United States, 1998

Let me begin by thanking the

Assembly for its very kind and generous welcome and by

noting that, at the opening of this fifty-third session of the

General Assembly, the world has much to celebrate.

Peace has come to Northern Ireland after 29 long years.

Bosnia has just held its freest elections ever. The United

Nations is actively mediating crises before they explode

into war, all around the world. And today more people

determine their own destiny than at any previous moment

in history.

We celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights with those rights more

widely embraced than ever before. On every continent

people are leading lives of integrity and self-respect, and

a great deal of the credit for that belongs to the United

Nations.

Still, as every person in this Hall knows, the promise

of our time is attended by perils. Global economic turmoil

today threatens to undermine confidence in free markets

and democracy. Those of us who benefit particularly from

this economy have a special responsibility to do more to

minimize the turmoil and extend the benefits of global

markets to all citizens. And the United States is

determined to do that.

We still are bedevilled by ethnic, racial, religious

and tribal hatreds, by the spread of weapons of mass

destruction, by the almost frantic efforts of too many

States to acquire such weapons.

And, despite all efforts to contain it, terrorism is not

fading away with the end of the twentieth century. It is a

continuing defiance of article 3 of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, which says

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“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of

person.”

Here at the United Nations, at international summits

around the world and on many occasions in the United

States, I have had the opportunity to address this subject in

detail, to describe what we have done, what we are doing

and what we must yet do to combat terror.

Today I would like to talk to the Assembly about why

all nations must put the fight against terrorism at the top of

our agenda. Obviously this is a matter of profound concern

to us. In the last 15 years our citizens have been targeted

over and over again: in Beirut; over Lockerbie; in Saudi

Arabia; at home in Oklahoma City by one of our own

citizens; even here in New York, in one of our most public

buildings; and most recently, on 7 August, in Nairobi and

Dar-es-Salaam, where Americans who devoted their lives

to building bridges between nations — people very much

like all of those present — died in a campaign of hatred

against the United States.

Because we are blessed to be a wealthy nation, with

a powerful military and a worldwide presence active in

promoting peace and security, we are often a target. We

love our country for its dedication to political and religious

freedom, to economic opportunity, to respect for the rights

of the individual. But we know that many people see us as

a symbol of a system and values they reject. And often they

find it expedient to blame us for problems with deep roots

elsewhere.

But we are no threat to any peaceful nation, and we

believe the best way to disprove these claims is to continue

our work for peace and prosperity around the world. For us

to pull back from the world’s trouble spots, to turn our

backs on those taking risks for peace, to weaken our own

opposition to terrorism, would hand the enemies of peace

a victory they must never have.

Still, it is a grave misconception to see terrorism as

only, or even mostly, an American problem. Indeed, it is a

clear and present danger to tolerant and open societies and

innocent people everywhere. No one in this room, nor the

people represented here, is immune. Certainly not the

people of Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. For every American

killed there, roughly 20 Africans were murdered and 500

more injured — innocent people going about their business

on a busy morning.

Not the people of Omagh, in Northern Ireland, where

the wounded and killed were Catholics and Protestants

alike — mostly children and women, two of them

pregnant — people out shopping together when their

future was snuffed out by a fringe group clinging to the

past.

Not the people of Japan, who were poisoned by sarin

gas in the Tokyo subway.

Not the people of Argentina, who died when a car

bomb destroyed a Jewish community centre in Buenos

Aires.

Not the people of Kashmir and Sri Lanka, killed by

ancient animosities that cry out for resolution.

Not the Palestinians and Israelis, who still die year

after year, for all their progress towards peace.

Not the people of Algeria, enduring a nightmare of

unfathomable terror with still no end in sight.

Not the people of Egypt, who nearly lost a second

President to assassination.

Not the people of Turkey, Colombia, Albania,

Russia, Iran, Indonesia and countless other nations where

innocent people have been victimized by terror.

None of those victims were American. But every

one was a son or daughter, a husband or wife, a father or

mother — a human life extinguished by someone else’s

hatred, leaving a circle of people whose lives will never

be the same.

