    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 3 (Monday, January 24, 1994)]
    [Pages 87-91]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks to Future Leaders of Belarus in Minsk

    January 15, 1994

        Thank you very much. Sergei Gaponenko, the president of the National
    Academy of Sciences, and to my friend Chairman Shushkevich, ladies and
    gentlemen, thank you all for coming here. I hope the translation is
    working well. [Laughter] Does the laughing mean yes or no? Yes, I think.
        I'm delighted to be here at your National Academy of Sciences with
    many representatives of my Government and representatives of yours. But
    most of all, I'm glad to see so many young people here, because it is
    your future I wish to talk about today. I want to thank Chairman
    Shushkevich for inviting me and for suggesting that I meet with you. The
    Chairman is a leader of real courage, in recording the terrible toll of
    Chernobyl and in leading your nation's reforms. And I'm delighted to be
    with him here today.
        I wanted to come to Belarus because I am impressed with much of what
    you have done and because I believe you can and will do even more. Your
    generation has been given an opportunity to build a strong and free
    nation. While you face hard times today, you have much with which to
    build a better future. You stand at the crossroads of con-

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    tinents. You have a highly educated people and great institutions of
    higher learning. You have good, strong high-technology industries. Above
    all, you have reclaimed your freedom, and your destiny is now in your
    own hands. And so now you must decide what to do with your nation and
    your future.
        You are, I assure you, not alone in facing that question, for this
    is a time of profound change all across the world. Nations everywhere
    face the challenge of shaping their future amid all the technological,
    economic, and political changes sweeping the globe. Nations everywhere
    must now grapple with the question of how to compete in a global
    economy; how to reward and support hard-working families and their
    children; how to make their governments more effective and more
    responsive; how to address social problems such as unemployment and
    inequality and crime; how to combine cultural and spiritual traditions
    with the demands of modern life; how to define, indeed, a nation's
    security and greatness in a modern era in which money and information
    and technological changes fly across the globe in a millisecond, in
    which we will be judged, I believe, more on whether we can develop the
    full capacities of every man and woman within each nation's border than
    on whether we can tell other people beyond our borders what to do and
    how they must live.
        I have not come here to tell you what I think the solutions should
    be to these questions for your nation and your future. That is for you
    alone to decide. But I do come here as a friend and supporter of the
    democratic and economic reforms you are beginning in your nation. I've
    come to show my support for those reforms and for your determination to
    build a better and safer and stronger future for your nation and for
    this entire region.
        The work of reform before you today also has a larger significance,
    for what you do here might encourage other nations facing the same
    challenges. It can help to build a broader Europe that is no longer
    divided but integrated, integrated by democratic governments, market
    economies, and peaceful coexistence and respect for national borders. If
    we can accomplish this kind of integration all across Europe, East and
    West, then we can make both Europe and America safer and more
    prosperous.
        This nation, which lost one in four of its citizens in the Second
    World War, must surely know better than any other on the face of the
    Earth the terrible price Europeans have paid for their constant
    divisions, not only in the two World Wars of the 20th century but indeed
    throughout the entire history of nations in Europe. Now, for the first
    time, we have a chance to build a Europe without divisions, where all
    countries respect each other's borders, all countries observe democratic
    traditions of majority rule and individual and minority rights, all
    countries trade freely with each other and help each other to achieve
    the true measure of greatness, developing the capacities of their
    people.
        Today I want to speak briefly about three opportunities I see before
    you: the renewal of your economy, the reform of your political system,
    and your work to define a new security for a new era.
        First, let me say a word about economic transition. Of course, you
    inherited an economic system imposed from above. And it has left you
    with, frankly, a mixed legacy. On the one hand, clearly it helped to
    rebuild Belarus from the ruins of World War II. But that same centrally
    planned system is ill-suited for the fast-changing global economy. That
    is clear everywhere. Everywhere in the world and in every continent, the
    people that are doing well are people who live in economies where
    investment and a well-trained work force make it possible for people to
    produce high-quality goods and services which they sell to each other
    and beyond their borders.
        So now you must face the challenge of taking what is best about your
    economy, your highly skilled people and your advanced industries, and
    adapting it to the rigors of this new global competition. It is a hard
    transition. Almost every place which has sought to do it has faced, as
    you have, among other things, very steep inflation, something you faced
    in this summer's increases in the prices of meat and butter. Many people
    are struggling to get by as a result of this inflation. In a cruel way,
    inflation hurts the people economies should reward the most, those who
    simply get up and go to work every day,

