[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[March 9, 1999]
[Pages 330-334]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 330]]
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Hurricane Mitch Reconstruction
Efforts in Tegucigalpa, Honduras
March 9, 1999
President Clinton. Thank you, Mr. President, for your remarks and for the extended visit we have
already had today about these matters.
I wanted to have the opportunity today to hear from a broad cross-
section of citizens of this country, and so I will be extremely brief. I
agree with the President that this
period of reconstruction should be seen as the opportunity to build
something even better than what was here before. And furthermore, I
believe that if all elements of the society are properly involved and
feel fairly treated, that the country's social fabric, sense of
community will be stronger than it was before the disaster occurred.
Many of you have paid a very high price for what has occurred, and
the losses have been staggering. But I think the--I have been quite
impressed by what has already been done and by the attitude of the
people. What the United States is interested in is how we can best be an
effective partner with you from here on in. And so I'm quite interested
in your perspective on that, as well as anything you would like to tell
me about your present activities.
I'd also like to introduce--this is Congressman Xavier
Becerra, who came here before with the First
Lady and has just finished a term as the head of the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus. He is from California. And I am delighted to have him
back with me. And Congressman Reyes from
Texas is also here with us.
Moderator. We have our archbishop--perhaps he can kick off the
discussion.
[Archbishop Oscar Rodriguez began the
discussion by thanking President Clinton, the people, and the churches
in the U.S. for their assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. He
asked the President to support trade expansion and NAFTA parity, cease
deportation of Hondurans, and support Central American efforts within
the G-7 for multilateral debt relief.]
Moderator. And this is the mayor of Tegucigalpa. I think you know
about the accident she had in the helicopter. And after that, she took
his job, and here we have her now.
[Mayor Vilma de Castellanos stated that
30 percent of Tegucigalpa was destroyed, mentioning the impact of loss
of life and damage to the economic and social infrastructure of the
city. She then presented the President with the key to the city.]
Moderator. And now we have Mario Canawati, who is president of the Chamber of Commerce and
Industry of San Pedro Sula and Cortes.
[Mr. Canawati thanked the U.S. Government and
people for support during the crisis and reconstruction. He noted that
Central America was an important trade partner of the United States,
which had been instrumental in Honduran economic and democratic
development through the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). He said the
textile and apparel industry had been excluded from CBI and that
Honduras was losing investment to Mexico as a result. He said that
Honduran exports should compete under the same conditions as NAFTA
products and called for a new version of CBI.]
Moderator. And perhaps Jacqueline Foglia from the Honduran American Chamber of Commerce
would like to speak.
[Ms. Foglia stated that Hurricane Mitch
affected agriculture more than other sectors of the economy. She noted
that since the garment industry and tourism sectors were not highly
affected, these might provide the motor for economic reconstruction. She
outlined steps that the Honduran American Chamber of Commerce was taking
to advance reconstruction efforts with the Association of American
Chambers of Commerce of Latin America, in Washington, DC, such as
working toward a U.S. legislative reconstruction package which would
include greater access to U.S. markets, promoting faster economic
recovery, job creation, and overall economic benefits for Honduras.]
Moderator. And now, Jorge Quinones,
director of the Vida Foundation.
[Mr. Quinones thanked the President and the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for its help in
Honduran environmental projects. He stated that in the aftermath of the
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hurricane, reforestation and sustainable management of water basins were
the most formidable challenges in reconstruction. He added that
environmental education needed to be a central part of the
reconstruction agenda.]
Moderator. And Mariano Flanos now, from
Save the Children.
[Mr. Flanos stated that Save the Children
used financing from the people and Government of the United States,
especially from USAID, to support over 50,000 people in such areas as
home construction, rehabilitation of water systems and schools, and
equipment for clinics and hospitals.]
Moderator. And now, Ricardo Maduro, a businessman.
[Mr. Maduro, president of a private education
foundation, stated that Hurricane Mitch had substantially damaged the
Honduran education infrastructure and reduced the public and private
capacity to invest in education. He suggested using nontraditional
methods such as radio and television to reach students and expressed the
need for more computers in education and teaching English as a second
language. A spokesman for the Flores administration said the Government
was working with the International Monetary Fund for bilateral and
multilateral debt relief, developing a reconstruction master plan with a
consultative group in Sweden, and strengthening the mechanisms of
financial transparency through international auditing. Representative
Xavier Becerra commended the Hondurans for
the improvements made since his visit in November 1998 and pledged to
work hard in Congress to provide as much support for the region as
possible.]
President Clinton. First of all, I would like to thank you all for
your presentations and for making them quite specific and to the point.
I would like to respond to a number of the points that were made. First
of all, I have sent legislation to the Congress, just last week before I
came here, asking for greater liberalization of trade for the Central
American and Caribbean nations to move closer toward parity with NAFTA
in Mexico. I have--it does not go as far in everything that I'm sure a
lot of you would do, but it does as much as we believe we can pass in
the Congress.
