[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 39 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Pages 1862-1867]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the 49th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 
New York City

September 26, 1994

    Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates. 
First, let me congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election as 
president of the 49th General Assembly. The American people look forward 
to working with you to celebrate the United Nations 50th anniversary.
    We meet today in a time of great hope and change. The end of the 
cold war, the explosion of technology and trade and enterprise have 
given people the world over new opportunities to live up to their dreams 
and their God-given potential. This is an age of hope.
    Yet, in this new world, we face a contest as old as history, a 
struggle between freedom and tyranny, between tolerance and bigotry, 
between knowledge and ignorance, between openness and isolation. It is a 
fight between those who would build free societies governed by laws and 
those who would impose their will by force. Our struggle today, in a 
world more high-tech, more fast-moving, more chaotically diverse than 
ever, is the age-old fight between hope and fear.
    Three times in this century, from the trenches of the Sommes to the 
island of Iwo Jima to the shattered wall of Berlin, the forces of hope 
were victorious. But the victors of World War I squandered their triumph 
when they turned inward, bringing on a global depression and allowing 
fascism to rise and reigniting global war.
    After World War II, the Allies learned the lessons of the past. In 
the face of a new totalitarian threat and the nuclear menace, great 
nations did not walk away from the challenge of the moment. Instead they 
chose to reach out, to rebuild, and to lead. They chose to create the 
United Nations, and they left us a world stronger, safer, and freer.
    Our generation has a difficult task: The cold war is over; we must 
secure the peace. It falls to us to avoid the complacency that followed 
World War I without the spur of

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the imminent threat to our security that followed World War II. We must 
ensure that those who fought and found the courage to end the cold war, 
those from both East and West who love freedom, did not labor in vain.
    Our sacred mission is to build a new world for our children, more 
democratic, more prosperous, more free of ancient hatreds and modern 
means of destruction. That is no easy challenge, but we accept it with 
confidence. After all, the walls that once divided nations in this very 
chamber have come down. More nations have chosen democracy than ever 
before, more have chosen free markets and economic justice, more have 
embraced the values of tolerance and liberty and civil society that 
allow us all to make the most of our life.
    But while the ideals of democracy and free markets are ascendant, 
they are surely not the whole story. Terrible examples of chaos, 
repression, and tyranny also mark our times. The 20th century proved 
that the forces of freedom and democracy can endure against great odds. 
Our job is to see that in the 21st century these forces triumph.
    The dangers we face are less stark and more diffuse than those of 
the cold war, but they are still formidable: the ethnic conflicts that 
drive millions from their homes; the despots ready to repress their own 
people or conquer their neighbors; the proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction; the terrorists wielding their deadly arms; the criminal 
syndicates selling those arms or drugs or infiltrating the very 
institutions of fragile democracy; a global economy that offers great 
promise but also deep insecurity and, in many places, declining 
opportunity; diseases like AIDS that threaten to decimate nations; the 
combined dangers of population explosion and economic decline which 
prompted the world community to reach the remarkable consensus at the 
Cairo conference; global and local environmental threats that demand 
that sustainable development becomes a part of the lives of people all 
around the world; and finally, within many of our nations, high rates of 
drug abuse and crime and family breakdown with all their terrible 
consequences. These are the dangers we face today.
    We must address these threats to our future. Thankfully, the end of 
the cold war gives us a chance to address them together. In our efforts, 
different nations may be active in different situations in different 
ways. But their purposes must be consistent with freedom and their 
practices consistent with international law.
    Each nation will bring to our common task its own particular 
strengths, economic, political, or military. Of course, the first duty 
of every member of the United Nations is to its own citizens, to their 
security, their welfare, and their interests. As President of the United 
States, my first duty is to the citizens of my country. When our 
national security interests are threatened, we will act with others when 
we can but alone if we must. We will use diplomacy when we can but force 
if we must.
    The United States recognizes that we also have a special 
responsibility in these common endeavors that we are taking, the 
responsibility that goes along with great power and also with our long 
history of democracy and freedom. But we seek to fulfill that 
responsibility in cooperation with other nations. Working together 
increases the impact and the legitimacy of each of our actions, and 
sharing the burdens lessons everyone's load. We have no desire to be the 
world's policemen, but we will do what we can to help civil societies 
emerge from the ashes of repression, to sustain fragile democracies and 
to add more free markets to the world and, of course, to restrain the 
destructive forces that threaten us all.
    In every corner of the globe, from South Africa to Asia to Central 
and Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Latin America and now to a 
small island in the Caribbean, ordinary citizens are striving to build 
their own future. Promoting their cause is our generation's great 
opportunity, and we must do it together.
    A coalition for democracy--it's good for America. Democracies, after 
all, are more likely to be stable, less likely to wage war. They 
strengthen civil society. They can provide people with the economic and 
political opportunities to build their futures in their own homes, not 
to flee their borders.

