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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Secretary Baker to Opening Session of Conference
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Foreign Policy Bulletin, January-April 1992
The Reorganization of Europe: Address by Secretary Baker to
Opening Session of Conference, January 22, 1992
</hdr>
<body>
<p> Ladies and gentlemen, let me echo the President's warm
welcome, and thank you all very much for your presence here
today. One year and one week ago today, a worldwide coalition
launched a successful battle against naked aggression. Today,
we join together to form a new coalition to fight a new battle,
but one with an equally worthy and important cause.
</p>
<p> We meet today to form a coalition to support freedom and
democracy, a coalition to help newly independent peoples to
overcome a real human emergency, a coalition to support them as
they work to free themselves from the fears and the shadows of
their totalitarian past.
</p>
<p>Operation Provide Hope
</p>
<p> If this were a war, I suppose we would call it Operation
Provide Hope. Yet this is not a war to defeat aggression but a
peacetime battle to support freedom. For while the peoples of
Russian and the other independent states desperately need food
and fuel, and medicine and shelter; even more, I think, they
need hope. Hope that they can live their normal lives with bread
on their shelves and medicine in their hospitals; hope that
there are ways out of this emergency; hope, above all, that
comes from knowing that the world cares about their plight and
is really ready to help--that is the message that this
conference must send.
</p>
<p> Here in Washington today, 54 nations and international
organizations have joined together and have committed with one
another in freedom's fight.
</p>
<p> For all of us know that the peoples of Russia, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, Armenia, Byelarus, Kyrgyzstan, and the other
independent states are asking for our helping hand so that
democracy and free markets can take firm root in their lands.
</p>
<p> These newly liberated peoples know that the ultimate
responsibility for their success really lies in their own
hands. They are not trying to evade what President Bush has
referred to as "the hard work of freedom." Nor are they seeking
charity or welfare.
</p>
<p> But these peoples do know that we all have a stake in their
success, as the President has just said. And they know too, I
think, that we all have something to offer. They are only now
learning the ways of democracy and the ways of free markets.
They look to us--they look strongly to us--for guidance, to
show them how to make our democratic values work in their lands.
They want to draw on our years, and decades, and even centuries
of experience with free markets and democracy so that they, too,
can take their rightful place in the global community of free
nations.
</p>
<p> For the collapse of the Soviet Union has left the rubble of
communism everywhere and we need to help lift communism's dead
weight so that these new democracies have a chance to take
hold. We need to help them deal with the legacy of command
economies, of excessive militarization, and societal
deterioration. They need our help, and they need it in all
sectors.
</p>
<p> In the nuclear area, for example, the United States and
others ar working hard to prevent proliferation of nuclear
weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. President Bush has
sent a team of experts to Moscow, to Minsk, to Kiev, and to
Alma-Ata to discuss how the United States can support the secure
control and the swift disablement and destruction of nuclear
weapons. This is a mission in which we all have a great interest
and in which we all have as well a great stake.
</p>
<p> This mission includes "brain gain" proposals--that is,
ways that American scientist from our weapons laboratories might
work jointly with their counterparts in Russia and elsewhere to
advance scientific knowledge instead of designing weapons. We
hope that others will contribute to this effort.
</p>
<p> But the nuclear arena is only an example. Across the board,
the peoples of the New Independent States want the world's
advice--especially through on-the-ground experts who can show
them the way to a better future. Most of use are doing that in
one way or another, and we need to redouble our efforts.
</p>
<p> But as the international financial institutions work with
the Russians and others to devise credible long-term reform
plans, and while individual nations support political and
economic reform through technical assistance, the world now
needs to focus on the very real emergency that the peoples of
Russia and the other independent states face today.
</p>
<p>A Global Emergency
</p>
<p> In the last few months, life in Russia and the other
independent states has deteriorated at a dangerously
accelerating pace. We have seen Uzbeks die in bloody riots,
Russians shiver in bread lines, hospitals without vaccines,
Aeroflot planes grounded by a fuel shortage, and military
officers continuing to protest the lack of adequate housing.
</p>
<p> This humanitarian emergency encompasses lands that cross 11
time zones and occupy one-sixth of the world's land mass. This
emergency affects close to 300 million people.
</p>
<p> So it is, without a doubt, a global emergency. And it will
require global collective engagement to forestall further
deterioration and to support conditions for the success of
democratic and market reform.
</p>
<p> Our response, as the President has said, must be global
because no other approach is going to work. The problems of the
New Independent States are far too large for any one region or
any one nation to try to solve alone. The EC [European
Community] Commission and EC member states, and especially
Germany, have taken a leading role in supporting reform and in
offering help.
</p>
<p> The nations of Central and Eastern Europe--struggling
themselves with building democracy and economic freedom--have
joined us here today because they know that democracy in
Russian, Ukraine, Byelarus, Moldova, and elsewhere will support
their democracies, too. They know, too, that our commitment to
their future is unshakable, and that we do not intend to lessen
our assistance to them.
</p>
<p> But this emergency in the New Independent States has
profound repercussion beyond Europe that are obvious to all. As
a global emergency, it has global effects and, again, demands
a global effort.
</p>
<p>The Global Response
</p>
<p> Our response must be collective because that is how we can
best use our resources. We need to divide our labors to help
meet their needs. Working together, we can multiply our
individual strengths to better coordinate and thereby accelerate
and expand the emergency assistance that we can provide. For
example, in the last month, German milk powder was shipped via
Canadian planes to Russia. Working together, we can target our
emergency assistance where it is needed most and where it can
have the most impact. And, in this way, we can avoid duplication
of effort.
</p>
<p> Our response must embrace the people, the people there and
here. Our collective effort must invoke the invaluable spirit
and experience of our private sector and our voluntary
organizations. Those who need our help are making a revolution
from the grassroots to the highest councils of government, and
we need to help them from the grassroots to the highest councils
of governments. Public-private partnerships--as we have
learned through President Bush's medical initiative--can
leverage contributions, multiplying the value of our efforts.
That is why we have asked our Citizens Democracy Corps to hold
a parallel conference today and tomorrow to energize our
non-governmental and voluntary organizations.
</p>
<p> Above all, our collective response must aim to engage the
Russians and Ukrainians, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, Armenians and
Byelorussians, and all of the others to carry the crucial
message of hope that I discussed earlier. As Maxim Gorky wrote
to Herbert Hoover