I was profoundly disappointed last year that we did not pass the
trade-opening initiative. And of course, after the hurricane struck, I
was even more disappointed. I think now, ironically because of the
hurricane, we may have a better chance to pass a bill. And I will do
everything I can to that end.
With regard to debt relief, part of the package that I have proposed
to the Congress in aid, as opposed to trade, about a $965 million
package, a part of it involves the debt deferral and outright debt
forgiveness, both of which would give very much needed debt relief not
only to Honduras but to the other Central American nations. If the
Congress will go along with me and pass this, it will give me the
standing to argue more forcefully to the other nations and to the
international organizations that they must follow suit.
I think, clearly, Honduras should be given relief under the highly
indebted countries initiative that the United States has done a lot to
create. I believe we should do more. I think the fact that the Holy
Father has made this a year in which he's
calling for people to do more debt relief will, frankly, be enormously
helpful, and I told him that when I was in St. Louis recently. And I
would urge you to communicate this to the Vatican, that if there could
be more of this, like sort of a constant reminder, it would be highly
effective, even perhaps establishing some sort of priority saying you
ought to do at least Central America and then something in Africa and
something in Asia to give hope to the people on those continents,
something like that.
But I think on a thing like this it's not enough to say it one time.
We have to keep working. But I think Central America has a special claim
here, Honduras, Nicaragua, the other countries as well. Because one of
the arguments I always hear, even in my own country, about debt
forgiveness is, ``Well, look, you know if you''--and the former banker
here understands this--``if you forgive it all, well, then nobody will
want to loan any money tomorrow because they'll think all of that will
be forgiven, too.'' Well, in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster
in centuries here, it seems to me that argument just doesn't hold water
here. It might be true in the case of an Asian country that had a bad
banking system and got in an economic problem for local reasons; but it
seems to me, insofar as the present predicament of Central America is a
direct result of the hurricane, that argument has no standing.
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So I will do the best I can. But again, I would urge all of you to
stay on that because relieving the government of the financial burden of
the payments will free up a lot of money for education and other things
as well.
On the deportation, I think you know, Archbishop
Rodriguez, because you spoke in a way that
indicated you did, I have done what I could to minimize the impact of
some of our immigration laws, not only on Hondurans but on all the
people of Central America. I, frankly, believe I have done all I can do
under the law. Now, because there was such hardship here, so much
devastation, I was able to provide some greater consideration for the
Hondurans that have come to the United States. But I think it would be a
mistake to sort of openly encourage more people to come, in violation of
our laws and quotas, because there is--I have gone to the limit of what
I can now do. And I think it is far more important for us to concentrate
on getting this aid package passed, getting the debt relief, getting the
trade relief, getting the renewal of the economy here going.
Let me just mention three other issues very quickly. One of you
mentioned the need for more loans for small business and
microbusinesses. We have our USAID Director here with me, Mr.
Atwood. I think the United States funded 2
million microenterprise loans last year through AID around the world. My
wife is--probably talked about that
when she was here. This is a passion of hers and has been for about 15
years now.
And we have found, in our own country, when we have a natural
disaster--you know, we had a flood, a 500-year flood in the Mississippi
River 5 years ago, and one of the most important funds that we have is
the fund that provides for special credit for small businesses who
otherwise could not get it.
So I don't know whether there's anything special, Mr. President, we
could do to help, for the small and micro-enterprises or to try to
establish even a broader and more adequate international fund for such
things in the face of disasters. But we always find, even in America,
which has a very sophisticated banking system, that they are the first
casualties of natural disasters that wreck the economies of whole
communities. So if we could help you in that, I would be happy to.
There are just two other things that were mentioned. With regard to
the environment, I think that--you said, sir, that you felt that the
disaster would have been even worse had it not been for some of the
environmental practices here in Honduras. Yesterday, when I was in
Nicaragua, there was no question that it was worse in the places where
there had been vast deforestation and nothing to protect the people from
the mudslides. And you have a lot of serious--the President was telling me today, you have a lot of
serious decisions to make about, you know, how to replenish the soil
which has been destroyed, where the topsoil has been carried away or
perhaps the nutrients have been washed away and the crops won't grow
anymore.
I will do whatever I can. In this aid package, we have some
significant amount of money for environmental investments. But I will do
whatever I can to be particularly helpful there. I think it would be--
not only with the United States but with others as well--I think the
more we know about the specific plans and strategies, the better off we
will be.
But if you look at our hemisphere, our region here, it's perfectly
obvious that the countries that have done the best job of preserving
their natural environment are going to be the strongest economically,
also, over the long run. And yet, one of the greatest battles we face in
the world today, in this larger struggle over climate change, which may
or may not have had anything to do with Hurricane Mitch--we don't know.
No one knows for sure. But the larger battle is that in most countries,
most decisionmakers do not believe you can grow an economy unless you
continue to use its resources at an unsustainable rate--that is, at a
greater rate than they can be replaced--and do not believe you can grow
an economy unless you increase, year-in and year-out, the amount of fuel
and energy you are using that contributes to greenhouse gases--coal and
oil, for example.
