[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[March 25, 1998]
[Pages 430-431]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Departure from Entebbe, Uganda, and an Exchange With 
Reporters
March 25, 1998

Jonesboro Incident

    The President. Just before I left the hotel this morning, I talked 
to the Governor of Arkansas and extended my 
personal condolences and sorrow about the terrible incident in Jonesboro 
yesterday. I attempted to call the mayor 
who is an old friend of mine, but I haven't reached him yet.
    I just want to say again how profoundly sad I am and how disturbed I 
am. I've been thinking about this for the last several hours. This is 
the third incident in the last few months involving young children and 
violence in schools, and I'm going to ask the Attorney General to find whatever experts there are in our country on 
this and try to analyze this terrible tragedy to see whether there are 
any common elements in this incident and the other two, and whether it 
indicates any further action on our part.
    Today the people in my home State and a town I know very well are 
grieving. They're suffering losses. And we should focus on that. But I 
do think, in the weeks to come, we have to analyze these incidents and 
see whether or not we can learn anything that will tell us what we can 
do to prevent further ones.
    Q. Do you have any thoughts about how to stop this? I mean, if 
you've been thinking about it, anything come to mind, sir?
    The President. I don't want to say too much until we have a chance 
to analyze them. I don't know enough about the facts of this incident. 
The facts of this incident are just now coming out. I've read, 
obviously, all the latest wire reports I can get, and frankly I'm not 
sure I know enough about the other two to draw any conclusions.
    I don't want the American people to jump to any conclusions, but 
when three horrible tragedies like this involving young people who take 
other people's lives and then in the process destroy their own, we have 
to see if there are some common elements. And we'll look and do our best 
to do the right thing.
    Q. Do you suspect that there are some common elements, sir?
    The President. Well, the circumstances certainly seem to have a lot 
in common. What we need to know is what's behind the circumstances. As I 
said, I think that the American people today should send their thoughts, 
their prayers, their hopes to the people in Jonesboro.

[[Page 431]]

But in the weeks ahead, we need to look into this very closely and see 
what, if anything, we can find. And then, if we do find some patterns, 
we ought to take whatever action seems appropriate.

President's Visit to Rwanda

    Q. Your trip to Rwanda, could you give us just a little advance word 
of what you hope to accomplish there, sir?
    The President. Obviously, I hope that my trip there will help to 
avoid further killing along the ethnic lines and bring the attention of 
the world to this in a way that will have an impact on ethnic conflicts 
in other parts of the world. And then I'm going to come back here to the 
regional meeting that President Museveni has agreed to host, and I hope we'll come out with a 
statement there that will allow us to make further progress.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:05 a.m. at Entebbe Airport. In his 
remarks, he referred to Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas; Mayor Hubert A. 
Brodell of Jonesboro, AR; and President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of 
Uganda. A tape was not available for verification of the content of 
these remarks.