[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 38 (Monday, September 26, 1994)]
[Pages 1803-1808]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's News Conference With President Carter, General Powell, 
and Senator Nunn on Haiti

September 19, 1994

    President Clinton. Good morning. I'd like to begin by thanking 
President Carter, General Powell, and Senator Nunn for their 
extraordinary work in Haiti. They got in very early this morning; they 
have had hardly any sleep for the last 2 nights, as they have worked 
virtually around the clock. The peaceful solution they helped to work 
out is another major contribution in all their careers, which have been 
devoted to the pursuit of peace and democracy. They have done a great 
service to our country, as well as to the people of Haiti, the people in 
our hemisphere, and the efforts of the United Nations, and we owe them a 
great deal of gratitude. I also want to thank the men and women of our 
United States armed services, who are beginning their operations in 
Haiti even as we meet here today. Their preparation and presence made a 
crucial difference in convincing the Haitian leaders to leave power.
    In the end, two things led to the agreement to leave. The first was 
this delegation's appeal to the Haitians to do the right and honorable 
thing for their own people in accordance with the United Nations 
Security Council resolutions. The second was the clear imminence of 
military action by the United States.
    This is a good agreement. It will further our goals in Haiti. 
General Cedras and the other leaders will leave power no later than 
October 15th. After 3 years and a series of broken promises, American 
steadfastness has given us the opportunity to restore Haiti's 
democratically elected government and President Aristide.
    American troops are beginning to take up their positions in Haiti 
today, and they will be there to make sure that the leaders keep their 
word. The agreement means that our troops do not have to invade. They 
have entered Haiti peacefully today. It minimizes the risks to American 
forces and to our coalition partners.
    But I want to emphasize that the situation in Haiti remains 
difficult, it remains uncertain. The mission still has risks. But 
clearly we are in a better position to work for peace in a peaceable way 
today than we were yesterday.
    My first concern, and the most important one, obviously, is for the 
safety and security of our troops. General Shalikashvili and Lieutenant 
General Hugh Shelton, our commander in Haiti, have made it clear to all 
involved that the protection of American lives is our first order of 
business.
    Let me repeat what I said last night and what I said on Thursday 
night: This mission will be limited in time and scope. It is clearly 
designed to provide a secure environment for the restoration of 
President Aristide and democracy, to begin the work of retraining the 
police and the military in a professional manner, and to facilitate a 
quick handoff to the United Nations mission so that the work of 
restoring democracy can be continued, the developmental aid can begin to 
flow, Haiti can be rebuilt, and in 1995 another free and fair election 
for President can be held.
    I also have to say again that we remain ready to pursue our 
interests and our obligations in whatever way we have to. But we hope 
that good faith and reasonableness will prevail today and tomorrow and 
in the days ahead, so that this will not be another violated agreement 
that the United States has to impose and enforce. We believe that, 
because of the work of this delegation, we have a chance to achieve that 
kind of good faith and cooperation.
    And I want to thank, again, President Carter, General Powell, and 
Senator Nunn and ask them each in turn to come and make an opening 
statement, and then we will be available for your questions.

[At this point, President Jimmy Carter praised the balancing of the use 
of military power and diplomacy, described the goals of the diplomatic 
mission, and expressed his appreciation for the President's support and 
the contributions of Gen. Colin Powell and Senator Sam Nunn. General 
Powell thanked the President and expressed his satisfaction that with 
the administration's support and guidance, the delegation's discussions 
with the Haitian leaders helped bring about a peaceful solution. Senator 
Nunn then thanked the President for his strong leadership, discussed the 
roles played by General Powell and Presi- 

[[Page 1804]]

dent Carter, and stressed the importance of free and fair parliamentary 
elections to Haitian democracy.]

