    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [August 20, 1999]
    [Pages 1461-1463]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at an American Ireland Fund Dinner in Nantucket, Massachusetts
    August 20, 1999

        Thank you very much. Let me begin by joining others in thanking
    Bob and Mia for having
    us in their beautiful, beautiful home and making us all feel at home. I
    thank Jack and Lyle
    for their work on the fundraisers and for all the many things they've
    done for me over many, many years. I thank all the board members of the
    American Ireland Fund who are here.
        And I congratulate you on honoring Tim Russert. You know, most of us who have tried to be professionally
    Irish--[laughter]--you know, we get our Irish shtick down, you know.
    This is about the best I've ever seen. [Laughter] And I say it because--
    it is because it's genuine. You could feel it. You could feel it. His
    heart was in his remarks. You could see it was yesterday that he was a
    young man writing that statement for Senator Moynihan.
        For the American Irish, which is probably the largest diaspora in
    the world, the last 30 years of the Troubles have been a source of
    enormous heartbreak and frustration and sometimes downright disgust, but
    always, always, love. And I want to thank Tim
    for his continuing passionate commitment to the principles of peace and
    equality in Ireland. And I thank you for honoring him.
        I also want to thank you more than I can say for honoring
    Hillary with the proceeds of this
    fundraiser to Vital Voices. In so many ways in Ireland, we have moved
    almost in two different worlds in the last 6\1/2\ years. And sometimes,
    I think her world will have more to do with whether peace really takes
    hold than the one that I have moved in.
        The first big decision I had to make was whether to give a visa to
    Gerry Adams. Remember? And I was told--here I
    was, this ardent Anglophile who had spent 2 years in college in England
    and knew most of the Kings of England in order and all of that sort of
    stuff, and the Queen--and they said, ``Well, if you do this, you will
    just destroy the special relationship between the United States and
    Britain.'' And I

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    said, ``Well, if I don't do it, we're never going to get anybody off the
    dime over there.''
        And so we made it absolutely clear that we would not tolerate
    terrorism, that this trip could not be used to raise money to buy guns
    or ammunition, that this was to be a gesture of peace. Well, the rest is
    history, good, bad, and indifferent, but at least it got us off the
    dime. And the Irish people have pretty well done the rest. They voted
    for the Good Friday accords in overwhelming numbers. We had the
    parliamentary elections following on them. We've had a lot of
    institutions start.
        But let me say that I think one of the things that made all this
    possible is the American Ireland Fund for the last 20 years. Why?
    Because all that money you raised and put in there created opportunity
    after opportunity after opportunity for people, and so they saw there
    could be a different future.
        You know, one of the problems you have if you go into a place like
    Kosovo now, to get people to quit killing each other and staying in the
    same old rut--hating people because they're not in their tribe and the
    way they worship God or their ethnic group--is that they cannot imagine
    a tomorrow that is different from yesterday and today.
        The American Ireland Fund, by just being there, in Ireland and in
    Northern Ireland for 20 years, you know, the place is booming now, but
    for most of the last 20 years it was about the poorest country in
    Europe. And you were there, day-in and day-out, month-in and month-out,
    year-in and year-out, and I am telling you it made a difference. I know.
    I've been there. I've been on the streets. I've been in those
    neighborhoods. I've seen your projects. I've seen the people you've
    helped.
        And so as we move forward, you ought to remember that one of the
    reasons that the Good Friday accords were overwhelmingly embraced by the
    people in the Republic and in Northern Ireland is that they could
    visualize a different tomorrow. And the American Ireland Fund helped
    them to do that, and you should be very proud of yourself.
        But one of the things that I have learned from the Middle East, from
    Northern Ireland, from Kosovo and Bosnia, from the tribal wars in Africa
    I've tried to help deal with, is that in addition to people being able
    to visualize a different tomorrow, you have to have leaders who can let
    go.
        There was reconciliation in South Africa because Nelson
    Mandela could let go; and he had a whole lot
    more to let go of than most of the Irish do. I mean, let's fess up here.
    [Laughter] He had a lot more to let go of than most of the Irish do. But
    because he could let go, we were able to make peace. And that's why I
    said what I did about Hillary and the
    Vital Voices.
        We've had some of these women in the White House in the Oval Office.
    They're very practical. I mean, people that have buried their children.
    They still get up in the morning, and they have to go to the store and
    buy food, and they have to do this, that, and the other thing, do
    practical things. And they are enormously practical people, and they
    have no vested interest in the continuation of the conflict.
        And so I say to you that helping these people in Vital Voices will
    make more than the park that Hillary talked about; there will be lots of
    parks like that and lots of things that people will do together. And
    you've got to get these kids out here. You see--if you see kids in
    Ireland, if you see kids in the Middle East, if you see kids anywhere
    who get to each other soon enough before they're taught how to hate,
    they change the whole future.
        And the last thing I want to say is this: You all--those of you who
    are really interested in this, you know what the deal is now. We had a
    big election, and the Good Friday accord was approved. Then we had
    elections for Parliament, and they worked. They were honest, and they
    were full, and everybody got into the Parliament at Stormont. And I went
    there and shook hands with them all.
        But the agreement that said anybody that got over a certain
    percentage of vote in the election would also be in the executive
    branch--and Sinn Fein got enough to get in--the agreement also said that
    there would be decommissioning that would be finished within 18 months
    according to a schedule to be set up by the Commission, which now is
    headed by General de Chastelain, the
    former Canadian Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
        So we're back to that old trust issue because the Unionists don't
    want Sinn Fein in the executive until they have a symbolic act of
    decommissioning, and the IRA say, ``Well, we don't want to do that until
    we know we're not going to get snookered.'' Well, obviously, this is at
    some

