    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 33 (Monday, August 21, 2000)]
    [Pages 1873-1876]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a National Democratic Institute Luncheon in Los Angeles

    August 14, 2000

        Thank you very much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just
    heard a stirring example of Clinton's first law of politics: Whenever
    possible, be introduced by someone you have appointed to high office.
    [Laughter]
        Secretary Albright, thank you for your great work as Secretary of
    State and, before that, as our Ambassador to the United Nations and for
    your constant friendship and support to Hillary and me.
        Gary, thank you for hosting this today and for what you said and for
    all the good work you do. Mr. Mayor, thank you for putting on a great
    convention and sitting through all these speeches by Democrats.
    [Laughter] There's been a lot of talk in this convention about religion
    because Joe Lieberman is our first Jewish candidate on the national
    ticket. But I want you to know I am still a confirmed Baptist. We
    believe in deathbed conversions, and I'd like to have you switch at any
    time--[laughter]--we love you very much. You too--[inaudible].
    [Laughter]
        I want to thank Paul Kirk, my friend of many years, and Ken Wollack
    and all the members of the NDI. Thank you, Senator Feinstein. And I'd
    like to thank all the members of the diplomatic community who are here,
    parliamentarians from around the world, and the people who have been or
    are now part of our diplomatic efforts: Vice President Mondale, who did
    such a brilliant job in Japan; and Reverend Jackson, our Special Envoy
    to Africa; Ambassador Blinken; Ambassador Shearer; there are a lot of
    others here. But I thank them all for what they have done.
        I'd also like to say how much I appreciate the work of the NDI, how
    much I've tried to support it, how grateful I am that we have a nominee
    for President and Vice President in our party who will strongly support
    you for a long time in the future.
        Way back in the distant past of the last millennium, when I was
    first elected President, people were asking whether the end of the cold
    war would lead to a new birth of freedom or whether incipient
    democracies would be overcome by forces of hardship and hate. There were
    then perhaps as many reasons for fear as for hope.
        In Russia, people faced breadlines and hyperinflation. Many were
    resigned to an inevitable backlash that would lead back to

    [[Page 1874]]

    communism or ultranationalism. Southeast Europe was full of backward
    economies and battered people willing to be manipulated to wage war on
    their neighbors. In parts of Asia, leaders claimed democracy was an
    alien, Western imposition, that there was really no such thing as a
    universal conception of human rights or free people governing
    themselves. Never mind, of course, that people from Burma to the
    Philippines to Thailand were already struggling and sacrificing for
    freedom. Some still believed democracy only works for people of a
    certain culture or a certain stage of development.
        Well, since then we've learned a lot about human nature and
    humanity's desire for freedom and self-government. Looking back, I think
    we'll all say that the 1990's were democracy's decade. With our support
    and with your support, democracies flourished in central Europe. Despite
    all the difficulties, it has endured in Russia, persevered in Latin
    America, and truly triumphed in Mexico. In 1999, thanks to the
    democratic transformations in Nigeria and Indonesia, more people won the
    right to choose their leaders than in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall
    fell.
        In the Balkans, the cause of pluralism faced perhaps its greatest
    obstacles. Prime Minister Dodik and the head of Bosnia's leading
    multiethnic party, Zlatko Lagumdzija, are both here with us today. We
    welcome them, and we urge them to keep up their good work for freedom.
    Their success has proven that Bosnians of every ethnic background are
    turning to leaders delivering prosperity and hope, instead of exploiting
    human differences.
        Last week I met with the new President and the new Prime Minister of
    Croatia. They're taking their country on a breathtaking journey to
    democracy. Their success says to all the people of the Balkans, where
    popular will overcomes authoritarianism and hate, the road to Europe is
    open.
        With Kosovo holding the first free elections in its history later
    this year, the only vestige of the Balkans' undemocratic past is Serbia.
    We are encouraging the democratic opposition there to mount as unified a
    challenge to Mr. Milosevic as possible, so that even if he steals the
    coming Presidential election--he undoubtedly will try to do that--he
    will lose what legitimacy he has left with the Serbian people. But
    whatever may happen, he has utterly failed to build a greater Serbia
    based on ethnic cleansing and exclusion. All around him, instead, we are
    seeing the emergence of a greater Europe based on tolerance and
    democracy.
        We also learned some lessons in democracy's decade of the nineties.
    It used to be said that unelected leaders were easier for America to
    deal with because they were free to make hard and unpopular choices.
    Well, it turns out to be one of those big ideas that just isn't true.
        Consider the case of Prime Minister Barak. In pursuit of peace he
    has been able to make some of the hardest and most courageous decisions
    I, personally, have ever seen because he knows he draws his mandate from
    the people. Consider Kim Dae-jung of South Korea. He overcame his
    country's economic crisis because he had the legitimacy to push through
    wrenching change, and he made a brave, brave step in reaching out to
    North Korea.
        Ironically, unelected leaders tend to be more fearful of political
    opposition than elected leaders. That's a lesson I've had to learn the
    hard way. The first 3 or 4 years, when I heard that, I thought they were
    just making excuses for something they didn't want to do. And finally I
    realized that they really were afraid to take unpopular decisions, even
    if they might be able to sell a vast majority of their people on it
    because it was the right thing to do. Maybe it's because when dictators
    lose power, they lose everything; Democrats live to fight another day--
    or build Presidential libraries. [Laughter]
        Another lesson that we learned is that democracy's success is in our
    interest. Our support can be critical to that success. Next week I'll be
    going to Nigeria, to a new, democratic Nigeria. [Applause] Thank you. A
    Nigeria that's a leader for peace and economic development in the
    struggle against AIDS. If democracy takes root in Nigeria, it will lift
    up an entire region. So we'll do our part to help with trade and
    investment, support for Nigeria's peacekeepers in its efforts to ensure
    that the vast wealth it has accumulated and

