[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 48 (Monday, December 4, 1995)]
[Pages 2080-2084]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to Mackie International Employees in Belfast, Northern Ireland

November 30, 1995

    This is one of those occasions where I really feel that all that 
needs to be said has already been said. I thank Catherine and David for 
introducing me, for all the schoolchildren of Northern Ireland who are 
here today, and for all whom they represent. A big part of peace is 
children growing up safely, learning together, and growing together. I 
thank Patrick Dougan and Ronnie Lewis for their remarks, for their work 
here, for all the members of the Mackie team who are with us today in 
welcoming us to this factory. I was hoping we could have an event like 
this in Northern Ireland at a place where people work and reach out to 
the rest of the world in a positive way, because a big part of peace is 
working together for family and community and for the welfare of the 
common enterprise.

[[Page 2081]]

    It is good to be among the people of Northern Ireland who have given 
so much to America and the world, and good to be here with such a large 
delegation of my fellow Americans, including of course my wife. And I 
see the Secretary of Commerce here and the Ambassador to Great Britain, 
and a number of others. But we have quite a large delegation from both 
parties in the United States Congress, so we've sort of got a truce of 
our own going on here today. [Laughter]
    And I'd like to ask the Members of Congress who have come all the 
way from Washington, DC, to stand up and be recognized. Would you all 
stand?
    Many of you perhaps know that one in four of America's Presidents 
trace their roots to Ireland's shores, beginning with Andrew Jackson, 
the son of immigrants from Carrickfergus, to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 
whose forebears came from County Wexford. I know I am only the latest in 
this time-honored tradition, but I'm proud to be the first sitting 
American President to make it back to Belfast.
    At this holiday season all around the world, the promise of peace is 
in the air. The barriers of the cold war are giving way to a global 
village where communication and cooperation are the order of the day. 
From South Africa to the Middle East, and now to troubled Bosnia, 
conflicts long thought impossible to solve are moving along the road to 
resolution. Once-bitter foes are clasping hands and changing history, 
and long-suffering people are moving closer to normal lives.
    Here in Northern Ireland, you are making a miracle, a miracle 
symbolized by those two children who held hands and told us what this 
whole thing is all about. In the land of the harp and the fiddle, the 
fife and the lambeg drum, two proud traditions are coming together in 
the harmonies of peace. The cease-fire and negotiations have sparked a 
powerful transformation.
    Mackie's plant is a symbol of Northern Ireland's rebirth. It has 
long been a symbol of world-class engineering. The textile machines you 
make permit people to weave disparate threads into remarkable fabrics. 
That is now what you must do here with the people of Northern Ireland.
    Here we lie along the peace line, the wall of steel and stone 
separating Protestant from Catholic. But today, under the leadership of 
Pat Dougan, you are bridging the divide, overcoming a legacy of 
discrimination where fair employment and integration are the watchwords 
of the future. On this shop floor, men and women of both traditions are 
working together to achieve common goals.
    Peace, once a distant dream, is now making a difference in everyday 
life in this land. Soldiers have left the streets of Belfast; many have 
gone home. People can go to the pub or the store without the burden of 
the search or the threat of a bomb. As barriers disappear along the 
border, families and communities divided for decades are becoming whole 
once more.
    This year in Armagh on St. Patrick's Day, Protestant and Catholic 
children led the parade together for the first time since The Troubles 
began. A bystander's words marked the wonder of the occasion when he 
said, ``Even the normal is beginning to seem normal.''
    The economic rewards of peace are evident as well. Unemployment has 
fallen here to its lowest level in 14 years, while retail sales and 
investment are surging. For from the gleaming city center to the new 
shop fronts of Belfast, to the Enterprise Center in East Belfast, 
business is thriving, and opportunities are expanding. With every extra 
day that the guns are still, business confidence grows stronger, and the 
promise of prosperity grows as well.
    As the shroud of terror melts away, Northern Ireland's beauty has 
been revealed again to all the world, the castles and coasts, the 
Giant's Causeway, the lush green hills, the high white cliffs, a magical 
backdrop to your greatest asset which I saw all along the way from the 
airport here today, the warmth and good feeling of your people. Visitors 
are now coming in record numbers. Indeed, today the air route between 
Belfast and London is the second busiest in all of Europe.
    I want to honor those whose courage and vision have brought us to 
this point: Prime Minister Major, Prime Minister Bruton, and before him, 
Prime Minister Reynolds, laid the background and the basis for this era 
of reconciliation. From the Downing Street

[[Page 2082]]

