[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 10 (Monday, March 15, 1999)]
[Pages 385-390]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Hurricane Mitch Reconstruction
Efforts in Tegucigalpa, Honduras
March 9, 1999
President Clinton. Thank you, Mr. President, for your remarks and
for the extended visit we have already had today about these matters.
I wanted to have the opportunity today to hear from a broad cross-
section of citizens of this country, and so I will be extremely brief. I
agree with the President that this period of reconstruction should be
seen as the opportunity to build something even better than what was
here before. And furthermore, I believe that if all elements of a
society are properly involved and feel fairly treated, that the
country's social fabric, sense of community, will be stronger than it
was before the disaster occurred.
Many of you have paid a very high price for what has occurred, and
the losses have been staggering. But I think the--I have been quite
impressed by what has already been done and by the attitude of the
people. What the United States is interested in is how we can best be an
effective partner with you from our end. And so I'm quite interested in
your perspective on that, as well as anything you would like to tell me
about your present activities.
I'd also like to introduce--this is Congressman Xavier Becerra, who
came here before with the First Lady and has just finished a term as the
head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He is from California. And I
am delighted to have him back with me. And Congressman Reyes from Texas
is also here with us.
Moderator. We have our Archbishop--perhaps he can kick off the
discussion.
[Archbishop Oscar Rodriguez began the discussion by thanking President
Clinton, the people, and the churches in the U.S. for their assistance
in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. He asked that the President support
efforts to expand trade by allowing NAFTA parity, cease deportation of
Hondurans, and support Central American efforts within the G-7 for
multilateral debt relief.]
Moderator. And this is the mayor of Tegucigalpa. I think you know
about the accident she had in the helicopter. And after that, she took
his job, and here we have her now.
[Mayor Vilma de Castellanos stated that 30 percent of the city was
destroyed and briefly mentioned the impact of loss of life and damage to
the economic and social infrastructure of the city. She closed by
presenting the President with the key to the city.]
Moderator. And now we have Mario Canawati, who is president of the
Chamber
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of Commerce and Industry of San Pedro Sula and Cortes.
[Mr. Canawati thanked the Government and people of the U.S. for support
during the crisis and reconstruction. He noted that Central America is
one of the most important trade partners of the U.S. and that the U.S.
has been instrumental in Honduran economic and democratic development
through the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). He cited the textile and
apparel industry as one which had been excluded from the CBI and that
the revenue it generated compared unfavorably with Mexico. He said the
only alternative to creating permanent jobs and sustained economic
growth was through the implementation of a trade field that allowed
Honduran exports to compete under the same conditions as NAFTA
products.]
Moderator. And perhaps Jacqueline Foglia from the Honduran American
Chamber of Commerce would like to speak.
[Ms. Foglia stated that Hurricane Mitch affected agricultural more than
other sectors of the economy. She noted that the garment industry and
tourism sectors were not highly affected, and these might provide the
motor for economic reconstruction. She went on to outline steps that the
Honduran American Chamber of Commerce was taking to advance
reconstruction efforts with the Association of American Chambers of
Commerce of Latin America, in Washington, DC, which included working
toward a U.S. legislative reconstruction package which would include the
Caribbean Basin Trade Enhancement Measure which would, through greater
access to U.S. markets, allow for a faster economic recovery, job
creation, and overall economic benefits for Honduras.]
Moderator. And now, Jorge Quinones, director of the Vida Foundation.
[Mr. Quinones thanked the President and the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) for its help in Honduran environmental
projects. He stated that in the aftermath of the hurricane,
reforestation and sustainable management of water basins were the most
formidable challenges in reconstruction. He added that environmental
education needed to be a central part of the reconstruction agenda.]
Moderator. And Mariano Flanos now, from Save the Children.
[Mr. Flanos stated that Save the Children supported over 50,000 people
with different kinds of financing from the people and Government of the
United States, especially from USAID, and had also benefited from the
support of human resources from U.S. organizations in Honduras for areas
that went far beyond reconstruction and infrastructure.]