    [[Page 1875]]

    squandered in the past finally benefits its people.
        Now, a day after I come back from Nigeria, I'll be going to
    Colombia. There, people are struggling to keep one of the oldest
    democracies in our hemisphere alive in the face of terrible violence,
    fueled by a drug trade that threatens their children and ours. We have a
    national interest in supporting them, and now with strong bipartisan
    support from Congress--for which I am profoundly grateful--we have made
    a commitment to do just that.
        We care about democracy in countries like Nigeria and Colombia
    because the success of freedom is contagious, and so is freedom's
    failure. One reason we can tip the balance is because of the work NDI
    does. Just about every time I travel to an emerging democracy, whether
    it's Nigeria or Ghana or Bosnia or Russia or Nicaragua or Bangladesh, I
    find that NDI is there before I land and, most important, after I leave.
    Thanks to you, America not only has a Peace Corps; it has a democracy
    corps. If the 1990's were democracy's decade, you had a lot to do with
    it. And with your help, we can now start building democracy's century, a
    century that we can't stop working on until the most powerful,
    liberating, revolutionary idea in all human history touches every human
    community.
        Let me just say in closing something that's not in my notes, and
    I'll probably get in trouble with all my staff for saying--[laughter]--
    but we have people here who devote your life to thinking about these
    things. I am gratified that in this very turbulent period, that we have
    been able to build in the United States a bipartisan commitment to
    democracy that has been manifested, for example, in Plan Colombia,
    manifested in the passage of PNTR with China, manifested in the passage
    of the African/Caribbean Basin bill, manifested in the common commitment
    both candidates for President have consistently made this year, to an
    expansive, embracive, farsighted trade policy.
        But there are still challenges out there that, if we want to
    maximize our impact on, we have to internalize debate and resolve as a
    people. Because we have seen over and over and over again, it is very
    difficult for America to do anything big, good, profoundly long-lasting
    unless we are agreed. And let me just give a few examples.
        I hope the commitment we have made to Africa will endure and be
    embraced in a bipartisan way. I hope those people who believe in the
    Congress and in the country that I honestly made a mistake--and they
    honestly believe this--those who believe that I made a mistake in
    committing our military resources and our diplomatic muscle, first in
    Bosnia, and then in Kosovo, will rethink, because I think if the cause
    of freedom had been lost in those countries and the principle of ethnic
    cleansing had been upheld, we would be paying for it along with free
    people across the world for a very, very long time.
        I hope the next administration will continue the commitment that we
    have begun to a new stage in our relationship with India and that we
    will continue to be involved in trying to resolve the tensions on the
    Indian subcontinent. If you think about the 200 or so ethnic groups that
    we have in the State of California and in the United States of America,
    Indians and Pakistanis both rank in the top five in per capita education
    and per capita income. There is no telling what could happen for the
    good on the Indian subcontinent in the 21st century that will open new
    vistas of possibilities, not only for people who are still desperately
    poor in those nations and in Bangladesh but, indeed, throughout the
    world, if they can just find a way to resolve their deep differences. So
    I hope that will happen, and I hope all of you will stay with us.
        The other day when we said--our administration--that we felt that
    the worldwide spread of AIDS had become a national security threat to
    the United States, some people ridiculed that. But I hope we will have a
    broader notion of our national security and a broader sense of what
    tools we need to bring to bear against them.
        I have done what I could in every year to support a strong defense
    budget, to support improvements in the quality of life for our men and
    women and families in the United States military, to modernize our
    weapon systems. But I think the work that we're trying to do this year
    in the Congress to fight AIDS, malaria, and TB is important.