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    obeying the law and trying to make their contribution.
        But there is cause for hope because, as you privatize more of your
    economy, as more of it works in a market system, people will have reason
    to invest more and generate more economic growth. The government's plan
    to privatize 20 percent of state property this year is, I believe, a
    step in the right direction.
        The United States wishes to support this kind of change. Since you
    became independent, we have provided over $150 million in food,
    medicine, and other forms of assistance. During this trip I announced
    additional steps to assist your movement to a market economy: the
    establishment of a business center here in your nation to help to
    coordinate business efforts both within the country and with other
    businesses, not only in my country but around the world; a new regional
    enterprise fund to help to start new businesses, which will include
    Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova; and a U.S.-Belarus investment treaty to
    encourage more private trade and investment between our two countries.
        Ultimately, your economic success will depend upon your own efforts.
    But you must have good neighbors who wish to be good partners. The
    United States wants to be one of those. And I believe there is no reason
    that Belarus should be left behind in this march to a global economy. I
    urge you to press ahead with these economic reforms, to do it in as
    sensible and as clear-headed a way as possible, to learn from the
    experience of other nations, because I believe that it is the key to a
    better future.
        You also face the challenge of political transition. Just as modern
    economies need the benefit of every individual's productive capacity,
    modern nations need the benefit, indeed cannot do well without the
    benefit of the diverse and informed views of all of their people. The
    world does not work very well from the top down anymore. It requires the
    active engagement of all individuals. When voices are silenced by
    authoritarianism, by closed political systems, or as in the case with
    too many democracies today, by the apathy of citizens themselves who
    stay home and stay out of political dialog, then wisdom is lost, debate
    becomes more hollow, challenges are avoided instead of being faced, and
    in the end, tyrants find it easier to grab or to hold on to power. We
    know where that low road leads. It leads to economic stagnation and
    social intolerance.
        You have learned from your own hard history that there is a better
    way. I applaud your democratic reforms. I hope you will follow through
    with the commitments that have been made to hold new elections in March
    of this year. I hope you will press ahead with plans to craft a new
    constitution. I hope you will, in short, create a foundation for your
    economic renewal by protecting and promoting the political and human
    rights of your people, without which, over the long run, it will be very
    difficult to have a strong economy.
        One of the most encouraging signs of your economic renewal is the
    political ferment that is bubbling up from your people. You have new
    political movements such as the Belarusian Popular Front. I was pleased
    to meet some of their members earlier today. You have environment groups
    which formed after the Chernobyl disaster. Such groups, along with free
    labor unions, business associations, and others, can help to create a
    culture of participation, of debate, of personal investment in your
    nation's future. These private associations are important, just almost
    as important as the right to vote in the elections. It requires both a
    participation in the decisions of who will represent you at the state
    and who will be able to organize privately to make life more
    satisfactory. And they'll give views a wider range.
        Finally, let me say a word about your efforts to build a new nation
    that defines its strength and greatness in new ways. There is no better
    example than your determination to live as a nuclear-free state. Since I
    became the President of the United States, I have been determined to
    work with the other nuclear nations, and especially with Russia, to try
    to help the other republics of the former Soviet Union become nuclear-
    free. And we have gone a long way to finance that. Belarus led the way,
    and you deserve the credit and thanks of citizens all over the world.
        Seventy-six nuclear weapons were here when the Soviet Union
    dissolved. As a new nation, one of your first decisions was to do

