[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[March 25, 1998]
[Pages 431-434]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Genocide Survivors in Kigali, Rwanda
March 25, 1998

    Thank you, Mr. President. First, let 
me thank you, Mr. President, and Vice President Kagame, and your wives for making Hillary and me and our delegation feel so 
welcome. I'd also like to thank the young students who met us and the 
musicians, the dancers who were outside. I thank especially the 
survivors of the genocide and those who are working to rebuild your 
country for spending a little time with us before we came in here.
    I have a great delegation of Americans with me, leaders of our 
Government, leaders of our Congress, distinguished American citizens. 
We're all very grateful to be here. We thank the diplomatic corps for 
being here and the members of the Rwandan Government and especially the 
citizens.
    I have come today to pay the respects of my Nation to all who 
suffered and all who perished in the Rwandan genocide. It is my hope 
that through this trip, in every corner of the world today and tomorrow, 
their story will be told; that 4 years ago in this beautiful, green, 
lovely land, a clear and conscious decision was made by those then in 
power that the peoples of this country would not live side by side in 
peace.
    During the 90 days that began on April 6 in 1994, Rwanda experienced 
the most extensive slaughter in this blood-filled century we are about 
to leave: families murdered in their homes, people hunted down, as they 
fled, by soldiers and militia, through farmland and woods as if they 
were animals.
    From Kibuye in the west to Kibungo in the east, people gathered 
seeking refuge in churches by the thousands, in hospitals, in schools. 
And when they were found, the old and the sick, the women and children 
alike, they were killed, killed because their identity card said they 
were Tutsi or because they had a Tutsi parent or because someone thought 
they looked like a Tutsi or slain, like thousands of Hutus, because they 
protected Tutsis or would not countenance a policy that sought to wipe 
out people who just the day before, and for years before, had been their 
friends and neighbors.
    The Government-led effort to exterminate Rwanda's Tutsi and moderate 
Hutus, as you know better than me, took at least a million lives. 
Scholars of these sorts of events say that the killers, armed mostly 
with machetes and clubs, nonetheless did their work 5 times as fast as 
the mechanized gas chambers used by the Nazis.
    It is important that the world know that these killings were not 
spontaneous or accidental. It is important that the world hear what your 
President just said: They were most certainly not the result of ancient 
tribal struggles. Indeed, these people had lived together for centuries 
before the events the President described began to unfold.

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    These events grew from a policy aimed at the systematic destruction 
of a people. The ground for violence was carefully prepared, the 
airwaves poisoned with hate, casting the Tutsis as scapegoats for the 
problems of Rwanda, denying their humanity. All of this was done, 
clearly, to make it easy for otherwise reluctant people to participate 
in wholesale slaughter.
    Lists of victims, name by name, were actually drawn up in advance. 
Today, the images of all that, haunt us all: the dead choking the Kigara 
River, floating to Lake Victoria. In their fate, we are reminded of the 
capacity for people everywhere, not just in Rwanda and certainly not 
just in Africa, but the capacity for people everywhere, to slip into 
pure evil. We cannot abolish that capacity, but we must never accept it. 
And we know it can be overcome.
    The international community, together with nations in Africa, must 
bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not 
act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed 
the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not 
immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We 
cannot change the past, but we can and must do everything in our power 
to help you build a future without fear and full of hope.
    We owe to those who died and to those who survived, who loved them, 
our every effort to increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand 
against those who would commit such atrocities in the future, here or 
elsewhere. Indeed, we owe to all the peoples of the world who are at 
risk because each bloodletting hastens the next as the value of human 
life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the unimaginable 
becomes more conceivable, we owe to all the people in the world our best 
efforts to organize ourselves so that we can maximize the chances of 
preventing these events. And where they cannot be prevented, we can move 
more quickly to minimize the horror.
    So let us challenge ourselves to build a world in which no branch of 
humanity, because of national, racial, ethnic, or religious origin, is 
again threatened with destruction because of those characteristics of 
which people should rightly be proud. Let us work together as a 
community of civilized nations to strengthen our ability to prevent and, 
if necessary, to stop genocide.
    To that end, I am directing my administration to improve, with the 
international community, our system for identifying and spotlighting 
nations in danger of genocidal violence, so that we can assure worldwide 
awareness of impending threats. It may seem strange to you here, 
especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over 
the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day 
after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with 
which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.
    We have seen, too--and I want to say again--that genocide can occur 
anywhere. It is not an African phenomenon and must never be viewed as 
such. We have seen it in industrialized Europe; we have seen it in Asia. 
We must have global vigilance. And never again must we be shy in the 
face of the evidence.
    Secondly, we must, as an international community, have the ability 
to act when genocide threatens. We are working to create that capacity 
here in the Great Lakes region, where the memory is still fresh. This 
afternoon in Entebbe leaders from central and eastern Africa will meet 
with me to launch an effort to build a coalition to prevent genocide in 
this region. I thank the leaders who have stepped forward to make this 
commitment. We hope the effort can be a model for all the world, because 
our sacred task is to work to banish this greatest crime against 
humanity.
    Events here show how urgent the work is. In the northwest part of 
your country, attacks by those responsible for the slaughter in 1994 
continue today. We must work as partners with Rwanda to end this 
violence and allow your people to go on rebuilding your lives and your 
nation.
    Third, we must work now to remedy the consequences of genocide. The 
United States has provided assistance to Rwanda to settle the uprooted 
and restart its economy, but we must do more. I am pleased that America 
will become the first nation to contribute to the new Genocide Survivors 
Fund. We will contribute this year $2 million, continue our support in 
the years to come, and urge other nations to do the same, so that 
survivors and their communities can find the care they need and the help 
they must have.
    Mr. President, to you, and to you, Mr. 
Vice President, you have shown great vision in 
your efforts to create a single nation in which all