Terror has become the world’s problem. Some argue,

of course, that the problem is overblown, saying that the

number of deaths from terrorism is comparatively small,

sometimes less than the number of people killed by

lightning in a single year. I believe that misses the point

in several ways. First, terrorism has a new face in the

1990s. Today, terrorists take advantage of greater

openness and the explosion of information and weapons

technology. The new technologies of terror and their

increasing availability, along with the increasing mobility

of terrorists, raise chilling prospects of vulnerability to

chemical, biological and other kinds of attacks, bringing

each of us into the category of possible victim. This is a

threat to all humankind.

Beyond the physical damage of each attack, there is

an even greater residue of psychological damage, hard to

measure but slow to heal. Every bomb, every bomb

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threat, has an insidious effect on free and open institutions;

the kinds of institutions everyone in this body is working so

hard to build. Each time an innocent man or woman or

child is killed, it makes the future more hazardous for the

rest of us, for each violent act saps the confidence that is so

crucial to peace and prosperity.

In every corner of the world, with the active support

of United Nations agencies, people are struggling to build

better futures based on bonds of trust connecting them with

their fellow citizens and with partners and investors from

around the world. The glimpse of growing prosperity in

Northern Ireland was a crucial factor in the Good Friday

Agreement. But that took confidence, confidence that

cannot be bought in times of violence. We can measure

each attack in the grisly statistics of dead and wounded. But

what are the wounds we cannot measure? In the Middle

East, in Asia, in South America — how many agreements

have been thwarted after bombs blew up? How many

businesses will never be created in places crying out for

investments of time and money? How many talented young

people in countries represented here have turned their backs

on public service? The question is not only how many lives

have been lost in each attack, but how many futures were

lost in their aftermath.

There is no justification for killing innocents.

Ideology, religion and politics, even deprivation and

righteous grievance, do not justify it. We must seek to

understand the roiled waters in which terror occurs. Of

course we must. Often in my own experience I have seen

that where peace is making progress, terror is a desperate

act to turn back the tide of history. The Omagh bombing

came as peace was succeeding in Northern Ireland. In the

Middle East, whenever we get close to another step towards

peace, its enemies respond with terror. We must not let this

stall our momentum. The bridging of ancient hatreds is,

after all, a leap of faith — a break with the past — and

thus a frightening threat to those who cannot let go of their

own hatred. Because they fear the future, in these cases

terrorists seek to blow the peacemakers back into the past.

We must also acknowledge that there are economic

sources of this rage as well. Poverty, inequality and masses

of disenfranchised young people are fertile fields for the

siren call of the terrorists and their claims of advancing

social justice. But deprivation cannot justify destruction; nor

can inequity ever atone for murder. The killing of innocents

is not a social programme.

Nevertheless, our resolute opposition to terrorism does

not mean we can ever be indifferent to the conditions that

foster it. The most recent United Nations Human

Development Report suggests the gulf is widening

between the world’s haves and have-nots. We must work

harder to treat the sources of despair before they turn into

the poison of hatred.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once wrote that the only

revolutionary is a man who has nothing to lose. We must

show people they have everything to gain by embracing

cooperation and renouncing violence. This is not simply

an American or a Western responsibility; it is the world’s

responsibility. Developing nations have an obligation to

spread new wealth fairly, to create new opportunities, to

build new, open economies. Developed nations have an

obligation to help developing nations stay on the path of

prosperity and to spur global economic growth. A week

ago I outlined ways we can build a stronger international

economy to benefit not only all nations, but all citizens

within them.

Some believe that terrorism’s principal fault line

centres on what they see as an inevitable clash of

civilizations. This is an issue that deserves a lot of debate

in this great Hall. Specifically, many believe there is an

inevitable clash between Western civilization and values

and Islamic civilization and values. I believe this view is

terribly wrong. False prophets may use and abuse any

religion to justify whatever political objectives they

have — even cold-blooded murder. Some may have the

world believe that Almighty God Himself, the merciful,

grants a licence to kill; but that is not our understanding

of Islam.

