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nation, working with governmental groups, working with farm groups--we 
don't want to upset any local farm economies; we understand their 
challenges here, but we know if we could guarantee every child in every 
developing nation one nutritious meal a day, we could dramatically 
increase school enrollment among boys and especially among girls. We 
don't have a child to waste. I hope we can do this in Nigeria, and I 
hope you will work with us to get the job done.
    I have also asked the Peace Corps to reestablish its partnership 
with Nigeria as soon as possible to help with education, health, and 
information technology.

[[Page 1951]]

    Building a strong economy also means creating strong institutions 
and, above all, the rule of law. Your Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has 
written that he imagines a day when Nigeria is, quote, ``an unstoppable 
nation, one whose citizens anywhere in the world would be revered simply 
by the very possession of a Nigerian passport.''
    I don't need to tell you that the actions of a small group of 
Nigerians took away that possibility, took away the pride of carrying 
the passport, stealing the opportunity from every decent and honest 
citizen of this country. But we will bring the pride and prosperity back 
by cracking down together on crime, corruption, fraud, and drugs.
    Our FBI is again working with Nigeria to fight international and 
financial crime. Our law enforcement agencies are working to say to 
narcotraffickers, there should be no safe havens in Nigeria. As we do 
these things, we will be able to say loud and clear to investors all 
over the world, ``Come to Nigeria. This is a place of untapped 
opportunity because it is a place of unlimited potential.''
    This year I signed into law our Africa trade bill, and many of its 
champions are here with me from our Congress. It will help us to seize 
that opportunity, creating good jobs and wealth on both sides of the 
Atlantic. The challenge is to make sure any foreign involvement in your 
economy promotes equitable development, lifting people and communities 
that have given much for Nigeria's economic progress but so far have 
gained too little from it.
    Neither the people nor the private sector want a future in which 
investors exist in fortified islands surrounded by seas of misery. 
Democracy gives us a chance to avoid that future. Of course, I'm 
thinking especially of the Niger Delta. I hope government and business 
will forge a partnership with local people to bring real, lasting social 
progress, a clean environment, and economic opportunity.
    We face, of course, another obstacle to Nigeria's economic 
development, the burden of debt that past governments left on your 
shoulders. The United States has taken the lead in rescheduling 
Nigeria's debt within the Paris Club, and I believe we should do more. 
Nigeria shouldn't have to choose between paying interest on debt and 
meeting basic human needs, especially in education and health. We are 
prepared to support a substantial reduction of Nigeria's debts on a 
multilateral basis, as long as your economic and financial reforms 
continue to make progress and you ensure that the benefits of debt 
reduction go to the people.
    Now, let me say, as we do our part to support your economic growth 
and economic growth throughout Africa, we must also work together and 
build on African efforts to end the conflicts that are bleeding hope 
from too many places. If there's one thing I would want the American 
people to learn from my trip here it is the true, extraordinary extent 
of Nigeria's leadership for peace in west Africa and around the world.
    I hope our Members of Congress who are here today will tell this to 
their colleagues back home. Over the past decade, with all of its 
problems, Nigeria has spent $10 billion and sacrificed hundreds of its 
soldiers lives for peace in west Africa. Nigeria was the first nation, 
with South Africa, to condemn the recent coup in Cote d'Ivoire. And 
Nigerian soldiers and diplomats, including General Abubakar, are trying 
to restart the peace process in Congo. In these ways, you are building 
the record of a moral superpower.
    That's a long way to come in just a couple of years, and I urge you 
to stay with it. But I know, I know from the murmurs in this chamber and 
from the murmurs I heard in the congressional chamber when I said the 
United States must go to Bosnia, the United States must go to Kosovo, 
the United States must train an Africa crisis response initiative, the 
United States must come here and help you train to deal with the 
challenges of Sierra Leone--I know that many of you have often felt the 
burden of your peacekeeping was heavier than the benefit. I know you 
have felt that.
    But there's no one else in west Africa with the size, the standing, 
the strength of military forces to do it. If you don't do it, who will 
do it? But you should not have to do it alone. That's what's been wrong 
with what's happened in the last several years. You have too heavy a 
burden. Because of your size, everyone expects you to lead and to do so 
with enormous sensitivity to the needs of others.

