Bill Clinton: “Africa and an Exchange With Reporters in New York City October 22, 1995 President Clinton. Hello. Is everyone in?…”

“Africa and an Exchange With Reporters in New York City October 22, 1995 President Clinton. Hello. Is everyone in? President Mandela. They're the only people who can order the President of a superpower around. [Laughter] President Clinton. Let me just begin by saying that it's a great honor for me to have a chance to meet with my friend President Mandela again. He is a symbol of the best of what has occurred in the world in the last 50 years, since the United Nations has been in existence. And we honor the progress South Africa has made and is making. We value our partnership and look forward to doing more together. I want to thank again the President for making it possible to establish the Gore-Mbeki commission so that we'll have a very high-level way of working together systematically over the long run. And we are very excited about it, and I'm looking forward to our meeting. President Mandela. [Inaudible]--is in power in South Africa, it is the duty of the new government to solve the problems facing the country and not to be pointing the finger--fingers--at what happened before we came into power. But for the purpose of appreciating what the United States of America has done to facilitate the transformation that has taken place in our country and the trend of democracy, we must start from the point that we faced one of the brutal systems of racial oppression in our country.…”