    President Clinton. Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press].
    Q. Mr. President, you accused the military leaders in Haiti of 
maintaining a reign of terror; you said that they were responsible for 
3,000 deaths. Why did you accept an agreement that allows them to stay 
in Haiti and perhaps run for elected office there? And can you tell us, 
is President Aristide satisfied with this agreement?
    President Clinton. Well, first of all, I'm not entirely sure that 
they will stay in Haiti, but that was not the charge of this mission. 
They only had about a day and a half to stay down there, and they worked 
for probably 21 or 22 hours during that time they were there. Their 
charge was to assure that they would leave power.
    Secondly, I don't take back anything I say about what has happened 
there in the last 3 years and the absence of any effort by the 
authorities to stop it and sometimes some direct responsibility for it. 
But with regard to the amnesty provision, that was a part of the 
Governors Island Agreement. And we had always felt that we should follow 
through on the agreements to which we had all been a part and we had to 
demonstrate a willingness to do that.
    I cannot answer all the questions that you have asked about what 
will happen in the future and what decisions people will make in the 
future and where they'll wind up living. I don't know the answers to all 
that. But I do believe that this agreement substantially furthers our 
objectives there and dramatically increases the chances of a peaceful 
transition of power, a peaceful restoration of democracy, a peaceful 
restoration of President Aristide. He will have to determine for himself 
what he thinks about it, but it won't be very long before he'll have the 
opportunity to be back in Haiti, governing as President. And it won't be 
very long before we'll have new parliamentary elections, which I think 
everyone on all sides in Haiti believes is a very important thing.
    Q. Mr. President, granted that victory has 1,000 fathers and defeat 
is an orphan, but do you intend to make as a pattern using military 
action without the consent of Congress or the approval of the American 
people?
    President Clinton. Well, those are two different things. And with 
regard to the consent of Congress, I think that every President and all 
my predecessors in both parties have clearly maintained that they did 
not require, by Constitution, did not have to have congressional 
approval for every kind of military action.
    I obviously think the bigger and more prolonged the action, the 
better it is to have congressional approval. If you look at the pattern 
of my two immediate predecessors, there was congressional approval 
sought in the Desert Storm operation where there was a 5\1/2\ month 
buildup and a half a million troops facing hundreds of thousands of 
troops on the other side. There was not congressional approval in 
advance of the actions in Panama and Grenada. So I think that we will 
have to take that on a case-by-case basis.
    In terms of popular approval, the American people, probably wisely, 
are almost always against any kind of military action when they first 
hear about it, unless our people have been directly attacked. And they 
have historically felt that way. And obviously at the end of the cold 
war, they may be more inclined to feel that way.
    The job of the President is to try to do what is right, particularly 
in matters affecting our long-term security interests. And 
unfortunately, not all of the decisions that are right can be popular. 
So I don't believe that the President, that I or any other President, 
could conduct foreign policy by a public opinion poll, and I would hope 
the American people would not wish me to.
    Q. You would grant that you would have to have the support of the 
people in the long run for any engagement----
    President Clinton. Any sustained endeavor involving our military 
forces requires the support of the people over the long run. We have 
learned that mostly in good ways and sometimes in sad ways in our 
country's history.
    Q. Mr. President, you and your aides said repeatedly last week there 
was only one thing about which you would be willing to discuss anything 
with the leaders in Haiti and that

[[Page 1805]]

was the modalities, as it was repeatedly called, of their departure. As 
President Carter has made clear today, it became necessary for him to 
conduct a somewhat more extensive negotiation. And I just wanted to ask 
you, sir, what prompted you, what made you decide to change your mind 
and go along with that?
    President Clinton. Well, I think if you look at this agreement, the 
details of the agreement are consistent with the modalities of their 
leaving power. What I told President Carter and General Powell and 
Senator Nunn was--and I think we talked three times each before they 
went--was that I basically did not care what was discussed as long as 
there was no attempt to change the timetable of the administration for 
action or to derail the ultimate possibility of action.
    And if the objective of their departure from power was achieved, 
then, if other things had to be discussed, I did not object to that. In 
fact, it was obvious to me that one--let me just back off and say, one 
of the things that will determine whether this United Nations sanction 
mission, that is, to restore democracy, is successful and one of the 
things that will determine whether we can do it with a minimum of risk 
to our people is whether there can be an orderly transfer of power and 
an orderly retraining of police and military forces, rather than a total 
collapse of the structures of Haitian society which could cause a much 
more violent set of activities, perhaps involving us only peripherally. 
They have avoided that, I think, by the terms of this agreement if it 
can be implemented, which of course is what I hope will happen.
    Q. Did President Carter say something to you that made you decide 
that it would be well to allow him to conduct a broader discussion? Was 
that his suggestion, sir?
    President Clinton. No, we never--what we discussed, what I said to 
him was--and I said to each of the three gentlemen--was, ``I want you to 
pledge to me, number one, that the objective is removing them from 
power; number two, that there will be no attempt to change the timetable 
that I will set unilaterally for doing so forcibly if we have to; and 
number three, that there'll be no attempt to derail the possibility of 
taking that kind of action if it becomes necessary. Beyond that, 
whatever you feel you should discuss, feel free to discuss it within 
those three criteria.''
    Q. President Clinton, there have been a lot of reports that you and 
President Carter have had some tension in the past, and I wondered if 
you might comment on that. And in particular, was there a point at which 
President Carter wanted to go to Haiti and the administration was not 
ready for him to go at that time? And was there a point when you wanted 
him to come home and he wasn't ready to come home? And if President 
Carter would comment on that as well, I'd appreciate it.
    President Clinton. The answer to the first question is, no, there 
was not a point where he wanted to go and I didn't want him to go. The 
answer to the second question is, maybe, but not for the reason you 
think. And let me try to answer what I mean by that.
    President Carter and I have discussed Haiti, I think beginning 
before I became President, on a regular and repeated basis. And he has a 
deep interest there because, among other things, he's not only been 
there many times but he and his group monitored the election which 
resulted in President Aristide's election.
    I have also discussed Haiti repeatedly with General Powell, both 
when he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in my tenure and 
after he left office. I have called him at least two and maybe more 
occasions and said, I'm tearing my hair out about this problem, what do 
you think, what about this, that or the other thing? And Senator Nunn 
and I have discussed it before.
    When President Carter called me and told me that he had heard from 
General Cedras, we began to talk about this and about the prospect of a 
mission. We talked about General Powell, Senator Nunn. I picked up the 
phone, and I called General Powell and Senator Nunn to find out if they 
would be willing go there. It wasn't the first item on their list of 
what they had planned to do last weekend, but they were open. A number 
of other calls ensued. We had to determine (a) that they would be 
received and (b) that there was a serious chance of at least affecting 
this agreement, because there was no agreement in ad- 

