[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 42 (Monday, October 23, 1995)]
[Pages 1840-1846]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the University of Connecticut in Storrs

October 15, 1995

    Thank you very much, first, Senator Dodd, for your dedication and 
your service, your friendship, and your wonderful, wonderful 
introduction. It's worth three more strokes the next time we play golf. 
[Laughter] Chairman Rome, President Hartley, Governor Rowland, Senator 
Lieberman, members of the congressional delegation, and especially your 
Congressman, Representative Gejdenson, thank you for your fine remarks 
here today. To the State officials who are here and the Senators and 
former Members of the United States Senate; to my friend Governor 
O'Neill and all others who have served this great State; the faculty, 
students, and friends of the University of Connecticut; and to the 
remarkable American treasure, Morton Gould, who composed that awesome 
piece of music we heard just before we started the program.
    Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be here. As an old musician, 
I'd like to begin by congratulating the wind ensemble. They

[[Page 1841]]

were quite wonderful in every way, I thought. As a near fanatic 
basketball fan, I am glad to be in a place where it can truly be said 
there is no other place in America where both men and women play 
basketball so well under the same roof. And at the risk of offending the 
Dodd family and all the other Irish who are here, I want to say that 
your new football coach, with his remarkable record, learned at his 
father's knee, not at Notre Dame but when he spent 9 years in my home 
State as a football coach. [Laughter] But congratulations on that great 
start for the University of Connecticut football team. That is a 
remarkable thing.
    When Governor Rowland made his fine remarks and talked about the 
Special Olympians turning their cameras around and turning their camera 
sighting into the telescope, I thought it was a remarkable story. And I 
was wondering if he could identify them and arrange to send them to 
Washington for a few weeks--[laughter]--so that we might clear vision 
down there as we make these decisions.
    Let me also say just one other thing by way of introduction. The 
State of Connecticut is really fortunate to have two such remarkable 
United States Senators, and I am very fortunate to have known both of 
them a long, long time before I became the President and a long, long 
time before either one of them thought that was even a remote 
possibility for the United States. [Laughter]
    I was a student at Yale Law School and a sometime volunteer when Joe 
Lieberman first ran for the State senate back in 1970. He still barely 
looks old enough to be a State senator. [Laughter] And I thank him for 
the remarkable blend of new ideas and common sense and old-fashioned 
values he brings to the Senate.
    And in many, many ways I have enjoyed a long and rich personal 
friendship with Chris Dodd. I can't add anything to what Senator 
Lieberman said, but I will say this: At a time when every person in 
public life talks about family values, it is quite one thing to talk and 
another thing to do. And I have been very moved by the family values of 
the Dodd family and what they have done together that has brought this 
magnificent day to pass. And I honor them all and especially my friend 
Senator Chris Dodd.
    I have been asked today to inaugurate the first Dodd center 
symposium on the topic of ``50 Years After Nuremberg.'' I am honored to 
do that. I was born just after World War II, and I grew up as a part of 
a generation of young students who were literally fascinated by every 
aspect of the Nuremberg trials and what their ramifications were and 
were not for every unfolding event in the world that was disturbing to 
human conscience.
    I wish that Tom Dodd could be here today to see this center take 
life, not only because of what his family and friends and this State 
have done but because now, for all time, we will be able to study this 
great question as we strive to overcome human evil and human failing to 
be better.
    Senator Dodd, as we know, was a man of extraordinary breadth and 
depth, who was passionate about civil rights three decades before the 
civil rights movement changed the face of our Nation; who fought to 
provide the young people of America with an education and a decent job, 
a fight that is never-ending; who understood then the menace of violence 
and guns and drugs on the streets of our cities. And if only others had 
joined him firmly then, think what we might have avoided today.
    But most important, we look today at his experience at Nuremberg as 
a prosecutor, an experience that compelled him for the rest of his life 
to stand up for freedom and human dignity all around the world. He made 
a great deal of difference. And now, because his spirit lives on in the 
Dodd center, he will be able to make a difference forever.
    A few moments ago, in the powerful documentary we watched on 
Nuremberg, our chief prosecutor, Mr. Justice Jackson's words spoke to us 
across three decades: ``The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish 
have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that 
civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot 
survive their being repeated.''
    At Nuremberg, the international community declared that those 
responsible for crimes against humanity will be held accountable without 
the usual defenses af- 

