Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. And most important of all, thank you for your commitment to the people of…”

“Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. And most important of all, thank you for your commitment to the people of Bosnia, for your care and your courage. Many of you in this room have worked throughout the war to stop the human rights abuses that horrified the world and to ease the suffering of the people of Bosnia. Now the Balkan leaders have ended the war and have made a commitment to peace, so that now I can say to you, we need your help more than ever to make sure the peace takes hold and endures. I have just had a remarkable meeting in the Oval Office with a group of Bosnians who just came in and took their seats. They were forced to flee their country, and they have resettled in ours: the Capin family, the Ibisevic family, and Dr. Oljaca. They are all here with me. They bear witness to loved ones lost, homes destroyed, careers shattered, families separated. They can tell us what it's like to leave the land they love, where they were born and went to school, where they married and raised families, where they should have been able to enjoy the basic human right to build a good future in peace. These people and so many more like them are the human faces of the war in Bosnia. They are the story behind the unbelievable numbers of a quarter of a million dead, 2 million people displaced, more than half the population of pre-war Bosnia.…”