[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 49 (Monday, December 11, 1995)]
[Pages 2124-2126]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Human Rights Proclamation

December 5, 1995

    Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. And most important of 
all, thank you for your commitment to the people of Bosnia, for your 
care and your courage.
    Many of you in this room have worked throughout the war to stop the 
human rights abuses that horrified the world and to ease the suffering 
of the people of Bosnia. Now the Balkan leaders have ended the war and 
have made a commitment to peace, so that now I can say to you, we need 
your help more than ever to make sure the peace takes hold and endures.
    I have just had a remarkable meeting in the Oval Office with a group 
of Bosnians who just came in and took their seats. They were forced to 
flee their country, and they have resettled in ours: the Capin family, 
the Ibisevic family, and Dr. Oljaca. They are all here with me. They 
bear witness to loved ones lost, homes destroyed, careers shattered, 
families separated. They can tell us what it's like to leave the land 
they love, where they were born and went to school, where they married 
and raised families, where they should have been able to enjoy the basic 
human right to build a good future in peace.
    These people and so many more like them are the human faces of the 
war in Bosnia. They are the story behind the unbelievable numbers of a 
quarter of a million dead, 2 million people displaced, more than half 
the population of pre-war Bosnia.
    Many of you have actually witnessed and documented the war's 
atrocities firsthand, the executions, the ethnic cleansing, the rape

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of young women and girls as a tool of war, the endless lines of 
despairing refugees. We cannot bring back the war's victims. So many of 
them were little children. We cannot erase its horrors. But because the 
parties have said they will turn from war to peace, we can now prevent 
further suffering; we can now shine the light of justice in Bosnia; we 
can now help its people build a future of hope.
    All of us have a role to play. This weekend, as you all know, I 
visited our troops in Germany, those who will soon set off for Bosnia 
not to make war, but to wage peace. Each side in Bosnia has asked NATO 
to help secure their peace agreement, to make sure the armies withdraw 
behind the separation lines and stay there, to maintain the cease-fire 
so that the war does not start again, to give all the parties the mutual 
confidence they need so that all will keep their word.
    Creating a climate of security is the necessary first step toward 
rebuilding and reconciliation. That is NATO's mission, and it must be 
America's mission.
    I have to say that the families who just visited with me said 
repeatedly that they felt that the presence of Americans in Bosnia, the 
American troops, was absolutely critical to giving the people of Bosnia 
the confidence they need to believe that they can once again live in 
peace together as they did before the war.
    I am absolutely convinced that our goals are clear; they are 
limited; and they are achievable in about a year's time. I'm also 
satisfied that we have taken every possible precaution to minimize the 
risks to our troops. They will take their orders from the American 
general who commands NATO; there will be no confusing chain of command. 
Our troops are very well-trained, and they will be heavily armed. They 
will have very clear rules of engagement that will allow them to respond 
immediately and decisively to any threat to their security.
    The climate of security NATO creates in Bosnia will allow a 
separate, broad international release effort for relief and 
reconstruction to begin. That's where many of you come in. I cannot 
overstate the importance of that effort. For peace to endure, the people 
of Bosnia must receive the tangible benefits of peace. They must have 
the food, the medicine, the shelter, the clothing so many have been 
denied for so long. Roads must be repaired, the schools and hospitals 
rebuilt, the factories and shops refurbished and reopened. Families must 
be reunited and refugees returned home. Elections must be held so that 
those devoted to reconciliation can lead their people to a future 
together. And those guilty of war crimes must be punished, because no 
peace will long endure without justice.
    Over the next year the civilian relief and reconstruction effort 
will help to realize the promise of peace and give it a life of its own. 
It can so change the face of Bosnia that by the time the NATO mission is 
ready to leave, the people of Bosnia will have a much, much greater 
stake in peace than in war. That must be all of our goals.
    Once the people of Bosnia lived in peace. Many people have forgotten 
that, but it wasn't so very long ago. It can happen again. It must 
happen again. And every one of us must do what we can to make sure that 
the stakes of peace and the faces of children are uppermost in the minds 
of the people of Bosnia when the NATO mission is completed.
    Sunday is International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the 
adoption by the United Nations of the universal declaration of human 
rights in 1948. For nearly 4 years the war in Bosnia did terrible 
violence to the principles of that declaration. It destroyed hundreds of 
thousands of lives. It ruined countless futures.
    But on this Human Rights Day, we have something to celebrate. The 
war in Bosnia is over. The peace, however, is just beginning. Together, 
if we work hard to help it take hold, to help it endure, on the next 
Human Rights Day, the faces of Bosnia will not be the victims of war but 
the beneficiaries of peace.
    I am now very pleased to sign this proclamation designating December 
10th, 1995 as Human Rights Day, and December 10th through 16th as Human 
Rights Week. Let us make sure that for the next year, it will be a human 
rights year in Bosnia.
    Thank you very much.

[At this point the President signed the proclamation.]

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    You look at these children, and they make you smile. They should not 
have to come here to look as good as they look and to be as happy as 
they are. I'm glad they're here. I'm honored to have such fine people 
strengthening the fabric of America. They are very welcome here. But the 
people like them who want to live at home and raise their children to 
look just like this ought to have the same rights. That's what this 
piece of paper is all about.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:42 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building.