[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E667-E669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

REMARKS OF AMBASSADOR MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT

______

HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

of indiana

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, April 30, 1996

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in bringing to the
attention of my colleagues excerpts from a speech recently delivered by
our Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, at the
Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY, on ``Initiatives for World
Peace.'' Ambassador Albright was the guest speaker in The Honorable
Benjamin Gilman Lecture Series sponsored by that college. I commend
Congressman Gilman for his leadership in foreign affairs and for
inviting Ambassador Albright to speak at this important function. I ask
that excerpts of her speech reviewing U.S. foreign policy initiatives
and the U.S. role in the United Nations be included in the
Congressional Record.

Remarks of Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, Representative to the
United Nations

Dr. Fitzpatrick, Chairman Gilman, faculty, students and
friends, I am delighted to be here. As a former professor, I
get a little homesick every time I visit a university campus,
especially a beautiful campus such as this, especially in
spring.
So I feel very much at home. I am pleased to play a part in
your celebration this week of Dr. Fitzpatrick's inauguration.
And I am honored to deliver a lecture named for our mutual
friend, Representative Ben Gilman.
I have known Ben Gilman for many yerars. Throughout his
career, he has been a thoughtful and principled public
servant and a virgorous advocate of American leadership
around the world. He has been an especially strong defender
of human rights. I hope that those of you who live in this
District are as proud of your representative as I am sure he
is of you.
This morning, I would like to discuss America's role at the
United Nations within the context of our overall foreign
policy, and with an eye towards past lessons, present
realities and future challenges.
Today's threats include the spread of nuclear and other
advanced arms, the rise of international criminal cartels,
the poisoning of our environment, the mobility of epidemic
disease, the persistence of ethnic conflict and--as we have
seen too often in recent weeks--the deadly and cowardly
threat of terror.
Despite all this, the trend towards isolationism in America
is stronger today than it has been in 70 years. As I know
Representative Gilman would agree, this trend must be
rejected.
We must, of course, devote primary attention to problems at
home. Our position in the world depends on good schools, a
healthy economy, safe neighborhoods and the unity of our
people.
Today, under President Clinton, we are called upon to
develop a new framework--to

[[Page E668]]