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forded to people in times of war. The very existence of the Tribunal was 
a triumph for justice and for humanity and for the proposition that 
there must be limits even in wartime. Flush with victory, outraged by 
the evil of the Nazi death camps, the Allies easily could have simply 
lashed out in revenge. But the terrible struggle of World War II was a 
struggle for the very soul of humankind. To deny its oppressors the 
rights they had stripped from their victims would have been to win the 
war but to lose the larger struggle. The Allies understood that the only 
answer to inhumanity is justice. And as Senator Dodd said, three of the 
defendants were actually acquitted, even in that tumultuous, passionate 
environment.
    In the years since Nuremberg, the hope that convicting those guilty 
of making aggressive war would deter future wars and prevent future 
crimes against humanity, including genocide, frankly, has gone 
unfulfilled too often. From 1945 until the present day, wars between and 
within nations, including practices which were found to be illegal at 
Nuremberg, have cost more than 20 million lives. The wrongs Justice 
Jackson hoped Nuremberg would end have not been repeated on the scale of 
Nazi Germany, in the way that they did it, but they have been repeated 
and repeated on a scale that still staggers the imagination.
    Still, Nuremberg was a crucial first step. It rendered a clear 
verdict on atrocities. It placed human rights on a higher ground. It set 
a timeless precedent by stripping away convenient excuses for abominable 
conduct. Now it falls to our generation to make good on its promise: to 
put into practice the principle that those who violate universal human 
rights must be called to account for those actions.
    This mission demands the abiding commitment of all people. And like 
many of the other challenges of our time, it requires the power of our 
Nation's example and the strength of our leadership, first, because 
America was founded on the proposition that all God's children have the 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are values 
that define us as a nation, but they are not unique to our experience. 
All over the world, from Russia to South Africa, from Poland to 
Cambodia, people have been willing to fight and to die for them.
    Second, we have to do it because, while fascism and communism are 
dead or discredited, the forces of hatred and intolerance live on as 
they will for as long as human beings are permitted to exist on this 
planet Earth. Today, it is ethnic violence, religious strife, terrorism. 
These threats confront our generation in a way that still would spread 
darkness over light, disintegration over integration, chaos over 
community. Our purpose is to fight them, to defeat them, to support and 
sustain the powerful worldwide aspirations of democracy, dignity, and 
freedom.
    And finally, we must do it because, in the aftermath of the cold 
war, we are the world's only superpower. We have to do it because while 
we seek to do everything we possibly can in the world in cooperation 
with other nations, they find it difficult to proceed in cooperation if 
we are not there as a partner and very often as a leader.
    With our purpose and with our position comes the responsibility to 
help shine the light of justice on those who would deny to others their 
most basic human rights. We have an obligation to carry forward the 
lessons of Nuremberg. That is why we strongly support the United Nations 
War Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.
    The goals of these tribunals are straightforward: to punish those 
responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; to 
deter future such crimes; and to help nations that were torn apart by 
violence begin the process of healing and reconciliation.
    The tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has made excellent progress. 
It has collected volumes of evidence of atrocities, including the 
establishment of death camps, mass executions, and systematic campaigns 
of rape and terror. This evidence is the basis for the indictments the 
tribunal already has issued against 43 separate individuals. And this 
week, 10 witnesses gave dramatic, compelling testimony against one of 
the indictees in a public proceeding. These indictments are not 
negotiable. Those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and 
genocide must be brought to justice. They must