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    away with them. It would have been easier to look backward and say,
    ``Well, these 76 weapons somehow make us a great nation. They make us
    stronger. We will keep them; we will use them and rattle them around as
    threats if people don't help us or do what we want them to do.'' But you
    made a braver and a better choice, to live nuclear-free.
        I am sure that your tragic experience with Chernobyl helped to shape
    that choice. But I also imagine that many, many of you had a clear
    understanding that these weapons, powerful and intimidating though they
    might be, offer you little in the way of real security. Real security
    lies in the integration with your neighbors, their political and
    economic values, and respect for their borders.
        So you freely chose to eliminate these weapons. You became the first
    of the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union to ratify the
    START Treaty and to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That is part
    of why I was so pleased to welcome Chairman Shushkevich to Washington
    last July, early in my administration. I wanted to express my admiration
    for the courage and the vision that he and that all of you have
    demonstrated by making the choice to be nuclear-free.
        We are committed to helping you to prove to all the people of the
    world that that was the right choice, that you were building a new and a
    better security. We are helping you to remove these weapons safely and
    securely, with financial assistance and technical advice. You suffered
    through one nuclear tragedy. We are determined to see that you do not
    endure another. Today I informed the Chairman that the United States
    will make additional funds available to Belarus for this purpose, which
    will bring the total we have provided over the last 2 years in '93 and
    '94 to $100 million.
        As you move away from the weapons of the old security, we want to
    help you to build a new security by helping you to be a part of a new
    and democratic Europe. Earlier this week I joined our NATO allies in
    creating the Partnership For Peace. The Partnership For Peace invites
    all of the nations of the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact
    and all other non-NATO nations in Europe, all of them together, to join
    with NATO in a partnership that will permit us together to provide for
    the common security. It will permit non-NATO members to do military
    planning and training and exercises with NATO members as long as they
    promise to respect the sovereignty, the independence, and the existing
    territorial boundaries of all of the nations which participate. I hope
    Belarus will give careful consideration to this Partnership. It is a
    part of our strategy to try to have a Europe that is undivided for the
    first time in its history, that uses the prospect of military
    cooperation genuinely to ensure the peace instead of simply to prepare
    for war.
        You are a new nation with a long history. During this century you
    have endured as much or more hardship as any people we have ever known.
    And now you face difficult and challenging political and economic
    transitions. They are so challenging that they can even be disorienting.
    And if you move to elections, which I hope and pray that you will, you
    will find that when people are in trouble, they sometimes vote their
    frustrations as well as their hopes. That is still true in the United
    States, and we've been working at it for 200 years now.
        But there is no substitute for putting the people of the nation in
    the driver's seat. And we must be aware of this, no matter how
    sophisticated a people are, no matter how much information is available
    to decision-makers. There is so much going on in this world today,
    economically, politically, culturally. The changes are so sweeping,
    there is no way that one group of people, sitting atop a society, can
    make decisions which suffice to guarantee the best possible life for all
    of the people who live in that society.
        Therefore, I believe that free political systems and free economic
    systems also happen to be good economics for the world in which we are
    living and the world which we will live in the 21st century, for the
    foreseeable future. You face possibilities that are as sweeping as your
    land. The new freedom you are building has many difficulties, but it can
    also work miracles. It can make your cities thrive; it can help your
    land to blossom. Most important of all, it can give the wonderful
    children that I was shaking hands with just a few moments ago real hope.

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        As you undertake the hard work of harnessing this new freedom to
    your rich culture, to your deep history, to your bold dreams, I hope you
    will remember that the American people are with you. We wish to be your
    partners and your friends because we have faith in your courage and
    confidence in your future. I hope that partnership will come about, will
    last a long time, and will bring to you the peace and prosperity that I
    wish for this country and for all the world.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:17 p.m. at the Academy of Sciences. In
    his remarks, he referred to Chairman Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus.