[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 6, 2000]
[Pages 1758-1760]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks to the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York City
September 6, 2000
Madam President, Mr. Secretary-
General, my fellow leaders, let me begin by
saying it is a great honor to have this unprecedented gathering of world
leaders in the United States.
We come together not just at a remarkable moment on the calendar but
at the dawn of a new era in human affairs, when globalization and the
revolution in information technology have brought us closer together
than ever before. To an extent unimaginable just a few years ago, we
reach across geographical and cultural divides. We know what is going on
in each other's countries. We share experiences, triumphs, tragedies,
aspirations.
Our growing interdependence includes the opportunity to explore and
reap the benefits of the far frontiers of science and the increasingly
interconnected economy. And as the Secretary-General just reminded us, it also includes shared
responsibilities to free humanity from poverty, disease, environmental
destruction, and war. That responsibility, in turn, requires us to make
sure the United Nations is up for the job.
Fifty-five years ago the U.N. was formed to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war. Today there are more people in this
room with the power to achieve that goal than have ever been gathered in
one place. We find today fewer wars between nations, but more wars
within them. Such internal conflicts, often driven by ethnic and
religious differences, took 5 million lives in the last decade, most of
them completely innocent victims.
These conflicts present us with a stark challenge: Are they part of
the scourge the U.N. was established to prevent? If so, we must respect
sovereignty and territorial integrity but still find a way to protect
people as well as borders.
The last century taught us that there are times when the
international community must take a side, not merely stand between the
sides or on the sidelines. We faced such a test and met it when Mr.
Milosevic tried to close the last century
with a final chapter of ethnic cleansing and slaughter. We have faced
such a test for 10 years in Iraq, where the U.N. has approved a fair
blueprint spelling out what must be done. It is consistent with our
resolutions and our values, and it must be enforced.
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We face another test today in Burma, where a brave and popular
leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, once again has
been confined, with her supporters in prisons and her country in
distress, in defiance of repeated U.N. resolutions.
But most conflicts and disputes are not so clear-cut. Legitimate
grievances and aspirations pile high on both sides. Here there is no
alternative to principled compromise and giving up old grudges in order
to get on with life. Right now, from the Middle East to Burundi to the
Congo to South Asia, leaders are facing this kind of choice, between
confrontation and compromise.
Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister
Barak are with us here today. They have promised
to resolve the final differences between them this year, finally
completing the Oslo process embodied in the Declaration of Principles
signed 7 years ago this month at the White House.
To those who have supported the right of Israel to live in security
and peace, to those who have championed the Palestinian cause these many
years, let me say to all of you: They need your support now, more than
ever, to take the hard risks for peace. They have the chance to do it,
but like all life's chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is
not a moment to lose.
When leaders do seize this chance for peace, we must help them.
Increasingly, the United Nations has been called into situations where
brave people seek reconciliation, but where the enemies of peace seek to
undermine it. In East Timor, had the United Nations not engaged, the
people would have lost the chance to control their future.
Today I was deeply saddened to learn of the brutal murder of the
three U.N. relief workers there by the militia in West Timor, and I urge
the Indonesian authorities to put a stop to these abuses.
In Sierra Leone, had the United Nations not engaged, countless
children now living would be dead. But in both cases, the U.N. did not
have the tools to finish the job. We must provide those tools with
peacekeepers that can be rapidly deployed with the right training and
equipment, missions well- defined and well-led, with the necessary
civilian police.
And we must work, as well, to prevent conflict; to get more children
in school; to relieve more debt in developing countries; to do more to
fight malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS, which cause a quarter of all the
deaths in the world; to do more to promote prevention and to stimulate
the development and affordable access to drugs and vaccines; to do more
to curb the trade in items which generate money that make conflict more
profitable than peace, whether diamonds in Africa or drugs in Colombia.
All these things come with a price tag. And all nations, including
the United States, must pay it. These prices must be fairly apportioned,
and the U.N. structure of finances must be fairly reformed so the
organization can do its job. But those in my country or elsewhere who
believe we can do without the U.N. or impose our will upon it misread
history and misunderstand the future.
Let me say to all of you, this is the last opportunity I will have
as President to address this General Assembly. It is the most august
gathering we have ever had, because so many of you have come from so far
away. If I have learned anything in these last 8 years, it is, whether
we like it or not, we are growing more interdependent. We must look for
more solutions in which all sides can claim a measure of victory and
move away from choices in which someone is required to accept complete
defeat. That will require us to develop greater sensitivity to our
diverse political, cultural, and religious claims. But it will require
us to develop even greater respect for our common humanity.
The leaders here assembled can rewrite human history in the new
millennium. If we have learned the lessons of the past, we can leave a
very different legacy for our children. But we must believe the simple
things: that everywhere in every land, people in every station matter;
everyone counts; everyone has a role to play; and we all do better when
we help each other.
Thank you, and God bless you all.
Note: The President spoke at 9:55 a.m. in the General Assembly Hall at
the United Nations. In his remarks, he referred to U.N. Millennium
Summit cochair President Tarja Halonen of Finland; U.N. Secretary-
General Kofi Annan; Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority;
Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel; and President Slobodan Milosevic of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
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