A quarter of the world’s population is Muslim, from

Africa to the Middle East to Asia and to the United

States, where Islam is one of our fastest growing faiths.

There are over 1,200 mosques and Islamic centres in the

United States, and that number is rapidly increasing. The

6 million Americans who worship there will tell you there

is no inherent clash between Islam and America.

Americans respect and honour Islam.

As I talk to Muslim leaders in my country and

around the world, I see again that we share the same

hopes and aspirations: to live in peace and security, to

provide for our children, to follow the faith of our

choosing, to build a better life than our parents knew and

to pass on brighter possibilities to our children.

Of course, we are not identical. There are important

differences that cross race and culture and religion which

demand understanding and deserve respect. But every

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river has a crossing place. Even as we struggle here in

America, like the United Nations, to reconcile all

Americans to each other and to find greater unity in our

increasing diversity, we will remain on a course of

friendship with and respect for the Muslim world. We will

continue to look for common values, common interests and

common endeavours. I agree very much with the spirit

expressed by these words of Mohammed: “Rewards for

prayers by people assembled together are twice those for

prayers said at home.”

When it comes to terrorism, there should be no

dividing line between Muslims and Jews, Protestants and

Catholics, Serbs and Albanians, developed societies and

emerging countries. The only dividing line is between those

who practise, support or tolerate terror and those who

understand that it is murder, plain and simple.

If terrorism is at the top of the American agenda and

should be at the top of the world’s agenda, what, then, are

the concrete steps we can take together to protect our

common destiny? What are our common obligations? At

least, I believe, they are these: to give terrorists no support,

no sanctuary, no financial assistance; to bring pressure on

States that do; to act together to step up extradition and

prosecution; to sign the global anti-terror conventions; to

strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention and enforce

the Chemical Weapons Convention; to promote stronger

domestic laws and control the manufacture and export of

explosives; to raise international standards for airport

security; to combat the conditions that spread violence and

despair.

We are working to do our part. Our intelligence and

law enforcement communities are tracking terrorist

networks in cooperation with other Governments. Some of

those we believe responsible for the recent bombing of our

embassies have been brought to justice. Early this week I

will ask our Congress to provide emergency funding to

repair our embassies, to improve security, to expand the

worldwide fight against terrorism and to help our friends in

Kenya and Tanzania with the wounds they have suffered.

But no matter how much each of us does alone, our

progress will be limited without our common efforts.

We will also do our part to address the sources of

despair and alienation through the Agency for International

Development in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in

Eastern Europe, in Haiti and elsewhere. We will continue

our strong support for the United Nations Development

Programme, the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United

Nations Children’s Fund, the World Bank and the World

Food Programme. We also recognize the critical role

these agencies play and the importance of all countries,

including the United States, in paying their fair share.

In closing, let me urge all of us to think in new

terms on terrorism, to see it not as a clash of cultures, or

political action by other means, or a divine calling, but as

a clash between the forces of the past and the forces of

the future, between those who tear down and those who

build up, between hope and fear, between chaos and

community.

The fight will not be easy. But every nation will be

strengthened in joining it, in working to give real meaning

to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights we signed 50 years ago. It is very, very important

that we do this together.

Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the authors of the

Universal Declaration. She said, in one of her many

speeches in support of the United Nations when it was

just beginning,

“All agreements and all peace are built on

confidence. You cannot have peace and you cannot

get on with other people in the world unless you

have confidence in them.”

It is not necessary that we solve all the world’s

problems to have confidence in one another. It is not

necessary that we agree on all the world’s issues to have

confidence in one another. It is not even necessary that

we understand every single difference among us to have

confidence in one another. But it is necessary that we

affirm our belief in the primacy of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, and therefore that together

we say that terror is not a way to tomorrow. It is only a

throwback to yesterday, and together, together we can

meet it and overcome its threats, its injuries and its fears

with confidence.