Re: FOREIGN BASES

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>]

Via pparks (Polly Parks)

***60 LINES***
*Following is the Clinton-Ramos (partial) transcript from the press
con. Its much better than I thought.*

Q: Good evening. President Clinton, in a hearing at the
Philippine Senate a few days ago, a group of scientists, citing
Pentagon report, identified more than 40 sites in Clark and Subic
believed to be contaminated with hazardous waste. Your government
has offered financial assistance [this has never been
offered] and technical support for surveys to check if there are
environmental damages in both former U.S. military bases. Is your
government willing to accept moral, as well as financial
responsibility for cleaning up the bases in case this service
proves
that there are toxic wastes in Clark and Subic?

President Clinton: First of all, I'd like to point out that when
the United States left Subic Bay, we spent about $6M on clean-up
and we left 5,000 acres of virgin tropical forest, which was an
enormous environmental resource for the Philippines. We have,
since that time, worked very hard to cooperate with the authorities
here about what the condition of Subic Bay is and each area of the
Bay. It's a vast area, as you know. We will continue to do that
and to exchange information and to work on it.

We have no reason to believe at this time that there is a big
problem that we left untended, first of all. We clearly are not
mandated under any treaty obligations to do more, but we are
concerned, we want Subic Bay to be a vast economic resource for the
Philippines in a way that preserves the environmental heritage of
the area.

We are very pleased and supportive of the agreement signed, I
believe just today, and witnessed by the Secretary of State,
between Federal Express and authorities there to develop the area
in a reasonable way.

So we're excited by this; we want it to be a very good thing for
you. We have spent some money there, we have given some important
environmental resources, and we are continuing to work on it. But
in the absence of the evidence of some serious problem that we left
untended, I don't think I can commit at this moment to further
expenditures. But I can tell you, we are continuing to work with
the Philippine government on this, and we will continue to do so.

President Ramos: May I just add by way of confirmation, ladies and
gentlemen, that I brought up the issue during our one-on-one talk
with President Clinton, and he readily agreed that at the level of
the technical people and the working people, principally in the
departments of foreign affairs, environment and natural resources,
as well as the base authorities, that we put all our expertise
together about the subject, because we have studies on our side,
there are records on the part of the U.S. government which have not
yet been thoroughly collated, so that we will get to the truth of
the matter.

And while it may not be just toxic waste, we may really be talking
here of pollutants which could have been sourced from many other
places in addition to the naval forces in Subic. But, anyway, we
will get the good effort going together. Thank you.

President Clinton: If I could add just one more sentence,
President Ramos did bring this up and we talked about it in some
detail. What I would like to say is, on a matter like this, I
think it is very important not to let the general policy
pronouncements or rhetorics outrun the facts we have on the case,
so we decided we should focus on finding the facts now, and when we
find them, deal with the facts as they are.

Pretty damn good I think.

Polly