Now, all the evidence is against that proposition, but old ideas die
hard. And I do believe that because of economies of scale, if for no
other reason, and because of some of the stunning examples already set
by the preservation of the biosphere or by the energy patterns adopted
in Costa Rica, for example, that Central America may be in a unique
position to get lots of investment to prove to the rest of the world
that we don't have to destroy the environment to grow the economy. And
so I would be happy to exert some extra efforts to help
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you get some investments in that regard, but again, I think the
specifics are important.
For example, I'll just say one thing. The last time I was in Costa
Rica, I noticed they were driving--the buses they were using, the school
buses they were using, the transportation buses they were using, were
powered by electricity or natural gas, and they were all made by a
company in Vice President Gore's home State. And there are lots of
things--if we knew what the strategy was here and what the priorities
were, there might be a lot of things we could do to be helpful.
The last thing I'd like to say is, I want to endorse what was said
earlier by you, Mr. Maduro, about education.
And I would be happy for us to have a long-term partnership on that, but
again, I don't feel that I know enough to know what your immediate
priorities are. The United States has had some success in working with
countries in various parts of the world in helping to increase more
rapidly the number of children going to school. And of course, as you
pointed out, there's no point in increasing the number of children going
to school unless you have a place for them to go to school, a teacher to
teach them, and materials with which they learn. But I do not believe
that you can come anywhere close to doing what you want to do in
Honduras if it takes you a decade to add one more year to the average
schooling.
And there may be a way--I'm going to talk about this a little bit
tomorrow--but this is a year in which a lot of countries are trying to
pass this international convention against child labor, which the church
has been strongly supportive of and which I strongly support. But I
think it would be interesting to see whether we could marry the
commitment of countries to support the convention against child labor
with a commitment of the advanced countries that are pushing to help to
dramatically increase investment in those countries in education, so
that you're saying not just that you don't want the children in the
factory but you do want them in the school. And there may be a way that
we could dramatically accelerate the rate, the average schooling here.
Now, I have all these people from my administration here, plus
Lieutenant Governor MacKay, former Lieutenant
Governor of Florida, who now will be my new Special Envoy to Latin
America, and Mr. Atwood and the others are
all here, so--and your Ambassadors. He's our Ambassador, but I think
he's really your Ambassador. [Laughter] But we will follow up on this.
On the environment and on education, the more specific you can be about
what you want us to do, the more we can be helpful, I think. On all
these areas, I will do my best.
The last thing I'd like to say is, I'd like to thank the
gentleman from Save the Children. My wife and
I have been involved with Save the Children for more than 20 years, long
before we ever thought we would be in national political life. And as
soon as this hurricane occurred, she gave some money from her foundation
to Save the Children through operations here. So I thank you for what
you're doing. The organization has done great work in our home area as
well, and I thank all of you.
This was a very good set of presentations, and you gave me a lot to
go home and work on.
[President Carlos Roberto Flores of
Honduras expressed his appreciation to President Clinton and noted the
representation in the audience of nongovernmental organizations, labor
unions, private enterprise, and religious groups. He said his government
did not want to promote emigration to the United States, but asked that
Hondurans already there receive the same treatment other Central
American countries' nationals receive by law.]
President Clinton. Well, I think you know that I strongly believe in
that. I think that the present American immigration law and how it
treats people that were in our country as of some time ago is an
inexcusable remnant of the cold war and wrong. I haven't said anything
to you I haven't said at home. I think that--people came to the United
States because they felt oppressed and are entitled to stay in our
country because they came here; it shouldn't matter whether they felt
the oppression from the left or the right. I mean, if it's a rational
category, people should be treated the same regardless of what the facts
are. But the real issue is that all the countries in Central America
should be treated the same insofar as whatever the objective facts were
that brought the people to our country. So if people should come home,
then they should be treated the same; if people should be able to stay,
they should be treated the same. That's what I believe.
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[President Flores said he was
optimistic about Honduras' recuperation from Hurricane Mitch but
expressed concern that the difficulties it presented could undermine the
democracy his nation had fought so hard to attain. He said the challenge
would be to show the Honduran people that the system would work for
them. He concluded by thanking the President for coming.]
President Clinton. Thank you. Let
me just say one thing as we break up. I have heard this--and one of the
reasons I am grateful that we have Members of our Congress here is that
we have these bills up there; they can be addressed now. I think there
is an overwhelming understanding in both parties in the Congress that we
have to pass the aid bill. And I think the only thing that we have to do
is to make sure that political considerations in America that have
nothing to do with Central America, things that are back home don't in
any way hold up the consideration of either piece of legislation, and so
we will work hard on it.
Thank you.
Oh, I have to get my key to the city. If I wear this to dinner
tonight, I'll get a discount. [Laughter]
Thank you.
Note: The discussion began at 2:52 p.m. in the conference room at the
Central Bank. In his remarks, the President referred to Pope John Paul
II. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because the tape
was incomplete.