Moderator. And now, Ricardo Maduro, a businessman.
[Mr. Maduro, president of a private education foundation, stated that
the Honduran infrastructure in education was substantially damaged by
Hurricane Mitch and indicated the worst effect had been to reduce the
capacity, public and private, to invest in education. He described the
education levels in the country and stated that to move forward they
need to use nontraditional methods such as radio and television to reach
students. He expressed the market-driven need for more computers in
education and teaching English as a second language. A spokesman for the
Flores administration said the Government was attempting to reach an
early agreement with the International Monetary Fund for bilateral and
multilateral debt relief. He indicated the Government was working to
develop a reconstruction master plan with a consultative group in
Stockholm, Sweden, while simultaneously strengthening the mechanisms of
financing transparency through international auditing. Representative
Xavier Becerra made brief remarks commending the Hondurans for the
improvements made since his visit in November, 1998. He pledged to work
hard in Congress to provide as much support for the region as possible.]
President Clinton. First of all, I would like to thank you all for
your presentations and for making them quite specific and to the point.
I would like to respond to a number of the points that were made. First
of all, I have sent legislation to the Congress, just last week before I
came here, asking for greater liberalization of trade for the Central
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American and Caribbean nations to move closer toward parity with NAFTA
in Mexico. I have--it does not go as far in everything that I'm sure a
lot of you would do, but it does as much as we believe we can pass in
the Congress.
I was profoundly disappointed last year that we did not pass the
trade-opening initiative. And of course, after the hurricane struck, I
was even more disappointed. I think now, ironically because of the
hurricane, we may have a better chance to pass a bill. And I will do
everything I can to that end.
With regard to debt relief, part of the package that I have proposed
to the Congress in aid, as opposed to trade, about a $955 million
package, a part of it involves the debt deferral and outright debt
forgiveness, both of which would give very much needed debt relief not
only to Honduras but to the other Central American nations. If the
Congress will go along with me and pass this, it will give me the
standing to argue more forcefully to the other nations and to the
international organizations that they must follow suit.
I think, clearly, Honduras should be given relief under the highly
indebted countries initiative that the United States has done a lot to
create. I believe we should do more. I think the fact that the Holy
Father has made this a year in which he's calling for people to do more
debt relief will, frankly, be enormously helpful, and I told him that
when I was in St. Louis recently. And I would urge you to communicate
this to the Vatican, that if there could be more of this, like sort of a
constant reminder, it would be highly effective, even perhaps
establishing some sort of priority saying you ought to do at least
Central America and then something in Africa and something in Asia to
give hope to the people on those continents, something like that.
But I think on a thing like this it's not enough to say it one time.
We have to keep working. But I think Central America has a special claim
here, Honduras, Nicaragua, the other countries as well, because one of
the arguments I always hear, even in my own country, about debt
forgiveness is, ``Well, look, you know if you''--and the former banker
here understands this--``if you forgive it all, well, then nobody will
want to loan any money tomorrow because they'll think all of that will
be forgiven, too.''
Well, in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in centuries
here, it seems to me that argument just doesn't hold water here. It
might be true in the case of an Asian country that had a bad banking
system and got in an economic problem for local reasons, but it seems to
me, insofar as the present predicament of Central America is a direct
result of the hurricane, that argument has no standing.
So I will do the best I can. But again, I would urge all of you to
stay on that because relieving the government of the financial burden of
the payments will free up a lot of money for education and other things
as well.
On the deportation, I think you know, Archbishop Rodriguez, because
you spoke in a way that indicated you did, I have done what I could to
minimize the impact of some of our immigration laws, not only on
Hondurans but on all the people of Central America. I, frankly, believe
I have done all I can do under the law. Now, because there was such
hardship here, so much devastation, I was able to provide some greater
consideration for the Hondurans that have come to the United States.