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    Our efforts to help build more democracies will make us all more 
secure, more prosperous, and more successful as we try to make this era 
of terrific change our friend and not our enemy.
    In our Nation, as in all of your nations, there are many people who 
are understandably reluctant to undertake these efforts, because often 
the distances are great or the cultures are different. There are good 
reasons for the caution that people feel. Often, the chances of success 
or the costs are unclear. And of course, in every common endeavor there 
is always the potential for failure and often the risk of loss of life. 
And yet our people, as we have seen in the remarkable global response to 
the terrible crisis in Rwanda, genuinely want to help their neighbors 
around the world and want to make some effort in our common cause.
    We have seen that progress can be made as well. The problem is 
deciding when we must respond and how we shall overcome our reluctance. 
This will never be easy; there are no simple formulas. All of us will 
make these decisions, in part, based on the distance of the problem from 
our shores or the interests of our Nation or the difference we think we 
can make or the cost required or the threat to our own citizens in the 
endeavor. Hard questions will remain and cannot be erased by some simple 
formula.
    But we should have the confidence that these efforts can succeed, 
whether they are efforts to keep people alive in the face of terrible 
tragedy, as in Rwanda, or our efforts to avert a tragedy, as in the Horn 
of Africa, or our efforts to support processes that are literally 
changing the future of millions. History is on our side.
    We should have confidence about this. Look at the march of freedom 
we have seen in just the last year alone. Who, a decade ago, would have 
dared predict the startling changes in South Africa, in the Middle East, 
in Ireland: the stunning triumph of democracy and majority rule; the 
redemption of the purpose of Nelson Mandela's life; the brave efforts of 
Israel and its Arab neighbors to build bridges of peace between their 
peoples; the earnest search by the people of Northern Ireland and Great 
Britain and Ireland to end centuries of division and decades of terror. 
In each case, credit belongs to those nations' leaders and their 
courageous people. But in each instance, the United States and other 
nations were privileged to help in these causes.
    The growth of cooperation between the United States and the Russian 
Federation also should give us all great cause for confidence. This is a 
partnership that is rooted in democracy, a partnership that is working, 
a partnership of not complete agreement but genuine mutual respect.
    After so many years of nuclear terror, our two nations are taking 
dramatic steps to ease tensions around the world. For the first time 
since World War II, foreign troops do not occupy the nations of Central 
and Eastern Europe. The Baltic nations are free. Russian and American 
missiles no longer target each other's people. Three of the four nuclear 
members of the former Soviet Union have agreed to remove all nuclear 
weapons from their soil. And we are working on agreements to halt 
production of fissile materials for nuclear explosives, to make 
dismantling of nuclear warheads transparent and irreversible, and to 
further reduce our nuclear weapons in delivery vehicles.
    The United States and Russia also recognize that we must cooperate 
to control the emerging danger of terrorists who traffic in nuclear 
materials. To secure nuclear materials at their sources, we have agreed 
with Russia to stop plutonium production by the year 2000, to construct 
a storage facility for fissile materials and buying up stocks of 
weapons-grade fuel, and to combat the criminals who are trying to 
smuggle materials for nuclear explosives.
    Our two nations and Germany have increased cooperation and engaged 
in joint terrorist training. Soon, under the leadership of our Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, we will open a law enforcement training academy 
in Europe, where police will learn how to combat more effectively 
trafficking of nuclear weapons components as well as the drug trade, 
organized crime, and money laundering.
    The United States will also advance a wide-ranging nonproliferation 
agenda, a global convention to halt production of fissile materials, 
efforts to curb North Korea's nu- 

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clear ambitions, transparent procedures for dismantling nuclear 
warheads, and our work to ban testing and extend the Nuclear Non-
proliferation Treaty.
    And today I am proposing a first step toward the eventual 
elimination of a less-visible but still deadly threat: the world's 85 
million antipersonnel land mines, one for every 50 people on the face of 
the Earth. I ask all nations to join with us and conclude an agreement 
to reduce the number and availability of those mines. Ridding the world 
of those often hidden weapons will help to save the lives of tens of 
thousands of men and women and innocent children in the years to come.
    Our progress in the last year also provides confidence that in the 
port-cold-war years we can adapt and construct global institutions that 
will help to provide security and increase economic growth throughout 
the world.
    Since I spoke here last year, 22 nations have joined NATO's 
Partnership For Peace. The first joint exercises have been conducted, 
helping to give Europe the chance to become a more unified continent in 
which democratic nations live in secure borders. In Asia, security talks 
and economic cooperation will lead to further stability. By reducing 
nations' fears about their borders and allowing them to spend less on 
military defenses, our coalition for democracy can give nations in 
transition a better chance to offer new freedoms and opportunities to 
their own people.
    It is time that we think anew about the structure of this global 
economy as well, tearing down walls that separate nations instead of 
hiding behind them. At the Group of Seven meetings in Naples this year 
we committed ourselves to this task of renewal, to examining the 
economic institutions that have served us so well in the past. In the 
interest of shared prosperity, the United States actively promotes open 
markets. Though still in its infancy, the North American Free Trade 
Agreement has dramatically increased trade between the United States and 
Mexico, and has produced in the United States alone an estimated 200,000 
new jobs. It offers a model to nations throughout the Americas which we 
hope to build on.
    And this week, I will send legislation to the Congress to implement 
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the largest trade agreement 
in all of history. GATT and its successor, the World Trade Organization, 
hold the promise for all of us of increased exports, higher wages, and 
improved living standards. And in the months and years to come, we will 
work to extend the realm of open markets, starting with the Asian-
Pacific Cooperation Forum and the Summit of the Americas later this 
year.
    Here, at the United Nations, we must develop a concrete plan to meet 
the challenges of the next 50 years, even as we celebrate the last 50 
years. I believe we should declare next year's 50th anniversary not just 
a year of celebration, but a year of renewal. We call on the Secretary 
General to name a working group so that, by the time we meet next year, 
we will have a concrete action plan to revitalize the U.N.'s obligations 
to address the security, economic, and political challenges ahead, 
obligations we must all be willing to assume.
    Our objectives should include ready, efficient, and capable U.N. 
peacekeeping forces. And I am happy to report that as I pledged to you 
last year, and thanks to the support in the United States Congress, $1.2 
billion is now available from the United States for this critical 
account.
    We must also pledge to keep U.N. reform moving forward, so that we 
do more with less. And we must improve our ability to respond to urgent 
needs. Let me suggest that it is time for the members of this Assembly 
to consider seriously President Menem's suggestion for the creation of a 
civilian rapid response capability for humanitarian crises. And let us 
not lose sight of the special role that development and democracy can 
play in preventing conflicts once peace has been established.
    Never before has the United Nations been in a better position to 
achieve the democratic goals of our Founders. The end of the cold war 
has freed us from decades of paralyzing divisions, and we all know that 
multilateral cooperation is not only necessary to address the new 
threats we face but possible to succeed.
    The efforts we have taken together in Haiti are a prime example. 
Under the sponsorship of the United Nations, American troops, now