protect our citizens both from old and emerging threats and
to reinforce principles that will carry us safely into the
next century.
That framework begins with our armed services.
As we have seen in recent years in the Persian Gulf, Haiti
and the Balkans, the U.S. military is the most potent
instrument for international order and law in the world
today. And it is keeping America safe.
That is why our armed forces must remain modern, mobile,
ready and strong. And as President Clinton has pledged, they
will.
America must also maintain vigorous alliances--and we are.
In Europe, the trans-Atlantic alliance is defying those who
thought it would fall apart as soon as the Soviet empire
disappeared. NATO air strikes played a key role in ending the
Balkans War. And for the first time in history, there exists
a real possibility of a fully democratic Europe, fully at
peace.
In Asia, our core relationships with Japan and South Korea
remain strong and our commitments are being met. During the
President's visit to the Far East this week, he made it clear
to North Korea that there is no future in military
adventurism but that the door to multilateral discussion and
negotiation is open. And he re-iterated our insistence that
the problems between China and Taiwan must be resolved
without violence.
This brings us to the third element in our foreign policy
framework: creative diplomacy in support of peace. Here, our
goal is to build an environment in which threats to our
security and that of our allies are diminished, and the
likelihood of American forces being sent into combat is
reduced.
One way to do that is lower the level of armaments around
the world. Last year, we were able to gain a global consensus
to extend indefinitely and without conditions the Treaty
barring new nations from developing nuclear weapons. That is
a gift to the future.
Currently, we are working hard to build a similar consensus
achieve the total elimination of anti-personnel landmines--
weapons that kill or maim 26,000 people per year around the
world, mostly innocent civilians.
This brings us to a fourth essential element in our foreign
policy framework, and one of particular interest to me, and
that is the United Nations.
The UN performs many indispensable functions, from
establishing airplane safety standards to feeding children,
but its most conspicuous role--and the primary reason it was
established--is to help nations preserve peace.
The Clinton Administration has continued efforts, begun
under President Bush, to improve and reform UN peacekeeping.
We know that the better able the UN is to contain or end
conflict, the less likely it is that we will have to send our
own armed forces overseas.
UN peacekeepers have shown that they can separate rivals in
strategic parts of the world, such as Cyprus, South Asia and
the Persian Gulf.
They can assist democratic transitions as they have done
successfully in Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique
and Haiti.
And they can save lives, ease suffering and lower the
global tide of refugees, as they have done in Africa and
former Yugoslavia.
During the Cold War, most UN peace missions were limited to
separating rival forces, with their consent, until permanent
peace agreements could be forged. Today's more complex
operations include a menu of functions from humanitarian
relief to disarming troops to repatriating refugees to laying
the groundwork for national reconstruction.
There is a limit, however, to how ambitious these new
peacekeeping mandates should be. The challenge of keeping a
peace is far simpler than that of creating a secure
environment in the midst of ongoing conflict. In Somalia and
Bosnia, the Security Council sent forces equipped for
peacekeeping into situations with which they could not cope.
We are determined not to make that mistake again.
So, at out insistence, the Council has adopted rigorous
guidelines for determining when to begin a peace operation.
We are insisting on good answers to questions about cost,
size, risk, mandate, and exit strategy before a mission is
started or renewed.
We are also working to make the UN more professional.
Five years ago, the UN's peacekeeping office consisted of a
handful of people--mostly civilians--working nine to five.
Today, a 24 hour situation center links UN headquarters to
the field and a host of military officers are on hand. A
Mission Planning service helps assure that lessons learned
from past missions are incorporated in future plans. And
special units focused on training, civilian police, de-
mining, logistics and financial management all contribute to
an integrated whole.
The goal of these efforts is to design peacekeeping
operations that don't go on forever, don't cost too much,
don't risk lives unnecessarily and do give peoples wracked by
conflict a chance to get back on their feet.
The UN's role in responding to conflicts and other
emergencies is especially important now, when we have so many
emergencies is especially important now, when we have so many
of them. Like other eras of historical transition, ours is
beset by political upheaval. The human costs are high. Over
the past decade, the number of regional conflicts has
quintupled and the population at risk is up sixty percent.
Americans are a generous people, but we could not begin to
cope with such a crisis alone. Today, twenty-seven million
people are under the care of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees. Millions more benefit from the efforts of the UN
Development Program, the World Food Program and the UN
Children's Fund.
Working with the Red Cross and other nongovernmental
organizations, UN agencies provide the shelter, food,
medicine and protection that help families displaced by
violence or disaster to rebuild and resume normal lives. The
work is always difficult and often dangerous. It is tempting
to ask those who believe the U.S. should get out of the UN
what their choice would be. Are they prepared to do this work
themselves? Or would they simply let the displaced and
impoverished die?
Peacekeeping and emergency response are two UN functions
that contribute to our security and wellbeing; another is
international economic sanctions.
Since the end of the Persian Gulf war, strict economic and
weapons sanctions have been in place against Iraq. Our
purpose has been to prevent that country from once again
developing weapons of mass destruction or threatening its
neighbors with aggression.
We do not wish to hurt the Iraqi people, but Saddam Hussein
has still not formally accepted the chance we have offered to
sell oil to buy humanitarian supplies. He continues to
squander Iraq's money building palaces for his cronies. He
continues to demonstrate ruthless brutality towards those who
oppose him--even within his own family. And he continues to
evade full compliance with the Resolutions of the UN Security
Council.
Until last summer, Iraq denied outright the existence of a
biological warfare program. Because the UN refused to accept
that lie, Iraq finally confessed to producing more than
500,000 liters on anthrax and botulinin toxin--enough poison
to kill everyone on Earth.
Before the Persian Gulf war, the Iraqis had placed much of
this material in artillery shells, ready to use. The danger
to American forces and to our allies could not have been more
real. And that danger will remain real until we have hard
evidence that this material and the capacity to produce it
have been destroyed.
So the burden of proof is not on us; it is on Iraq. Iraq
must demonstrate through actions, not words, that its
intentions are now peaceful and that it respects the law of
nations. After years of deceit, that proof will not come
easy.
Saddam Hussein's complaints about the unfairness of all
this remind me of the story about the schoolboy who came home
with his face damaged and his clothes torn. When his mother
asked him how the fight started, he said: ``It started when
the other guy hit me back.''
From our perspective near millennium's end, we can look
back at centuries of arrangements developed to deter
aggression and prevent war. Before the UN, there was the
League of Nations; before that the Congress of Vienna; before
that the Treaty of Westphalia; before that medieval
nonagression pacts; and before that the Peloponnesian League.
No perfect mechanism has been found. We have little reason
to believe it ever will. Certainly, the UN is no panacea.
But, the UN does give us military and diplomatic options we
would not otherwise have. It helps us to influence events
without assuming the full burden of costs and risks. And it
lends the weight of law and world opinion to causes and
principles we support.
That is why former President Reagan urged us to ``rely more
on multilateral institutions''. It is why former President
Bush said recently that we should ``pay our debts to the
UN.'' And it is why the Clinton Administration will continue
to place a high priority on our leadership there.
Force, strong alliances, active diplomacy and viable
international institutions all contribute to American
security. But the final element in our foreign policy
framework is even more fundamental. To protect American
interests in the coming years and into the next century, we
must remain true to American principles.
Some suggest that it is softheaded for the United States to
take the morality of things into account when conducting
foreign policy.
I believe a foreign policy devoid of moral considerations
can never fairly represent the American people. It is because
we have kept faith with our principles that, in most parts of
the world, American leadership remains not only necessary,
but welcome. And central to our principles is a commitment to
democracy.
The great lesson of this century is that democracy is a
parent to peace. Free nations make good neighbors. Compared
to dictatorships, they are far less likely to commit acts of
aggression, support terrorists, spawn international crime or
generate waves of refugees.
Democracy is not an import; it must find its roots
internally. But we can help to nourish those roots by opening
the doors to economic integration, granting technical
assistance, providing election monitors and backing efforts
to build democratic institutions.
Not all of these tools work quickly, but none should be
discounted. Remember that, for half a century, we refused to
recognize the Soviet conquest of the Baltics. For decades,
with Representative Ben Gilman in the lead, we pled the cause
of emigration for