Declaration to the joint framework document, they altered the course of 
history. Now, just in the last few days, by launching the twin-track 
initiative, they have opened a promising new gateway to a just and 
lasting peace. Foreign Minister Spring, Sir Patrick Mayhew, David 
Trimble, and John Hume all have labored to realize the promise of peace. 
And Gerry Adams, along with Loyalist leaders such as David Ervine and 
Gary McMichael, helped to silence the guns on the streets and to bring 
about the first peace in a generation.
    But most of all, America salutes all the people of Northern Ireland 
who have shown the world in concrete ways that here the will for peace 
is now stronger than the weapons of war. With mixed sporting events 
encouraging competition on the playing field, not the battlefield, with 
women's support groups, literacy programs, job training centers that 
served both communities, these and countless other initiatives bolster 
the foundations of peace as well.
    Last year's cease-fire of the Irish Republican Army, joined by the 
combined Loyalist Military Command, marked a turning point in the 
history of Northern Ireland. Now is the time to sustain that momentum 
and lock in the gains of peace. Neither community wants to go back to 
the violence of the past. The children told of that today. Both parties 
must do their part to move this process forward now.
    Let me begin by saying that the search for common ground demands the 
courage of an open mind. This twin-track initiative gives the parties a 
chance to begin preliminary talks in ways in which all views will be 
represented and all voices will be heard. It also establishes an 
international body to address the issue of arms decommissioning. I hope 
the parties will seize this opportunity. Engaging in honest dialog is 
not an act of surrender, it is an act of strength and common sense.
    Moving from cease-fire to peace requires dialog. For 25 years now, 
the history of Northern Ireland has been written in the blood of its 
children and their parents. The cease-fire turned the page on that 
history. It must not be allowed to turn back.
    There must also be progress away from the negotiating table. 
Violence has lessened, but it has not disappeared. The leaders of the 
four main churches recently condemned the so-called punishment beatings 
and called for an end to such attacks. I add my voice to theirs.
    As the church leaders said, this is a time when the utmost efforts 
on all sides are needed to build a peaceful and confident community in 
the future. But true peace requires more than a treaty, even more than 
the absence of violence. Those who have suffered most in the fighting 
must share fairly in the fruits of renewal. The frustration that gave 
rise to violence must give way to faith in the future.
    The United States will help to secure the tangible benefits of 
peace. Ours is the first American administration ever to support in the 
Congress the International Fund for Ireland, which has become an engine 
for economic development and for reconciliation. We will continue to 
encourage trade and investment and to help end the cycle of 
unemployment.
    We are proud to support Northern Ireland. You have given America a 
very great deal. Irish-Protestant and Irish-Catholic together have added 
to America's strength. From our battle for independence down to the 
present day, the Irish have not only fought in our wars, they have built 
our Nation, and we owe you a very great debt.
    Let me say that of all the gifts we can offer in return, perhaps the 
most enduring and the most precious is the example of what is possible 
when people find unity and strength in their diversity. We know from our 
own experience even today how hard that is to do. After all, we fought a 
great Civil War over the issue of race and slavery in which hundreds of 
thousands of our people were killed.
    Today, in one of our counties alone, in Los Angeles, there are over 
150 different ethnic and racial groups represented. We know we can 
become stronger if we bridge our differences. But we learned in our own 
Civil War that that has to begin with a change of the heart.
    I grew up in the American South, in one of the States that tried to 
break from the American Union. My forebears on my father's side were 
soldiers in the Confederate Army. I was reading the other day a book

[[Page 2083]]

about our first Governor after the Civil War who fought for the Union 
Army and who lost members of his own family. They lived the experience 
so many of you have lived. When this Governor took office and looked out 
over a sea of his fellow citizens who fought on the other side, he said 
these words: ``We have all done wrong. No one can say his heart is 
altogether clean and his hands altogether pure. Thus, as we wish to be 
forgiven, let us forgive those who have sinned against us and ours.'' 
That was the beginning of America's reconciliation, and it must be the 
beginning of Northern Ireland's reconciliation.
    It is so much easier to believe that our differences matter more 
than what we have in common. It is easier, but it is wrong. We all 
cherish family and faith, work and community. We all strive to live 
lives that are free and honest and responsible. We all want our children 
to grow up in a world where their talents are matched by their 
opportunities. And I believe those values are just as strong in County 
Londonderry as they are in Londonderry, New Hampshire; in Belfast, 
Northern Ireland as in Belfast, Maine.
    I am proud to be of Ulster Scots stock. I am proud to be, also, of 
Irish stock. I share these roots with millions and millions of 
Americans, now over 40 million Americans. And we rejoice at things being 
various, as Louis MacNeice once wrote. It is one of the things that 
makes America special.
    Because our greatness flows from the wealth of our diversity as well 
as the strength of the ideals we share in common, we feel bound to 
support others around the world who seek to bridge their own divides. 
This is an important part of our country's mission on the eve of the 
21st century, because we know that the chain of peace that protects us 
grows stronger with every new link that is forged.
    For the first time in half a century now, we can put our children to 
bed at night knowing that the nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union 
are no longer pointed at those children. In South Africa, the long night 
of apartheid has given way to a new freedom for all peoples. In the 
Middle East, Arabs and Israelis are stepping beyond war to peace in an 
area where many believed peace would never come. In Haiti, a brutal 
dictatorship has given way to a fragile new democracy. In Europe, the 
dream of a stable, undivided free continent seems finally within reach 
as the people of Bosnia have the first real hope for peace since the 
terrible fighting began there nearly 4 years ago.
    The United States looks forward to working with our allies here in 
Europe and others to help the people in Bosnia, the Muslims, the Croats, 
the Serbs, to move beyond their divisions and their destructions to make 
the peace agreement they have made a reality in the lives of their 
people.
    Those who work for peace have got to support one another. We know 
that when leaders stand up for peace, they place their forces on the 
line and sometimes their very lives on the line, as we learned so 
recently in the tragic murder of the brave Prime Minister of Israel. 
For, just as peace has its pioneers, peace will always have its rivals. 
Even when children stand up and say what these children said today, 
there will always be people who, deep down inside, will never be able to 
give up the past.
    Over the last 3 years, I have had the privilege of meeting with and 
closely listening to both Nationalists and Unionists from Northern 
Ireland, and I believe that the greatest struggle you face now is not 
between opposing ideas or opposing interests. The greatest struggle you 
face is between those who deep down inside are inclined to be 
peacemakers and those who deep down inside cannot yet embrace the cause 
of peace, between those who are in the ship of peace and those who are 
trying to sink it. Old habits die hard. There will always be those who 
define the worth of their lives not by who they are but by who they 
aren't, not by what they're for but by what they are against. They will 
never escape the dead-end street of violence. But you, the vast 
majority, Protestant and Catholic alike, must not allow the ship of 
peace to sink on the rocks of old habits and hard grudges.
    You must stand firm against terror. You must say to those who still 
would use violence for political objectives, ``You are the past. Your 
day is over. Violence has no place at the table of democracy and no role 
in the future of this land.'' By the same token, you must also be 
willing to say to those who re- 

[[Page 2084]]

nounce violence and who do take their own risks for peace that they are 
entitled to be full participants in the democratic process. Those who do 
show the courage to break with the past are entitled to their stake in 
the future.
    As leaders for peace become invested in the process, as leaders make 
compromises and risk the backlash, people begin more and more--I have 
seen this all over the world--they begin more and more to develop a 
common interest in each other's success, in standing together rather 
than standing apart. They realize that the sooner they get to true 
peace, with all the rewards it brings, the sooner it will be easy to 
discredit and destroy the forces of destruction.
    We will stand with those who takes risks for peace in Northern 
Ireland and around the world. I pledge that we will do all we can, 
through the International Fund for Ireland and in many other ways, to 
ease your load. If you walk down this path continually, you will not 
walk alone. We are entering an era of possibility unparalleled in all of 
human history. If you enter that era determined to build a new age of 
peace, the United States of America will proudly stand with you.
    But at the end of the day, as with all free people, your future is 
for you to decide. Your destiny is for you to determine. Only you can 
decide between division and unity, between hard lives and high hopes. 
Only you can create a lasting peace. It takes courage to let go of 
familiar divisions. It takes faith to walk down a new road. But when we 
see the bright gaze of these children, we know the risk is worth the 
reward.
    I have been so touched by the thousands of letters I have received 
from schoolchildren here, telling me what peace means to them. One young 
girl from Ballymena wrote, and I quote, ``It is not easy to forgive and 
forget, especially for those who have lost a family member or a close 
friend. However, if people could look to the future with hope instead of 
the past with fear, we can only be moving in the right direction.'' I 
couldn't have said it nearly as well.
    I believe you can summon the strength to keep moving forward. After 
all, you have come so far already. You have braved so many dangers. You 
have endured so many sacrifices. Surely, there can be no turning back. 
But peace must be waged with a warrior's resolve, bravely, proudly, and 
relentlessly, secure in the knowledge of the single greatest difference 
between war and peace: In peace, everybody can win.
    I was overcome today, when I landed in my plane and I drove with 
Hillary up the highway to come here, by the phenomenal beauty of the 
place and the spirit and the good will of the people. Northern Ireland 
has a chance not only to begin anew but to be a real inspiration to the 
rest of the world, a model of progress through tolerance.
    Let us join our efforts together as never before to make that dream 
a reality. Let us join our prayers in this season of peace for a future 
of peace in this good land.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. on the factory floor. In his 
remarks, he referred to Catherine Hamill and David Sterritt, students 
who introduced the President; Patrick Dougan, president, and Ronnie 
Lewis, senior shop steward, Mackie International; Richard Spring, T.D., 
Foreign Minister of Ireland; Sir Patrick Mayhew, M.P., Secretary of 
State for Northern Ireland, United Kingdom; David Trimble, M.P., leader, 
Ulster Unionist Party; John Hume, M.P., leader, Social Democratic and 
Labour Party; Gerry Adams, leader, Sinn Fein; David Ervine, leader, 
Progressive Unionist Party; and Gary McMichael, leader, Ulster 
Democratic Party. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.