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being joined by the personnel of an evergrowing international coalition 
of over two dozen nations, are giving the people of Haiti their chance 
at freedom. Creative diplomacy, the influence of economic power, the 
credible threat of military force, all have contributed to this moment 
of opportunity.
    Essential civil order will be restored. Human rights violations will 
be curbed. The first refugees are returning within hours on this day. 
The military leaders will step down; the democratic government will be 
restored. President Aristide will return. The multinational mission will 
turn its responsibilities over to the United Nations mission, which will 
remain in Haiti throughout 1995 until a new President is elected. During 
this time, a multinational development effort will make available more 
than $1 billion to begin helping the Haitians rebuild their country.
    In the spirit of reconciliation and reconstruction, President 
Aristide called yesterday for the immediate easing of sanctions so that 
the work of rebuilding can begin immediately. Accordingly, I intend to 
act expeditiously within the Security Council Resolutions 917 and 940, 
to enable us to restore health care, water, and electrical services, 
construction materials for humanitarian efforts, and communications, 
agricultural, and educational materials.
    Today I am also announcing that the United States will suspend all 
unilateral sanctions against Haiti except those that affect the military 
leaders and their immediate supporters. This will include regularly 
scheduled air flights when the air support becomes available, financial 
transactions, and travel restrictions. I urge all other nations to do 
the same.
    In Haiti, the United States has demonstrated that it would lead a 
multinational force when our interests are plain, when the cause is 
right, when the mission is achievable, and the nations of the world 
stand with us. But Haiti's people will have to muster the strength and 
the patience to travel the road of freedom. They have to do this for 
themselves. Every new democratic nation is fragile, but we will see the 
day when the people of Haiti fulfill their aspirations for liberty and 
when they are once again making genuine economic progress.
    United Nations actions in Bosnia, as those in Haiti, demonstrate 
that progress can be made when a coalition backs up diplomacy with 
military power. For the first time ever, NATO has taken, since we met 
last year, military actions beyond the territory of its members. The 
threat of NATO air power helped to establish the exclusion zone around 
Sarajevo and to end the Bosnian Serbs' spring offensive against Gorazde. 
And NATO's February ultimatum boosted our mediation efforts which helped 
to end the war between the Bosnian Government and the Bosnian Croats and 
forged a federation between those two communities.
    The situation in Bosnia, to that extent, has improved. But in recent 
weeks, the situation around Sarajevo has deteriorated substantially, and 
Sarajevo once again faces the prospect of strangulation. A new resolve 
by the United Nations to enforce its resolutions is now necessary to 
save Sarajevo. And NATO stands ready to act.
    The situation in Bosnia is yet another reminder of the greatest 
irony of this century we are leaving: This century so full of hope and 
opportunity and achievement has also been an age of deep destruction and 
despair. We cannot help but remember the millions who gave their lives 
during two world wars and the half-century in struggle by men and women 
in the East and West who ultimately prevailed in the name of freedom. 
But we must also think of our children and the world we will leave them 
in the 21st century.
    History has given us a very rare opportunity, the chance to build on 
the greatest legacy of this century without reliving its darkest 
moments. And we have shown that we can carry forward humanity's ancient 
quest for freedom, to build a world where democracy knows no borders but 
where nations know their borders will always be secure, a world that 
gives all people the chance to realize their potential and to live out 
their dreams.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. at the Unit- ed Nations Building. 
In his remarks, he referred to United Nations Secretary-General Boutros 
Boutros-Ghali; United Nations General Assembly President Amara Essy; and 
President Carlos Menem of Argentina. A tape was not available

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for the verification of the content of these remarks.