[[Page 1806]]

vance by them, by the Haitians, to leave. Once all that was worked out, 
we decided it was quite a good thing and certainly worth the risk for 
them to go. Any kind of mission like this is full of risk.
    In answer to your second question, there was never a point when I 
wanted him to leave in the sense that I wanted him to stop talking. 
There was a point last evening, as you know, when I became worried that 
we needed to get them out of there because of the timetable of the 
mission. In other words, I was just beginning--was concerned about-- I 
wanted them to be safe, I wanted them to be secure, I wanted them to be 
out of Haiti in a timely fashion. That is the only issue about their 
leaving.
    And the last time we talked, he said, ``Well, we're almost there. 
We've about got this nailed. We're going over to the Presidential 
Palace.'' And I said, okay, you have 30 more minutes, and then I will 
have to order you to leave, because I was worried about their personal 
security. There was no political debate at all. They were making 
progress. But the time was running out on the hourglass.
    Q. Mr. President, President Carter was quoted today as saying that 
the launching of the first wave came while they were still negotiating 
peace. And he said that that was very disturbing to us and to them, to 
the Haitian leaders with whom he was negotiating. Could I ask both of 
you to comment on that, and whether you felt that the launching of the 
82d Airborne was, in fact, interfering with their attempts to negotiate.
    President Clinton. I think I'll let him answer that.
    Q. Could we ask you to comment?
    President Clinton. Yes, I'll be happy to, but I'll let him answer it 
first.
    President Carter. The key to our success, to the extent it is 
successful, was the inexorability of the entry of the forces into Haiti. 
And we spent the first hours of discussion with the military leaders to 
convince them that this was going to happen, it would be with an 
overwhelming capability, and that the schedule was set and that we had 
no intention or authority to change the schedule. And it was that 
inevitability that was a major factor in that decision.
    Another one, I should hasten to say, was their quandary about what 
to do that was right and honorable. Haiti, I think, is perhaps one of 
the proudest nations I have ever seen because of their long history and 
because of the turmoil in which they have often lived. And it was very 
difficult for Haitian military commanders to accept the proposition that 
foreign forces could come on their soil without their fighting. But we 
all worked to convince them that this was the best thing to do for their 
country and for their people.
    Now, we recognized the difficulty of this. And we were down to the 
last stages of negotiating which involved the last date that the 
military leaders could stay in office. At that time, General Biamby 
received a report from Fort Bragg, he told us, that the initial 
operation had already commenced. And they were on the verge of saying, 
``We will not negotiate anymore; this may be a trick just to keep us 
occupied, all of us military commanders in the same room while the 
invasion takes place.'' We obviously assured them this was not the case. 
And the thing was about to break down. They finally decided, let's go 
over to the President's house, the Presidential Palace. President 
Jonassaint, we have been led to believe--and I believed it ahead of 
time--was a figurehead. This proved to be absolutely incorrect. When we 
got to President Jonassaint's office with his ministers sitting in front 
of him and the commanders of the military in front of him and I sitting 
next to him and Senator Nunn and General Powell there, he said--very 
quickly to summarize my answer--``We will take peace instead of war; I 
will sign this agreement.'' All of his people in the room disagreed. One 
of his ministers, a minister of defense, said, ``I resign tomorrow.'' 
The others belabored the point. But there was no doubt that his decision 
was what brought about the consummation of the agreement. All the time 
through this, we were consulting fervently and constantly with President 
Clinton.
    So the inexorability of the force coming in made it possible. There 
was a setback when we found, to my surprise, that the initial stages had 
begun; as soon as President Clinton knew that President Jonassaint and