    [[Page 1876]]

    I think we should be doing much more than we are to help countries deal
    with the breathtaking breakdown in public health systems in a lot of the
    former Communist world and in a lot of the developing countries, things
    which really could just eat the heart out of democracy over the next 10
    or 15 years unless people can at least find a way to keep babies alive
    and to stop children from dying prematurely.
        I hope we will be very creative in the ways we fight terrorism and
    chemical and biological warfare, cyberterrorism, and what I think will
    be the most likely threat to our security over the next 20 years, which
    is that the miniaturization process that we see, inevitably, part of
    technology that now allows you to have a little computer in your palm
    with a screen and a keyboard that people with big hands like me can't
    use anymore--will also--you will see this with weapons. And it is far
    more likely that we will deal with those kinds of weapons in the hands
    of terrorists, with enormous destructive potential, even than we will
    have to fend off hostile missiles coming in. And I hope we'll have a
    bipartisan consensus about how to imagine the new most likely security
    threats of the 21st century.
        I hope there will be even stronger support for relieving the debt of
    the poorest countries in the world. I hope there will be even stronger
    support for the initiative that Senator McGovern and Senator Dole
    brought to Secretary Glickman, who is here. We have--we really believe
    that for a relatively modest amount of money, a few billion dollars, we
    could guarantee one nutritious meal to every poor child in the entire
    world every day at school. If we did it, it would dramatically increase
    school enrollment, especially among young girls, and do a lot to reverse
    the tide of trafficking in young women and of the abuse of the rights of
    young women. And it would change the whole fabric of society all across
    the world in a way that would be very good for democracy. We need a real
    consensus on those kinds of things that there has not been nearly enough
    talk about. And we need to look at all these things in terms of our
    commitment to democracy, our commitment to national security.
        We have to have--and as I said, I don't think I have to take a back
    seat to anybody in my commitment to a strong national defense, but our
    national security and our advancement of democracy depends on far more
    than our military power. And as wealthy as we are now, as successful as
    we are, for a relatively modest increase in terms of the surpluses we're
    projecting, in the investments we make around the world in people
    problems and in building institutions and in giving people the capacity
    to fight off the demons of the 21st century, we will get a huge return
    in the advance of freedom.
        Thank you very much.

     Note:  The President spoke at 1:20 p.m. at the Dorothy Chandler
    Pavilion. In his remarks, he referred to Gary Winnick, founder and
    chairman, Global Crossing, Ltd.; Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles;
    Paul G. Kirk, Jr., chairman of the board, and Ken Wollack, president,
    National Democratic Institute; former Vice President and former U.S.
    Ambassador to Japan Walter F. Mondale; Rev. Jesse Jackson, Special Envoy
    to Africa; Alan J. Blinken, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium; Derek
    Shearer, former U.S. Ambassador to Finland; Prime Minister Milorad Dodik
    of the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) of Bosnia-Herzegovina; Zlatko
    Lagumdzija, president, Social Democratic Party in Bosnia; President
    Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivica Racan of Croatia; President
    Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and
    Montenegro); Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel; President Kim Dae-jung
    of South Korea; Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush;
    and former Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole.