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 | NEWSMAKER: WARREN CHRISTOPHER
OCTOBER 15, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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The Secretary of State, just back from abroad, discusses his recent trip to Israel, where he worked to revive peace talks with the Palestinians, and to Africa, where he went to better understand regional conflicts.ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: First tonight, a Newsmaker interview with Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who's just back from his first visit to subsaharan Africa. The Secretary began his trip in
A RealAudio version of this NewsHour segment is available.
October 3, 1996:
King Hussein of Jordan shares his views on the recent violence in the Middle East and emergency summit in Washington.
August 21, 1996:
Check out this Online NewsHour Forum on the troubles in Burundi.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle-East.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Africa.
Israel, helping revive Israeli-Palestinian talks. From there, it was on to Mali, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, and Angola before returning home last night. In the midst of his travels, the Secretary broke the mileage record racked up by his predecessor, James Baker, III. Mr. Secretary, welcome.
WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of State: Thank you, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Just for the record, what was that? How many miles?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Well, I think it was about 703,000 miles when I broke the record between Mali and Ethiopia.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's start with the Middle East. What is the status of the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians now over Hebron?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Well, they're very active. They've been going for about a week. All the time I was in Africa I had nightly reports from Amb. Dennis Ross, who is assisting parties in those negotiations, and I think the parties' move has been very good. They've been down to hard negotiating. Mr. Ross has been going back and forth between the parties.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I understand he was last night with the King and Yasser Arafat.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: He flew to Amman last night to meet with Yasser Arafat and also met with the King. There's lots of hard negotiating. These are very difficult issues, but the fact that the parties are back working hard at it. The fact that the tone is good and the mood is good I think is a real step forward from where it was say two or three weeks ago. I think we'll just have to wait and see how this comes along, but I think they're going to find some way to resolve these problems.
As you know, they began negotiating in areas, one of the areas right on the edge of Gaza Strip. They intend to move to Taba and Elot, where they can go around the clock if necessary. But for the time being, I think Amb. Ross feels it's advantageous to focus on these informal contacts that he's having between the two parties.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Press reports indicate that Israel's seeking expanded authority to be able to pursue terrorists if they move out of the areas Israel controls into the Palestinian-controlled areas and other matters like that. Is that the case?
CHRISTOPHER: Well, I'll say this generally. Although neither party is trying to change the basic agreement, I think that Israel is trying to find enhanced ways to deal with the security issues. The recent events I think have spotlighted some of the security issues, and so in light of the new facts on the ground, the parties are trying to find practical ways to deal with them. But I would emphasize this is not changing the agreement, just finding more effective ways to implement it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Although the Palestinians have indicated they think they are trying to change the agreement.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Oh, I think it has to be common ground between them. They're not changing the agreement. When I was out there, I think I made that point clear to Chairman Arafat. The Israelis are not trying to modify or rescind the basic agreement, simply trying to more effectively implement it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On Africa, when you were in Ethiopia, you called for the creation of an Africa crisis response force, which would, I gather, have some funding from the U.S. and some training from the U.S.. Why? What would it be for?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Well, to enable the parties there in Africa to deal more effectively with a humanitarian situation in peacekeeping matters. One of the shortcomings we've had out there, Elizabeth, is some event will come, such as the genocide in Rwanda, and there simply is not time to put together a force because it takes many months to put together a force if you're doing it from scratch. So what we're trying to do here is to have a--not a standing army but have countries pledge to put forward forces. These would not be American forces.
These would be forces from African countries that have been trained together and well equipped so they could act swiftly. That's the genius of this situation, if this suggestion has any importance at all. They'd have funding and support logistically from the United States, European allies, perhaps others, with troops to be provided by the African countries. I got quite a favorable response as I went around Africa. There seemed to be, I believe, an interest in it. What they want is to consult, quite properly, whether African institutions, the OAU, the new organization in Southern Africa, called SADI, and we will do that. I think also they want us to make sure that we've consulted carefully with them. That was one of the purposes of my trip.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Who would deploy the force? Would the U.N. decide to deploy, or the Organization of African Unity?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: It would have to be deployed on the basis of the decision by the United Nations Security Council. But they would want to act in conjunction with a regional organization. As we go into this next difficult period, in many continents I think we're going to have to depend more and more on regional organizations to back up and to amplify what the U.N. can do?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is there a special urgency right now for this because of what's happening in Burundi? Is that really what's in your mind in trying to get it through?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Yes, it's both a specific case and the broader case.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And tell us about what is happening, and you have said recently that you think the Burundi situation is quite serious.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: It is a very dangerous situation in Burundi. Mr. Boyoya has taken over in a coup there. The other leaders in the region--the presidents from the neighboring countries have imposed an
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We should remind people that there's a situation--an ethnic situation not unlike the one in Rwanda, which led to the death of many hundreds of thousands of people.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: There's that same intense hatred, longstanding, between the Hutus and the
Tutsis, and I think there must come in some negotiation between the two. That's the neighboring presidents are trying to achieve, but it's a very complex and difficult and dangerous situation. I don't know whether this crisis force can be put into being in time to deal with something. What we hope to do is to have it ready if that situation would eventuate in some months but particularly I think we need to try to find a longer-term solution so we're not helpless in each one of these situations.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now President Mandela, when you were in South Africa, said that as you just told me, that this African force needs to be something which is really the child of Africans, not something that is just a U.S.-inspired force. Is that possible?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: I think it's entirely possible and highly desirable. Now the United Nations, I mean United States has so often to try to play a leadership role in this situation. As President Mandela said to me, only the United States can provide the logistical support to handle most of these matters, only the United States can provide the leadership on the other hand. He wants to make sure that this is not something imposed upon Africa but that Africa will not only endorse but support. President Mandela told me that they would be meeting on it sometime this week at a meeting of the--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mohutu.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Too much jet lag, I guess--in Southern Africa to discuss this, and I think that's very healthy.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Yes.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --according to comments that you made during the trip. You said that human rights violations, corruption, and other matters made it a very high priority for action. There's already some U.S. embargo--no visas to Nigerians and a few other things. Could you tell us what you talked about and what you think needs to happen and why.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Well, I talked about it in most African countries. The election there in Nigeria was overturned by Gen. Mabacha, and he's conducted a rather repressive dictatorship, and there are many human rights violations. We've been trying to put enough pressure on him so as to restore democracy there. The United States has done some things. We're trying work with other countries.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What has the U.S. done exactly?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: The United States has done what you said, that is--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: No visas.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER:
You know, there was a time when we thought that only the Cold War made us interested in Africa, but my trip there reminded me first how important it is in terms of avoiding nuclear proliferation, how important it is in terms of environment. We need to work together on maintaining rain forests in Africa because it's going to be important for all of our futures, and there's tremendous economic potential in Africa. One of the success stories is in Southern Africa how they've gone together to form an economic unit that's going to be a tremendous advantage to them and to us in the future. So I don't want Americans to think of Africa just as the problems or the failures or the tragedies they see on television. There is a tremendous opportunity there.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH:
And you went at an interesting time. You said that you're interested in these various multinational things that are problems that have to be solved by nations working together. It has been sort of a founding principle of the Organization of African Unity that they--that African countries would not intervene in each other's affairs. And yet, from what you say and what we've seen recently, that seems to be changing, is that right?
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: I think they're coming past that position. I think--for example, the Presidents of the countries adjacent to Burundi have come to the point where they knew they had to do something. They couldn't stand by and watch a coup take place in Burundi. And that was a watershed event there in Africa.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Angola, going to another problem still, um, Angola is a place where there's a very large, the largest U.N. peacekeeping force ever, I think, even larger than the force in Cambodia, and it's about to leave. It will leave in a couple of months. And you were there with some fairly critical things to say about one of the sides in the--in this long war, Jonah Savimbi. Could you tell us about that situation, and why he didn't meet with you after apparently he'd agreed to.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Elizabeth, it is the largest current peacekeeping force, although it's not nearly as large as the one that was in Bosnia at an earlier time. About two years ago, the parties there--that is
I met with the government and emphasized the importance of completing this, this arrangement that they worked out for a unity government. That country is--really is--has great opportunity, but it's been a score of years that just impaled on this war and it's very sad to see now. You know, there are more land mines in that country than there are people, more than 10 million land mines. A hundred and fifty people are killed by land mines every day, so they need a period of peace. It's one of those countries though with the enormous resources they have, oil resources, they have diamond resources, and they have really a very rich soil.
So if we can get them a period of peace, it can be a very successful country again. And I really appeal Dr. Savimbi now as I did there to complete this process, to join the unity government, when I couldn't stay over and meet with him myself, I sent one of my colleagues down to meet with him to give him the message to get on the program, get with it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jim Mann
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: No. I don't know where Jim got that idea. I've been wanting to go to Africa for some time. I've been there at North Africa many, many times. There's no tip-off there. I just was able to do something I wanted to do for some time. As I've said before, Elizabeth, the question is very iffy now, very hypothetical now. If the President wins, I'll sit down with him and talk about my future. But until then, I want to
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Secretary, thanks for being with us.
SEC. CHRISTOPHER: Thank you, Elizabeth.
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