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citizens can live freely and securely. As you pointed out, Rwanda was a 
single nation before the European powers met in Berlin to carve up 
Africa. America stands with you, and will continue helping the people of 
Rwanda to rebuild their lives and society.
    You spoke passionately this morning in our private meeting about the 
need for grassroots efforts, for the development projects which are 
bridging divisions and clearing a path to a better future. We will join 
with you to strengthen democratic institutions, to broaden 
participation, to give all Rwandans a greater voice in their own 
governance. The challenges you face are great, but your commitment to 
lasting reconciliation and inclusion is firm.
    Fourth, to help ensure that those who survived, in the generations 
to come, never again suffer genocidal violence, nothing is more vital 
than establishing the rule of law. There can be no place in Rwanda that 
lasts without a justice system that is recognized as such.
    We applaud the efforts of the Rwandan Government to strengthen 
civilian and military justice systems. I am pleased that our Great Lakes 
justice initiative will invest $30 million to help create throughout the 
region judicial systems that are impartial, credible, and effective. In 
Rwanda these funds will help to support courts, prosecutors, and police, 
military justice, and cooperation at the local level.
    We will also continue to pursue justice through our strong backing 
for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The United States is 
the largest contributor to this tribunal. We are frustrated, as you are, 
by the delays in the tribunal's work. As we know, we must do better. Now 
that administrative improvements have begun, however, the tribunal 
should expedite cases through group trials and fulfill its historic 
mission.
    We are prepared to help, among other things, with witness 
relocation, so that those who still fear can speak the truth in safety. 
And we will support the War Crimes Tribunal for as long as it is needed 
to do its work, until the truth is clear and justice is rendered.
    Fifth, we must make it clear to all those who would commit such acts 
in the future that they too must answer for their acts, and they will. 
In Rwanda, we must hold accountable all those who may abuse human 
rights, whether insurgents or soldiers. Internationally, as we meet 
here, talks are underway at the United Nations to establish a permanent 
international criminal court. Rwanda and the difficulties we have had 
with this special tribunal underscores the need for such a court. And 
the United States will work to see that it is created.
    I know that in the face of all you have endured, optimism cannot 
come easily to any of you. Yet I have just spoken, as I said, with 
several Rwandans who survived the atrocities, and just listening to them 
gave me reason for hope. You see countless stories of courage around you 
every day as you go about your business here. Men and women who survived 
and go on, children who recover the light in their eyes remind us that 
at the dawn of a new millennium there is only one crucial division among 
the peoples of the Earth. And believe me, after over 5 years of dealing 
with these problems, I know it is not the divisions between Hutu and 
Tutsi, or Serb or Croatian and Muslim and Bosnian, or Arab and Jew, or 
Catholic and Protestant in Ireland, or black and white. It is really the 
line between those who embrace the common humanity we all share and 
those who reject it.
    It is the line between those who find meaning in life through 
respect and cooperation and who, therefore, embrace someone to look down 
on, someone to trample, someone to punish and, therefore, embrace war. 
It is the line between those who look to the future and those who cling 
to the past. It is the line between those who give up their resentment 
and those who believe they will absolutely die if they have to release 
one bit grievance. It is the line between those who confront every day 
with a clenched fist and those who confront every day with an open hand. 
That is the only line that really counts when all is said and done.
    To those who believe that God made each of us in His own image, how 
could we choose the darker road? When you look at those children who 
greeted us as we got off that plane today, how could anyone say they did 
not want those children to have a chance to have their own children, to 
experience the joy of another morning sunrise, to learn the normal 
lessons of life, to give something back to their people? When you strip 
it all away, whether we're talking about Rwanda or some other distant 
troubled spot, the world is divided according to how people believe they 
draw meaning from life.
    And so I say to you, though the road is hard and uncertain and there 
are many difficulties

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ahead, and like every other person who wishes to help, I doubtless will 
not be able to do everything I would like to do, there are things we can 
do. And if we set about the business of doing them together, you can 
overcome the awful burden that you have endured. You can put a smile on 
the face of every child in this country, and you can make people once 
again believe that they should live as people were living who were 
singing to us and dancing for us today.
    That's what we have to believe. That is what I came here to say. And 
that is what I wish for you.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:25 p.m. at Kigali Airport. In his 
remarks, he referred to President Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda and his 
wife, Sarafina, and Vice President Paul Kagame and his wife, Janet. A 
tape was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.