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Syrian and Soviet Jews. And despite the resistance of some,
the west ultimately joined the developing world in isolating
South Africa's racist regime.
There were times when these efforts seemed almost hopeless.
We could not stop the tanks that entered Budapest in 1956 or
Prague 12 years later. We could not save the victims of
apartheid. But over the past decade, almost two billion
people, on five continents, in more than five dozen
countries, have moved towards more open economic and
political systems.
Today, a global network exists helping new democracies to
succeed. America belongs at the head of this movement. For
freedom is perhaps the clearest expression of national
purpose and policy ever adopted--and it is America's purpose.
My own family came to these shores as refugees. Because of
this nation's generosity and commitment, we were granted
asylum after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. The
story of my family has been repeated in millions of
variations over two centuries in the lives not only of
immigrants, but of those overseas who have been liberated or
sheltered by American soldiers, empowered by American
assistance or inspired by American ideals.
I will remember all my life the day the PLO-Israeli
agreement was signed. I will remember, in particular,
something that was said by then-Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres. When the history books are written, he said:
``Nobody will really understand the United States. You have
so much force and you didn't conquer anyone's land. You have
so much power and you didn't dominate another people. You
have problems of your own and you have never turned your back
on the problems of others.''
Now this generation, our generation, of Americans has a
proud legacy to fulfill.
We have been given an opportunity, at the threshold of a
new century, to build a world in which totalitarianism and
fascism are defeated, in which human liberty is expanded, in
which human rights are respected and in which our people are
as secure as we can ever expect them to be.
By rejecting the temptations of isolation, and by standing
with those who stand against terror and for peace around the
world, we will advance our own interests; honor our best
traditions; and help to answer a prayer that has been offered
over many years in a multitude of tongues, in accordance with
diverse customs, in response to a common yearning. We cannot
guarantee peace; but we can--and will--do all we can to
minimize the risks of peace.
That is our shared task as we prepare for the future.
And if we are together, it is a task in which we will
surely succeed.