    [Pages 1814-1817]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1814]]

    Remarks to the Community in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
    December 22, 1997

        Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we should give a
    round of applause to Farouk and to Masha. They did a wonderful job, and
    I'm very proud of them. [Applause]
        I thank the Sarajevo Philharmonic, President Izetbegovic, President
    Zubak, members of the Bosnian Government; to the religious leaders who
    are here, the representatives of civilian and voluntary agencies from
    around the world, the members of the American delegation; to Senator and
    Mrs. Dole, Members of Congress; General Shelton, General Clark, General
    Shinseki; to the people of Sarajevo and the people of Bosnia.
        Let me say that all of us from the United States are very honored to
    be here, to gather in the dawn after a long darkness. For us this is a
    season of celebration, and we give thanks that the will for peace has
    triumphed over the weapons of war. At the edge of the 21st century, we
    come here to resolve to build a new era, free of the 20th century's
    worst moments and full of its most brilliant possibilities.
        What my family and I and our party have seen in the streets of
    Sarajevo has been deeply moving to us. Only a little more than 2 years
    ago, men, women, and children ran the gauntlet of snipers and shells in
    a desperate search for water. Now they walk in security to work and
    school. Then, sheets of plastic covered nearly every window. Now there
    is mostly glass, and plastic is rare. Then, people lived in the rubble
    of bombed out buildings. Now they have roofs over their heads, heat,
    electricity, and running water. Then, Sarajevo was mired in a deep
    freeze of destruction. And now, through your labors, it has begun to
    thaw and to grow anew in the sunlight of peace. Then, shops were barren
    and cafes were empty. Now, they are filled with food and alive with
    conversation.
        And my wife and daughter and I just had some of that conversation
    and some pretty good coffee, I might add. [Laughter] We just came from a
    coffee shop where we were talking to a number of young people who work
    and study here from all different ethnic backgrounds, people determined
    to build a common future, to let go of the destructive past. And I went
    around the table and let every one of them tell me whatever they wanted
    to say. And then I said, ``Now, what is the most important thing the
    United States could do to help you on your way?'' And in unison they
    said, ``Stay for a while longer.''
        Then the time came for us to come here. And Hillary and Chelsea and
    I walked outside the coffee shop, and there's a beautiful church just
    across the street, and in front of the church there were three American
    soldiers who happened to come from a unit from Richmond, Virginia. And
    we walked over to shake hands with the soldiers, all enlisted personnel.
    And one of them said, ``We're so happy to be here. These are good
    people, and it's a good thing we're doing.''
        We in the United States are proud of our role in Bosnia's new
    beginning. Look at the group who came here today from our Government:
    the Secretary of State; three four-star generals; 10 Members of
    Congress, prominent Members of Congress from both political parties; my
    distinguished opponent in the last Presidential election, Senator Dole,
    and Mrs. Dole. Americans care a lot about Bosnia; without regard to
    their party or their political differences, they care about the people.
        We also have distinguished citizens here who have worked with
    nongovernmental organizations. They are a part of the amazing
    international force of human endeavor that we have seen brought to bear
    in this remarkable land in the last couple of years; people from all
    around the world waging a day-to-day campaign of renewal with you. We
    are proud that we played a role in helping you to silence the guns and
    separate the armies, to rebuild roads and factories, to reunite children
    with their families and refugees with their homes, to oversee democratic
    elections and open the airwaves to voices of tolerance, to call to
    account those accused of war crimes. We are here because you decided to
    end the suffering and the slaughter, and because we rejected the
    prospect of another needless war spreading in the heart of Europe, and
    because citizens all over the world were literally heartbroken by your
    suffering and determined to ease it.
        To everyone who has taken part in IFOR and SFOR and civilian
    projects large and small,

    [[Page 1815]]

    I'd like to say a simple thank you. And God bless you all for what you
    have done and what you will do to change the face and the future of
    Bosnia.
        Most of all I come before you with a message for those in whose
    hands the future of Bosnia lie, its leaders and its people. For in the
    end, the future is up to you, not to the Americans, not to the
    Europeans, not to anyone else.
        Two years ago in Dayton, Ohio, the leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
    Croatia, and Serbia made a fateful choice for peace. But their
    responsibility and yours did not end there on that day. In fact, it only
    began. Your responsibility is to turn the documents signed in Dayton
    into a living reality, to make good on the pledge to bring Bosnia
    together as one country, with two multiethnic parts, sharing a common
    destiny. Those who rise to that responsibility will have the full
    support of the United States and the international community. Those who
    shirk it will isolate themselves. The world which continues to invest in
    your peace rightfully expects that you will do your part. More
    important, the people of this country expect results and they deserve
    them.
        You have accomplished much, but there is much more to do. You have
    established the joint institutions of democracy. Now you must work
    within them, sharing power as you share responsibility. You have vowed
    to welcome back those displaced from their homes by war. Now you must
    vote for the return program so that they actually can come back with
    stronger protections for minorities and more job creation. You are
    working to restore Bosnia's economy. Now you must build up the laws to
    attract assistance and investment and root out the corruption that
    undermines confidence in economies.
        You have begun to turn the media from an instrument of hate into a
    force of tolerance and understanding. Now you must raise it to
    international standards of objectivity and access and allow an
    independent press the freedom to thrive. You are taking the police out
    of the hands of warlords. Now you must help to reform, retrain, and
    reequip a democratic force that fosters security, not fear. You have
    pledged to isolate and arrest indicted war criminals. Now you must
    follow through on that commitment, both for the sake of justice and in
    the serving of lasting peace.
        Most of all, the leaders here, you owe it to your country to bring
    out the best in people, acting in concert, not conflict; overcoming
    obstacles, not creating them; rising above petty disputes, not fueling
    them. In the end, leaders in a democracy must bring out the best in
    people. But in the end, they serve the people who send them to their
    positions.
        And so to the people of Bosnia, I say today, you must make your
    desire for peace and a common future clear to the leaders of each group.
    And you must then give leaders the absolute support they need to make
    the hard decisions for a common future. The people of Bosnia can make it
    happen. The example that ordinary citizens set among your neighbors, the
    standards that you demand from your leaders will determine this nation's
    fate.
        After such a hard war, fighting aggressively for peace is difficult.
    So many have lost mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and
    daughters. So many wounds are deep and scars still fresh. Energy may be
    short, at a time when an extraordinary effort of will is required to
    wrench yourself from the past and to begin to build a future together.
    How many people who have suffered as Farouk has suffered can stand
    clearly, unambiguously for the cause of peace and a common future. Many
    must if you are to succeed. And many of you are trying to do that in
    religious and civic settings of all kinds. I thank all of those who are
    making organized efforts to build a common future, especially those who
    are mobilizing women, because they know so painfully how important
    reconciliation and reconstruction are to your families and your
    children's future.
        What I want all of you to believe today is that you can do it. In
    our time, from Guatemala to South Africa, from El Salvador to Northern
    Ireland, people are turning from conflict to conciliation. Still, the
    impulse to divide, if not to actually fight and kill, over ethnic or
    religious or racial differences, runs deep in human nature across the
    globe. It seems to be rooted in a fear of those who are different from
    ourselves and a false sense of superiority and security that separation
    and striving for supremacy seem to offer.
        In America for a long time, one race literally enslaved another. It
    took the bloodiest war in our history to break the chains of bondage and
    more than 100 years of effort since then to root out their consequences.
    And we're still working at it. But we grow always stronger as

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    we let more and more of our fears and prejudices go. The more we
    recognize that, as we live and work and learn together, what we have in
    common is far more important than our differences. So that across all
    those differences, together we affirm our devotion to faith and to
    family. We seek opportunity for all and responsibility from all. We
    believe we are immeasurably stronger as one America than as a collection
    of separate, hostile camps. And this is a point of special importance to
    you. We find that affirming our Union allows us the security to respect,
    even to celebrate, our differences.
        As we in America look ahead to a new century, we have people from
    over 180 different racial and ethnic groups who now call America home.
    We have embarked on a great national dialog across those groups about
    how we can live and prosper together in a new millennium. I would urge
    all of you to do the same thing here, to find more opportunities at the
    grassroots; to reach across the lines of division for the sake of your
    children and your future. I know that especially to the young people
    here, finding strength in your diversity may seem like an act of faith
    that requires quite a leap.
        Many young people recall little before the war. One teenage
    Sarajevan said recently, ``It's not just a question of starting again.
    It's a question of just starting.'' But I think it is important that all
    of you remember and teach that the war did violence not only to Bosnia's
    people but also to its history, its own tradition of tolerance. Just
    minutes from here, standing within yards from one another are a mosque,
    an Orthodox church, a Catholic church, and a synagogue, reminding us
    that generations of Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Jews
    live side by side and enrich the world by their example here, build
    schools and libraries and wondrous places of worship. Part of that
    population laid down their tools on Friday, part on Saturday, and part
    on Sunday. But their lives were woven together by marriage and culture,
    by work and common language and a shared pride in a place all could call
    home. That past should be remembered. And you should do everything in
    your power to make it a prolog. History can be your ally, not your
    enemy.
        I am persuaded, having served in this office for 5 years, that the
    real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs;
    Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real
    differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would
    destroy it, between those who look to the future and those who cling to
    the past, between those who open their arms and those who are determined
    to clench their fists, between those who believe that God made all of us
    equal and those foolish enough to believe they are superior to others
    just because of the color of their skin, of the religion of their
    families, of their ethnic background. This is a very small nation on an
    increasingly small planet. None of us has the moral standing to look
    down on another, and we should stop it.
        I was thrilled that the Sarajevo symphony played before I was
    introduced to speak. Its violinist and cellist, percussionist and
    flutist, played together before the war, stayed together during the war,
    answered the mortars and shells with the sounds of music. Seven of the
    members were killed--Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. Well, they're still
    here, and they're still Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. And to tell you the
    truth, I know the tuba players from the violinists, but I can't tell the
    Muslims from the Croats from the Serbs. The harmony of their disparate
    voices--the harmony of their disparate voices--is what I hear. It
    reminds me of Bosnia's best past, and it should be the clarion call to
    your future.
        Here at the dawn of the new millennium, let us recall that the
    century we are leaving began with the sound of gunfire in Sarajevo. And
    let us vow to start the new century with the music of peace in Sarajevo.
        To the people of Bosnia I say, you have seen what war has wrought;
    now you know what peace can bring. So seize the chance before you. You
    can do nothing to change the past, but if you can let it go, you can do
    everything to build a future. The world is watching, and the world is
    with you. But the choice is yours. May you make the right one.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. at the National Theater. In his
    remarks, he referred to Farouk Sabanovic and Masha Mishdin, who
    introduced the President; Alija Izetbegovic, Presidency Chairman, and
    Kresimir Zubak, Presidency Member, National Government, Bosnia-
    Herzegovina; former Senator Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, president,
    American Red Cross; Gen. Henry H. Shelton, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of
    Staff; Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Supreme Allied Commander,

    [[Page 1817]]

    Europe; and Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, Commander, U.S. Army, Europe. The
    President also referred to the NATO-led Implementation Force in Bosnia
    (IFOR) and the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia (SFOR).