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be tried and, if found guilty, they must be held accountable. Some 
people are concerned that pursuing peace in Bosnia and prosecuting war 
criminals are incompatible goals. But I believe they are wrong. There 
must be peace for justice to prevail, but there must be justice when 
peace prevails.
    In recent weeks, the combination of American leadership, NATO's 
resolve, the international community's diplomatic determination: these 
elements have brought us closer to a settlement in Bosnia than at any 
time since the war began there 4 years ago. So let me repeat again what 
I have said consistently for over 2 years: If and when the parties do 
make peace, the United States, through NATO, must help to secure it.
    Only NATO can strongly and effectively implement a settlement. And 
the United States, as NATO's leader, must do its part and join our 
troops to those of our allies in such an operation. If you were moved by 
the film we saw and you believe that it carries lessons for the present 
day and you accept the fact that not only our values but our position as 
the world's only superpower impose upon us an obligation to carry 
through, then the conclusion is inevitable: We must help to secure a 
peace if a peace can be reached in Bosnia. We will not send our troops 
into combat. We will not ask them to keep a peace that cannot be 
maintained. But we must use our power to secure a peace and to implement 
the agreement.
    We have an opportunity and a responsibility to help resolve this, 
the most difficult security challenge in the heart of Europe since World 
War II. When His Holiness the Pope was here just a few days ago, we 
spent a little over a half an hour alone, and we talked of many things. 
But in the end, he said, ``Mr. President, I am not a young man. I have a 
long memory. This century began with a war in Sarajevo. We must not let 
this century end with a war in Sarajevo.''
    Even if a peace agreement is reached, and I hope that we can do 
that, no peace will endure for long without justice. For only justice 
can break finally the cycle of violence and retribution that fuels war 
and crimes against humanity. Only justice can lift the burden of 
collective guilt. It weighs upon a society where unspeakable acts of 
destruction have occurred. Only justice can assign responsibility to the 
guilty and allow everyone else to get on with the hard work of 
rebuilding and reconciliation. So as the United States leads the 
international effort to forge a lasting peace in Bosnia, the War Crimes 
Tribunal must carry on its work to find justice.
    The United States is contributing more than $16 million in funds and 
services to that tribunal and to the one regarding Rwanda. We have 20 
prosecutors, investigators, and other personnel on the staffs. And at 
the United Nations, we have led the effort to secure adequate funding 
for these tribunals. And we continue to press others to make voluntary 
contributions. We do this because we believe doing it is part of acting 
on the lessons that Senator Dodd and others taught us at Nuremberg.
    By successfully prosecuting war criminals in the former Yugoslavia 
and Rwanda, we can send a strong signal to those who would use the cover 
of war to commit terrible atrocities that they cannot escape the 
consequences of such actions. And a signal will come across even more 
loudly and clearly if nations all around the world who value freedom and 
tolerance establish a permanent international court to prosecute, with 
the support of the United Nations Security Council, serious violations 
of humanitarian law. This, it seems to me, would be the ultimate tribute 
to the people who did such important work at Nuremberg, a permanent 
international court to prosecute such violations. And we are working 
today at the United Nations to see whether it can be done.
    But my fellow Americans and my fellow citizens of the world, let me 
also say that our commitment to punish these crimes against humanity 
must be matched by our commitment to prevent them in the first place. As 
we work to support these tribunals, let's not forget what our ultimate 
goal is. Our ultimate goal must be to render them completely obsolete 
because such things no longer occur.
    Accountability is a powerful deterrent, but it isn't enough. It 
doesn't get to the root cause of such atrocities. Only a profound change 
in the nature of societies can begin to reach the heart of the matter. 
And I be- 

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lieve the basis of that profound change is democracy.
    Democracy is the best guarantor of human rights--not a perfect one, 
to be sure; you can see that in the history of the United States--but it 
is still the system that demands respect for the individual, and it 
requires responsibility from the individual to thrive. Democracy cannot 
eliminate all violations of human rights or outlaw human frailty, nor 
does promoting democracy relieve us of the obligation to press others 
who do not operate democracies to respect human rights. But more than 
any other system of government we know, democracy protects those rights, 
defends the victims of their abuse, punishes the perpetrators, and 
prevents a downward spiral of revenge.
    So promoting democracy does more than advance our ideals. It 
reinforces our interests. Where the rule of law prevails, where 
governments are held accountable, where ideas and information flow 
freely, economic development and political stability are more likely to 
take hold and human rights are more likely to thrive. History teaches us 
that democracies are less likely to go to war, less likely to traffic in 
terrorism and more likely to stand against the forces of hatred and 
destruction, more likely to become good partners in diplomacy and trade. 
So promoting democracy and defending human rights is good for the world 
and good for America.
    These aims have always had a powerful advocate in Senator Chris 
Dodd, who has defended the vulnerable and championed democracy, 
especially here in our own hemisphere, as has his brother, Tom, first as 
a distinguished academic at our common alma mater, Georgetown, and then 
as America's Ambassador to Uruguay. As a Peace Corps volunteer in the 
Dominican Republic, Senator Dodd helped some of our poorest neighbors to 
build homes for their families. Twenty-five years later, when a brutal 
dictatorship overthrew the legitimate government of Haiti, murdering, 
mutilating, and raping thousands and causing tens of thousands more to 
flee in fear, Chris Dodd was the conscience of the Senate on Haiti. He 
urged America and the world to take action.
    On this very day one year ago, an American-led multinational force 
returned the duly elected President of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, to 
his country. The anniversary we celebrate today was the culmination of a 
3-year effort by the United States and the international community to 
remove the dictators and restore democracy. Because we backed diplomacy 
with the force of our military, the dictators finally did step down. And 
Haiti's democrats stepped back into their rightful place.
    Our actions ended a reign of terror that did violence not only to 
innocent Haitians but to the values and the principles of the civilized 
world. We renewed hope in Haiti's future where once there was only 
despair. We upheld the reliability of our own commitments and the 
commitments that others make to us. We sent a powerful message to the 
would-be despots in the region: Democracy in the Americas cannot be 
overthrown with impunity.
    We have seen extraordinary progress in this year. The democratic 
government has been restored. Human rights are its purpose, not its 
disgrace. Violence has subsided, though not ended altogether. Peaceful 
elections have occurred. Reform is underway. A new civilian police force 
has already more than 1,000 officers on the street. A growing private 
sector is beginning to generate jobs and opportunity. After so much 
blood and terror, the people of Haiti have resumed their long journey to 
security and prosperity with dignity.
    There is a lot of work to do. Haiti is still the poorest nation in 
our hemisphere, and that is a breeding ground for the things we all come 
here to condemn today. Its democratic institutions are fragile, and all 
those years of vicious oppression have left scars and some still 
thirsting for revenge.
    For reform to take root and to endure, trust must be fully 
established not only between the Government and the people but among the 
people of Haiti themselves. President Aristide understands that when he 
says, no to violence, yes to justice; no to vengeance, yes to 
reconciliation.
    This is very important. Assigning individual responsibilities for 
crimes of the past is also important there. Haiti now has a national 
commission for truth and justice, launching investigations of past human 
rights abuses.

[[Page 1845]]

And with our support, Haiti is improving the effectiveness, 
accessibility, and accountability of its own justice system, again, to 
prevent future violations as well as to punish those which occur.
    The people of Haiti know it's up to them to safeguard their freedom. 
But we know, as President Kennedy said, that democracy is never a final 
achievement. And just as the American people, after 200 years, are 
continually struggling to perfect our own democracy, we must and we will 
stand with the people of Haiti as they struggle to build their own. 
Indeed, the Vice President is just today in Haiti celebrating the one-
year anniversary.
    And let me say one final thing about this. I thank Senator Dodd and 
Ambassador Dodd for their concern with freedom, democracy, and getting 
rid of the horrible human rights abuses that have occurred in the past 
throughout the Americas. The First Lady is in South America today--or 
she would be here with me--partly because of the path that has been 
blazed by the Dodd family in this generation to stand up for democracy, 
so that every single country of the Americas, save one, now has a 
democratically elected leader. And human rights abuses and the kinds of 
crimes that Senator Thomas Dodd stood up against at Nuremberg are 
dramatically, dramatically reduced because of that process and this 
family's leadership.
    In closing, let me say that, for all of the work we might do through 
tribunals to bring the guilty to account, it is our daily commitment to 
the ideals of human dignity, democracy, and peace that has been and will 
continue to be the source of our strength in the world and our capacity 
to work with others to prevent such terrible things from occurring in 
the first place.
    We will continue to defend the values we believe make life worth 
living. We will continue to defend the proposition that all people, 
without regard to their nationality, their race, their ethnic group, 
their religion, their gender, should have the chance to live free, 
should have the chance to make the most of their God-given potential. 
For too long, all across the globe, women and their children, in 
particular, were denied these human rights. Those were the rights for 
which the First Lady spoke so forcefully in China at the Women's 
Conference and for which the United States will work hard in the years 
ahead.
    Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a moment of great hope and 
possibility. The capacity of the United States to lead has been 
energized by our ability to succeed economically in the global economy 
and by the efforts we are making to come to grips with our own problems 
here at home. But I leave you with this thought that was referred to by 
the Governor in his fine remarks and that the president of this 
University has emphasized in his comments today.
    It is important that we be able to act upon our values. And what 
enables us to do it is our success as a nation, our strength as a 
people, the fact that people can see that if you live as we say we 
should live, that people can work together across racial and ethnic and 
other divides to create one from many, as our motto says, and to do 
well.
    Therefore, we should in the weeks ahead in Washington find a way to 
come together across our political divide to balance the budget after 
the deficit has taken such a toll on our economy over the last dozen 
years. But I ask you to remember this: We must do it in a way that is 
consistent with our values and with our ability to live by and implement 
and support those values here at home and all around the world.
    Therefore, if our goal is to preserve our ideals and our dreams and 
our leadership and to extend them to all Americans, when we balance the 
budget we must not turn our backs on our obligation to give all 
Americans a chance to get an education, including a college education; 
to honor our fathers and our mothers in terms of how we treat their 
legitimate needs which they have earned the right to have addressed, 
including their health care needs; and not to forget the poor children, 
even though it is unfashionable to talk about poverty in this world 
today. They will be the adults of this country someday.
    We are strong because we honor each other across the generations. We 
are strong when we reach across the racial and ethnic divides. We are 
strong when we continue to invest in education and the technology which 
opens all the mysterious doors of the future. We are strong when we 
preserve the environ- 

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ment that God gave us here at home and around our increasingly 
interconnected planet. We are strong when we continue to determine to 
lead the world.
    These are the things which make it possible for us to meet here in 
Connecticut today and advocate the responsibility of the United States 
to lead in the protection of human rights around the world and the 
prevention of future horrendous circumstances such as those that Senator 
Dodd had to address at Nuremberg.
    So I ask you to remember those lessons, as well. If we have an 
obligation to stand up for what is right, to advance what is right, to 
lift up human potential, we must be able to fulfill that obligation.
    If there is one last lesson of this day, I believe it should be that 
prosperity for the United States is not the most important thing and not 
an end in itself. We should seek it only, only, as a means to enhance 
the human spirit, to enhance human dignity, to enhance the ability of 
every person in our country and those whom we have the means to help 
around the world to become the people God meant for them to be. If we 
can remember that, then we can be faithful to the generation that won 
World War II, to the outstanding leaders which established the important 
precedents at Nuremberg, and to the mission and the spirit of the Dodd 
Center.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 4:18 p.m. at Gampel Pavilion.