[[Page 1952]]

But despite your size, you cannot lead alone, and you shouldn't have to 
pay the enormous price. I am determined, if you're willing to lead, to 
get you the international support you need and deserve to meet those 
responsibilities.
    This week the first of five Nigerian peacekeeping battalions began 
working with American military trainers and receiving American 
equipment. With battalions from Ghana and other African nations, they 
will receive almost $60 million in support to be a commanding force for 
peace in Sierra Leone and an integral part of Nigeria's democratization. 
We think the first battalions will be ready to deploy with U.N. forces 
early next year. We expect them to make an enormous difference in 
replacing the reign of terror with the rule of law. As they do, all of 
west Africa will benefit from the promise of peace and stability and the 
prospect of closer military and economic cooperation, and Nigeria will 
take another step toward building a 21st century army that is strong and 
strongly committed to democracy.
    Let me say to the military leaders who are here with us today that 
the world honors your choice to take the army out of politics and make 
it a pillar of a democratic state.
    Last year President Obasanjo came to Washington and reminded us that 
peace is indivisible. I have worked to build a new relationship between 
America and Africa because our futures are indivisible. It matters to us 
whether you become an engine of growth and opportunity or a place of 
unrelieved despair. It matters whether we push back the forces of crime, 
corruption, and disease together or leave them to divide and conquer us. 
It matters whether we reach out with Africans to build peace or leave 
millions of God's children to suffer alone.
    Our common future depends on whether Africa's 739 million people 
gain the chance to live their dreams, and Nigeria is a pivot point on 
which all Africa's future turns.
    Ten years ago a young Nigerian named Ben Okri published a novel, 
``The Famished Road,'' that captured imaginations all over the world. He 
wrote of a spirit child who defies his elders and chooses to be born 
into the turmoil and struggle of human life. The time and place were 
modern Nigeria, but the questions the novel poses speak to all of us in 
a language that is as universal as the human spirit.
    In a time of change and uncertainty, Okri asks us, ``Who can dream a 
good road and then live to travel on it?'' Nigerians, as much as any 
nation on Earth, have dreamed this road. Since Anthony Enahoro stood up 
in a colonial Parliament and demanded your independence in 1953, 
Nigerians have dreamed this road in music and art and literature and 
political struggle, and in your contributions to prosperity and 
progress, among the immigrants to my country and so many others.
    Now, at the dawn of a new century, the road is open at home to all 
citizens of Nigeria. You have the chance to build a new Nigeria. We have 
the chance to build a lasting network of ties between Africa and the 
United States. I know it will not be easy to walk the road, but you have 
already endured such stiff challenges. You have beaten such long odds to 
get this far. And after all, the road of freedom is the only road worth 
taking.
    I hope that, as President, I have helped a little bit to take us a 
few steps down that road together. I am certain that America will walk 
with you in the years to come. And I hope you will remember, if nothing 
else, what I said about our interdependence. Yes, you need us today 
because at this fleeting moment in history, we are the world's richest 
country. But over the long run of life and over the long run of a 
nation's life and over the long run of civilization on this planet, the 
rich and the poor often change places. What endures is our common 
humanity.
    If you can find it amidst all your differences and we can find 
amidst all ours, and then we can reach out across the ocean, across the 
cultures, across the different histories with a common future for all of 
our children, freedom's road will prevail.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. in the House of Representatives 
Chamber at the National Assembly Building. In his remarks, he referred 
to Senate President Pius Anyim, Speaker of the House Ghali Na'Abba, 
Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu, Deputy Speaker of the House 
Chibudum Nwuche, and President

[[Page 1953]]

Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria; novelist Chinua Achebe; musician King 
Sunny Ade; Rev. Jesse Jackson, U.S. Special Envoy to Africa; and former 
Nigerian military leader Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 1953-1954]
 