But I think it would be a mistake to sort of openly encourage more
people to come, in violation of our laws and quotas, because there is--I
have gone to the limit of what I can now do. And I think it is far more
important for us to concentrate on getting this aid package passed,
getting the debt relief, getting the trade relief, getting the renewal
of the economy here going.
Let me just mention three other issues very quickly. One of you
mentioned the need for more loans for small business and
microbusinesses. We have our USAID Director here with me, Mr. Atwood. I
think the United States funded 2 million microenterprise loans last year
through AID around the world. My wife is--probably talked about that
when she was here. This is a passion of hers and has been for about 15
years now.
And we have found, in our own country, when we have a natural
disaster--you know, we had a flood, a 500 year flood in the Mississippi
River 5 years ago, and one of the
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most important funds that we have is the fund that provides for special
credit for small businesses who otherwise could not get it.
So I don't know whether there's anything special, Mr. President, we
could do to help, for the small- and micro-enterprises or to try to
establish even a broader and more adequate international fund for such
things in the face of disasters. But we always find, even in America,
which has a very sophisticated banking system, that they are the first
casualties of natural disasters that wreck the economies of whole
communities. So if we could help you in that, I would be happy to.
There are just two other things that were mentioned. With regard to
the environment, I think that--you said, sir, that you felt that the
disaster would have been even worse had it not been for some of the
environmental practices here in Honduras. Yesterday, when I was in
Nicaragua, there was no question that it was worse in the places where
there had been vast deforestation and nothing to protect the people from
the mudslides. And you have a lot of serious--the President was telling
me today, you have a lot of serious decisions to make about, you know,
how to replenish the soil which has been destroyed, where the topsoil
has been carried away, or perhaps the nutrients have been washed away
and the crops won't grow anymore.
I will do whatever I can. In this aid package, we have some
significant amount of money for environmental investments. But I will do
whatever I can to be particularly helpful there. I think it would be--
not only with the United States but with others as well--I think the
more we know about the specific plans and strategies, the better off we
will be.
But if you look at our hemisphere, our region here, it's perfectly
obvious that the countries that have done the best job of preserving
their natural environment are going to be the strongest economically,
also, over the long run. And yet, one of the greatest battles we face in
the world today, in this larger struggle over climate change, which may
or may not have had anything to do with Hurricane Mitch--we don't know.
No one knows for sure. But the larger battle is that in most countries,
most decisionmakers do not believe you can grow an economy unless you
continue to use its resources at an unsustainable rate--that is, at a
greater rate than they can be replaced--and do not believe you can grow
an economy unless you increase, year-in and year-out, the amount of fuel
and energy you are using that contributes to greenhouse gases, coal, and
oil, for example.
Now, all the evidence is against that proposition, but old ideas die
hard. And I do believe that because economies have--[inaudible]--if for
no other reason, and because of some of the stunning examples already
set by the preservation of the biosphere or by the energy patterns
adopted in Costa Rica, for example, that Central America may be in a
unique position to get lots of investment to prove to the rest of the
world that we don't have to destroy the environment to grow the economy.
And so I would be happy to exert some extra efforts to help you get some
investments in that regard, but again, I think the specifics are
important.
For example, I'll just say one thing. The last time I was in Costa
Rica, I noticed they were driving--the buses they were using, the school
buses they were using, the transportation buses they were using--were
powered by electricity or natural gas, and they were all made by a
company in Vice President Gore's home State. And there are lots of
things--if we knew what the strategy was here and what the priorities
were, there might be a lot of things we could do to be helpful.
The last thing I'd like to say is, I want to endorse what was said
earlier by you, Mr. Maduro, about education. And I would be happy for us
to have a long-term partnership on that, but again, I don't feel that I
know enough to know what your immediate priorities are. The United
States has had some success in working with countries in various parts
of the world in helping to increase more rapidly the number of children
going to school.
And of course, as you pointed out, there's no point in increasing
the number of children going to school unless you have a place for them
to go to school, a teacher to teach them, and materials with which they
learn. But I do not believe that you can come anywhere
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close to doing what you want to do in Honduras if it takes you a decade
to add one more year to the average schooling. And there may be a way--
I'm going to talk about this a little bit tomorrow--but this is a year
in which a lot of countries are trying to pass this international
convention against child labor, which the church has been solemnly
supportive of, and which I strongly support.
But I think it would be interesting to see whether we could marry
the commitment of countries to support the convention against child
labor with a commitment of the advanced countries that are pushing to
help to dramatically increase investment in those countries in
education, so that you're saying not just that you don't want the
children in the factory but you do want them in the school.
And there may be a way that we could dramatically accelerate the
rate, the average schooling here. Now, I have all these people from my
administration here, plus Lieutenant Governor MacKay, former Lieutenant
Governor of Florida, who now will be my new Special Envoy to Latin
America, and Mr. Atwood and the others are all here, so--and your
Ambassadors. He's our Ambassador, but I think he's really your
Ambassador. [Laughter] But we will follow up on this.
On the environment and on education, the more specific you can be
about what you want us to do, the more we can be helpful, I think. On
all these areas, I will do my best.
The last thing I'd like to say is I'd like to thank the gentleman
from Save the Children. My wife and I have been involved with Save the
Children for more than 20 years, long before we ever thought we would be
in national political life. And as soon as this hurricane occurred, she
gave some money from her foundation to Save the Children through
operations here. So I thank you for what you're doing. The organization
has done great work in our home area as well, and I thank all of you.
This was a very good set of presentations, and you gave me a lot to
go home and work on.
[President Carlos Roberto Flores of Honduras expressed his appreciation
to the President and noted the representation in the audience of
nongovernmental organizations, labor unions, private enterprise, and
religious groups. With regard to Archbishop Rodriguez' remarks on
immigration, President Flores said his government did not want to
promote emigration to the United States. Regarding those who went in
earlier days, he asked that they receive the same treatment other
Central American countries' nationals receive by law.]
President Clinton. Well, I think you know that I strongly believe in
that. I think that the present American immigration law and how it
treats people that were in our country as of some time ago is an
inexcusable remnant of the cold war and wrong. I haven't said anything
to you I haven't said at home. I think that--people came to the United
States because they felt oppressed and are entitled to stay in our
country because they came here, it shouldn't matter whether they felt
the oppression from the left or the right. I mean, if it's a rational
category, people should be treated the same regardless of what the facts
are. But the real issue is that all the countries in Central America
should be treated the same insofar as whatever the objective facts were
that brought the people to our country. So if people should come home,
then they should be treated the same; if people should be able to stay,
they should be treated the same. That's what I believe.
[President Flores said he was optimistic about Honduras' recuperation
from Hurricane Mitch but expressed concern that the difficulties it
presented could undermine the democracy which they had fought so hard to
attain. He said the challenge would be to show the Honduran people that
the system works for them. He concluded by thanking the President for
coming.]
President Clinton. Thank you. Let me just say one thing as we break
up. I have heard this--and one of the reasons I am grateful that we have
Members of our Congress here is that we have these bills up there; they
can be addressed now. I think there is an overwhelming understanding in
both parties in the Congress that we have to pass the aid bill, and I
think the only thing that we have to do is to make sure that political
considerations in America, that have
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nothing to do with Central America, things that are back home don't in
any way hold up the consideration of either piece of legislation, and so
we will work hard on it.
Thank you.
Oh, I have to get my key to the city. If I wear this to dinner
tonight, I'll get a discount. [Laughter]
Thank you.
Note: The roundtable began at 2:52 p.m. in the conference room at the
Central Bank. In his remarks, the President referred to Pope John Paul
II. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because the tape
was incomplete.