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    level, it almost looks like two kids daring each other to go first.
        But if you look beneath that, the IRA say, ``Well, it's our people
    that voted for the peace. We wanted to render our arms to them, not to
    the other side and have them claim that they got some victory over us;
    this is a victory that the people together voted for.'' So this argument
    goes on endlessly.
        Now, let me tell you, the good news is that everybody on all sides
    agrees to all parts of the Good Friday accords; everybody on all sides
    agrees that it all has to be done by next May. Nobody wants to get rid
    of anything else about the agreement, and the only problem we've got
    left is the sequencing of standing up the executive branch and
    decommissioning. That is all that will be discussed when Senator
    Mitchell reconvenes the group on
    September 6th. And when the Good Friday agreements were reached, it was
    anticipated that roadblocks might develop, and so they set this up.
        So all I would say to all of you is that part of this problem is
    trust, and at some point, they're going to have to figure out a way that
    they're both trusting each other at the same time. So you get out of
    this ``you go first.'' You know, it's like two kids standing on a big
    old diving board holding hands and looking down into a deep pool.
        Part of it is that, unlike the women that Hillary deals with in
    Vital Voices, some of these folks have been doing this for so long that
    their whole identity is caught up in the continuation of the conflict. I
    say this in all respect. I'm not attacking them, but it's true.
        So what we have to do is to find ways to help them let go. And
    that's why the work of the American Ireland Fund is still important.
    Even though the economy is going like crazy--I've talked to Tony
    Blair and Bertie Ahern
    about this repeatedly--we have got to target those critical
    decisionmakers and give them an image of a life they can have that will
    be meaningful and rich. I don't mean materially rich; I mean it'll have
    a lot of texture and meaning and standing in the community if they let
    go.
        So thank you for what you've done. Thank you for supporting Vital
    Voices. The women are doing better than the men now in promoting peace,
    for the reasons I've said. [Laughter] But this deal in September may be
    our last chance for a generation, and we cannot blow it. It's too late
    to turn back now, as Mr. Morrison sang. [Laughter] It is too late. And
    so we need the voices. I can look at people in this room that--I know
    I've been working on this now with many of you for a long time. We have
    got to help them let go. And you can do it.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:25 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Bob and Mia Matthews; event
    cochairs Jack Manning and Lyle Howland; Tim Russert, Washington bureau
    chief, NBC News; Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams; former President Nelson
    Mandela of South Africa; Gen. John de Chastelain, Canadian Defense
    Forces, member and chair, Independent International Commission on
    Decommissioning; Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; Prime
    Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland; former Senator George J. Mitchell, who
    chaired the multiparty talks in Ireland; and the late Jim Morrison,
    singer of The Doors.