Monday, September 4, 2000
 
Volume 36--Number 35
Pages 1941-1995
 
Week Ending Friday, September 1, 2000
 
Proclamation 7334--Women's Equality Day, 2000

August 26, 2000

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    In March of 1776, 4 months before the signing of the Declaration of 
Independence, Abigail Adams sent a letter to her husband John in 
Philadelphia, where he was participating in the Second Continental 
Congress. ``...[I]n the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be 
necessary for you to make,'' she wrote, ``I desire you would Remember 
the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your 
ancestors.'' Almost a century and a half would pass before her desire 
was realized with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the 
Constitution, guaranteeing women's suffrage.
    The road to civic, economic, and social equality for women in our 
Nation has been long and arduous, marked by frustrations and setbacks, 
yet inspired by the courageous actions of many heroic Americans, women 
and men alike. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner 
Truth, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone--these and so many 
others refused to remain silent in the face of injustice. Speaking out 
at rallies, circulating pamphlets and petitions, lobbying State 
legislatures, risking public humiliation and even incarceration, 
suffragists slowly changed the minds of their fellow Americans and the 
laws of our Nation.Thanks to their efforts, by the mid-19th century some 
States recognized the right of women to own property and to sign 
contracts independent of their spouses. In 1890, Wyoming became the 
first State to recognize a woman's right to vote. Thirty years later, 
the 19th Amendment made women's suffrage the law of the land. But it 
would take another 40 years to pass the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which 
promised women the same salary for performing the same jobs as men, and 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed employment discrimination 
based on gender. Another 8 years would pass before Title IX of the 
Education Amendments of 1972 assured American women equal opportunity in 
education and sports programs.
    However, the promise of true equality has yet to be realized. 
Despite historic changes in laws and attitudes, a significant wage gap 
between men and women persists, in traditional sectors as well as in 
emerging fields, such as information technology. While employment of 
computer scientists, programmers, and operators has increased at a 
breathtaking rate--by 80 percent since 1983--fewer than one in three of 
these high-wage jobs is filled by a woman. A recent report by the 
Council of Economic Advisers noted that, even after allowing for 
differences in education, age, and occupation, the wage gap between men 
and women in high-technology professions is still approximately 12 
percent--a gap similar to that estimated in the labor market at large--
and that, in both the old economy and the new, the gap is even wider for 
women of color.
    To combat unfair pay practices and to close the wage gap between men 
and women once and for all, I have called on the Congress to support my 
Administration's Equal Pay Initiative and to pass the Paycheck Fairness 
Act. And in May of this year, I announced the creation of a new Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Equal Pay Task Force to empower 
EEOC field staff with the legal, technical, and investigatory support 
they need to pursue charges of pay discrimination and to take 
appropriate action whenever such discrimination occurs. I have also 
proposed in my fiscal 2001 budget an initiative under which the National 
Science Foundation will provide $20 million in grants to postsecondary 
institutions and other organizations to promote the full participation 
of women in the science and technology fields.
    Today, a new century lies before us, offering us a fresh opportunity 
to make real the promise that Abigail Adams dreamed of more than two 
centuries ago. As we celebrate

[[Page 1954]]

Women's Equality Day and the 80th anniversary of the ratification of the 
19th Amendment, let us keep faith with our mothers, wives, sisters, and 
daughters by removing any lingering barriers in their path to true 
equality.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 
26, 2000, as Women's Equality Day. I call upon the citizens of our great 
Nation to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth 
day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the 
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
fifth.
                                            William J. Clinton

 [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., August 29, 
2000]

 Note:  This proclamation was published in the  Federal Register  on 
August 30.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 1954-1955]
 
Monday, September 4, 2000
 
Volume 36--Number 35
Pages 1941-1995
 
Week Ending Friday, September 1, 2000
 
Remarks at a State Dinner Hosted by President Obasanjo of Nigeria in 
Abuja

August 26, 2000

    President Obasanjo, to the President of Niger, to the distinguished 
leaders of the legislative and judicial branches of the Nigerian 
Government, and all our friends from Nigeria who are here, I believe I 
can speak for the entire American delegation when I say thank you all 
for an unforgettable day.
    And on a very personal basis, I want to thank you for enabling me to 
say something no previous American President has been able to say: It is 
good to be back in Africa for the second time.
    I will say, Mr. President, I was very moved by your generous 
remarks, and I was very glad to have a Nigerian name. [Laughter] But 
now, you will have to give me a copy of your remarks so that when we go 
out tomorrow, I can introduce myself properly to the people of your 
country. [Laughter]

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