20 July 2001

National Security Advisor Rice Challenges Genoa Protesters

By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent

Genoa -- The leaders of the Group of Eight, on the first day of their three-day annual summit in this northern Italian port city, are discussing ways to make people around the world safer, more healthy and prosperous, and the demonstrations against the meeting by thousands of protestors in the city are puzzling, says Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor to President Bush.

In a series of short interviews with U.S. network and cable television journalists July 20, Rice said "these protestors, particularly the violent ones here, are not here because they are friends of the poor, they are here to keep developing countries from developing.

"To the degree that there is a protectionist agenda that is underlying a lot of these protests, they are not serving the people of South Africa or the people of El Salvador or the people of Bangladesh."

The G-8 leaders, Rice said, "are talking about ways to open markets, to stimulate growth, to provide education and health benefits to these populations, those are the people who are helping the poor. The democratic process is working inside these doors, not outside it.

"The people who are trying to keep these meetings from happening, those people are not helping the poor, but only helping the cause of TV ratings," Rice said.

She said the protests against the summit are "a bit puzzling, because the leaders that are meeting here are elected and also the leaders that are going to join them from the developing world are all elected leaders.

"The people in the streets are not elected leaders and these elected leaders can be turned out of office at any time if their policies are not serving their people," said Rice. "What they are here talking about is the importance of global growth, the importance of free trade, the importance of open economies and good governance. That's the way to make people more prosperous.

"With all due respect to the people in the street, if they are talking against trade, they are talking against the interests of the poor," Rice said, adding that "today the chance to do something about the ancient problem of poverty is greater than at any other time in human history."

Rice also discussed the missile defense issue and the Kyoto Treaty.

Asked to comment on President Bush's discussions on missile defense with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair while visiting with him July 19 outside London, Rice said that the United States is in a process of consulting with its allies about this evolving concept.

"This is a very big concept, especially revising the entire relationship with Russia, and so the President has been talking about this, we are sharing more and more details" of it, she said.

President Bush "is getting exactly what he needs from allies like the British," said Rice. "He is getting openness to the notion that we need to approach this problem differently."

She said President Bush will have further discussions on missile defense when he holds a bilateral meeting Sunday, July 22, with Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

In Putin, she said, Bush "found somebody who is open to discussion, and as more concrete elements of this become evident to the Russians and to our allies, and as we talk through what we need to do, I think you will see people more and more supportive, because we are talking about limited defenses here against specific kinds of threats. We are talking about reductions in offensive forces to a level commensurate with our real security needs and we are talking about new nonproliferation efforts.

"It's a new era, it's not 1972. I think that argument is winning the day," said Rice.

The NSC Advisor said the Bush administration is "clearly for a new strategic framework with Russia. We are clearly for a Europe that is larger and more welcoming of all its parts. We are clearly for a stronger relationship with our Western Hemisphere partners and, most importantly, we are clearly for policies in our economy that stimulate economic growth, that stimulate free trade and that make it possible for all those countries that are struggling ... to make the tough reforms so that they can make life better for their people. "

The G-8 meeting, Rice said, is an opportunity for the heads of state and of government to get together and share views.

"We are committed to the agenda that is being achieved here, and it is reaching out beyond just the members of the G-7 and G-8 to look at Africa, and Asia and Latin America," she said.

On the question of the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto global warming agreement, Rice said "we'll certainly provide our views of what we can do to address the very important goals of Kyoto.

"As the President has said, he understands that the reduction of greenhouse gases is an important goal, he understands that global climate change is an important issue. But the Kyoto Treaty just had elements that would have been very, very bad for the American economy and would not have addressed over the long term many of the issues of global climate change," Rice said. "We have to have a global solution that does bring developing countries in, we have to be more reliant on technologies to get there and I think you will start to see from the United States very good ideas in this regard."