Bill Clinton: “Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the members of the host…”

“Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the members of the host committee and the people of the city of Miami and the State of Florida. I am very, very pleased that we made the decision to come to Miami. I thank Governor Chiles and Lieutenant Governor MacKay and all those who made the case that we should be here. Our hosts have done a tremendous job of hosting this historic event. At this extraordinary moment of opportunity and responsibility, they have made our work easier and, especially last evening, much more enjoyable. The Summit of the Americas has more than fulfilled our expectations. Future generations will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better. We worked hard to arrive at this point. Yesterday, we achieved agreement on the many issues before us. Our talks were lively, open, and wide-ranging. They were filled with the spirit of democracy and mutual respect and a deep determination to increase the jobs and incomes of our people, improve the quality of their lives, and protect their freedoms. Meanwhile, the First Lady's summit on children, all of our spouses working together, looking toward the future of our children in this hemisphere, in many ways captured what the spirit of this meeting is all about, for all of our efforts will fall more to the benefit of our children than to our generation. Now I would like to ask the representatives of each of the major geographical regions of the Americas, the Caribbean, North America, Central America, and South America, to report on the agreements we have forged. In addition, we will hear from the leaders of two dynamic and vital institutions that are serving our hemisphere and that will loom large in our plans for the future, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Organization of American States. Then President Aristide of Haiti, who embodies our hemisphere's determination to uphold the sovereign rule of the people, will speak. Let us begin the plenary. [At this point, the final plenary session of the summit proceeded.]”