[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 13 (Monday, March 30, 1998)]
[Pages 494-495]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Departure from Entebbe, Uganda, and an Exchange With 
Reporters

March 25, 1998

Jonesboro Incident

    The President. Just before I left the hotel this morning, I talked 
to the Governor of Arkansas and extended my personal condolences and 
sorrow about the terrible incident in Jonesboro yesterday. I attempted 
to call the mayor, who is an old friend of mine, but I haven't reached 
him yet.
    I just want to say again how profoundly sad I am and how disturbed I 
am. I've been thinking about this for the last several hours. This is 
the third incident in the last few months involving young children and 
violence in schools, and I'm going to ask the Attorney General to find 
whatever experts there are in our country on this and try to analyze 
this terrible tragedy to see whether there are any common elements in 
this incident and the other two, and whether it indicates any further 
action on our part.
    Today the people in my home State and a town I know very well are 
grieving. They're suffering losses. And we should focus on that. But I 
do think in the weeks to come we have to analyze these incidents and see 
whether

[[Page 495]]

or not we can learn anything that will tell us what we can do to prevent 
further ones.
    Q. Do you have any thoughts about how to stop this? I mean, if 
you've been thinking about it, anything come to mind, sir?
    The President. I don't want to say too much until we have a chance 
to analyze them. I don't know enough about the facts of this incident. 
The facts of this incident are just now coming out. I've read, 
obviously, all the latest wire reports I can get, and frankly I'm not 
sure I know enough about the other two to draw any conclusions.
    I don't want the American people to jump to any conclusions, but 
when three horrible tragedies like this involving young people who take 
other people's lives and then in the process destroy their own, we have 
to see if there are some common elements. And we'll look and do our best 
to do the right thing.
    Q. Do you suspect that there are some common elements, sir?
    The President. Well, the circumstances certainly seem to have a lot 
in common. What we need to know is what's behind the circumstances. As I 
said, I think that the American people today should send their thoughts, 
their prayers, their hopes to the people in Jonesboro. But in the weeks 
ahead, we need to look into this very closely and see what, if anything, 
we can find. And then if we do find some patterns, we ought to take 
whatever action seems appropriate.

President's Visit to Rwanda

    Q. Your trip to Rwanda, could you give us just a little advance word 
of what you hope to accomplish there, sir?
    The President. Obviously, I hope that my trip there will help to 
avoid further killing along the ethnic lines and bring the attention of 
the world to this in a way that will have an impact on ethnic conflicts 
in other parts of the world. And then I'm going to come back here to the 
regional meeting that President Museveni has agreed to host, and I hope 
we'll come out with a statement there that will allow us to make further 
progress.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:05 a.m. at Entebbe Airport. A tape was 
not available for verification of the content of these remarks.