[[Page 1807]]

I had reached an agreement, so as far as I know, the planes reversed 
their course.
    Q. Mr. President, can you comment on that?
    President Clinton. Yes.
    Q. Did he ask you why they had taken off and asked you to turn them 
back?
    President Clinton. No. No, when they went, I told them that we 
needed to conclude the negotiations by 12 o'clock Sunday. Then I said, 
but they could clearly stay until 3. And then the thing kept getting put 
back. They were very dogged; they didn't want to give up.
    I frankly had come to the conclusion that we were not going to reach 
an agreement. What I--and let me say, there had never been a plan to 
have them talking while American planes were flying. That was never a 
plan. The inference--because I wanted them out of there, I wanted them 
safe. And I think President Carter has made it clear what--to the extent 
that it was disrupted, it was because they thought the whole thing maybe 
had been pointless, a ruse.
    To the extent it was helpful, it was the final evidence that 
President Jonassaint needed to push the agreements. But it was one of 
those things that happened. It was not a thing that we calculated, 
because I would never have put the lives of these three men in any kind 
of jeopardy. They were just determined to stay until the last moment. 
And they had, literally, when they reached that agreement, they had 30 
more minutes before I--I told President Carter, I said, ``This is 
uncomfortable for me; we've been friends a long time; I'm going to have 
to order you out of there in 30 more minutes. You have got to get out.'' 
They had to get out before dark. So they worked it out.
    Press Secretary Myers. Last question.
    Q. Mr. President, there still is this very sensitive issue, as you 
well know, involving the so-called status of exile for Generals Biamby 
and Cedras. They maintain that there is no commitment, no need, and that 
they don't want to leave their country forever. Now, a senior 
administration official last night suggested that while there is no 
formal commitment, the U.S. anticipates that they will leave once 
President Aristide returns and they do receive amnesty. What exactly do 
you believe will happen?
    President Clinton. First, let me say that our objective is twofold 
as a part of restoring democracy and President Aristide. The first was 
to have them step down. The second is to retrain and to help 
professionalize the army and the police forces so that they can never be 
either a participant in or a bystander while gross human rights 
violations occur, and so that they can help to secure the country and 
preserve order.
    It has been our feeling that that was the most important thing. And, 
therefore, that was not an issue that I was ready to let this mission 
founder on, as long as they could achieve that. I think they should 
leave, and I think they probably will leave at some point. But that is 
something that still has to be worked out and something that subsequent 
actions by all the actors in the Haitian drama will have to be heavily 
relied upon.
    General Powell made a comment to me--he might want to comment about 
this because I think it's very important that we not let this issue 
cloud the enormity of what has occurred and the practicality of what is 
likely to occur.
    General Powell. I'd just like to add to that, that I am very pleased 
this morning--the thing I was looking for, would General Cedras be 
cooperating with General Shelton for real--signing an agreement last 
night was one thing, but what would happen today--he is cooperating. And 
so the transition of power has begun. And sometime over the next month 
or so, either as a result of parliamentary action or the October 15th 
date arriving, General Cedras will step down, having done what I believe 
is the right and honorable thing in these circumstances.
    It will remain an issue for President Aristide and General Cedras 
and others to consider where he should go or what he should do. But I 
don't think we need to spend a lot of time on that at this point. Let 
that flow out, and we will see what happens. He is stepping down from 
power, which I think is the important point.
    Q. Last week you told America that these people treated their own 
people shamefully, that they've massacred them and raped them and 
tortured them and did all these frightful

[[Page 1808]]

things. And now, all of a sudden, we've appealed to their military 
honor. I wonder how you detected that, and they're our partners and 
presumably our friends. It's a little abrupt----
    President Clinton. No, that's not accurate. But we did say--I did 
say last week that they had one last chance to effect a peaceful 
transfer of power. And you know, when you've got a country deeply 
divided, I mean, think of the things which have happened in South Africa 
when reconciliation was possible.
    Remember what President Aristide himself said when he came here--
after I spoke--the next day--he said, ``We have to say no to violence, 
no to vengeance, yes to reconciliation.'' What this delegation did, and 
all this delegation did, was to give these people the chance to do 
something that is, to use their words, was right and honorable and to do 
it in a peaceful way and to have a peaceful transfer of power. And I 
think that was an appropriate thing to do. In terms of the amnesty 
issue, I would remind you that was an issue raised and agreed to by all 
the parties in Governors Island. So that is something that has been on 
the board for quite a long while now.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 70th news conference began at 12:02 p.m. in the 
East Room at the White House.