An hour with senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker

from martin auditorium in the typical public library k pr presents an hour with senator nancy kassebaum baker i'm j mcintyre nancy kassebaum baker served as us senator from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen ninety seven she was on the senate committee on foreign relations served on its subcommittee on african affairs as its chair and as ranking member in two thousand five kassebaum baker served on the commission on africa appointed by british prime minister tony blair she spoke out over fifty two thousand six at the typical public library the painter it's a real honor to be invited to get a darker color hirsch bird watcher i always said and i'm so pleased thing you could be here in the family it's iraq tribute to what i remember about you and dr hirshberg

many times i would be speaking here and i would often see them in the audience listening i'm sure not always a grain but always interested and i tell you it means a lot to a speaker who knows that there are those in the audience who were listening i am ashamed to say this is the first time i've been to the new library and how proud you must be it is a wonderful wonderful the saudi and to see so many people here are enjoying and jr welcome to you as the new director here to say this size that you send in welcoming use of this facility is a tribute to many of you here that made this possible i grew up on in the old library on eighth street how many of you here remember that all what's a lot of the rest are big aid is here to help

so it was sort of nasty yeah yeah and dr but i learned that like during any down i think it was from there that i've always i took my children to the library in wichita and there was always usually the storytelling session on saturday mornings and there are great readers and i think its from those early years and the use of the line during that instills a new such a love of books and learning and reading and to pass that along as the hearse birds have done as a legacy for future generations is so is really something that we applied in and will benefit from for years to come i target can show me around the new library before the meeting started and there's a wonderful collection of african art i bet the hersch first you donated this on display now that was really interesting to see i was asked to

speak about africa today i think people were afraid i'd talk about the republican party but when i was elected in nineteen seventy eight the republicans are in the minority for my before my ear for my first two years and i had twenty and that i would like to be on the foreign relations committee but b because it was a minority and there was a room and i was the new one on the block i couldn't get on well after president reagan won in nineteen eighty and we got the majority in the senate it would be a slot opened up on the foreign relations committee but it was still by seniority and so i was still bad at the end of the line and so someone so when you take africa well i've never been to africa i really knew nothing about africa and i said ok and died spent the rest of my time in the senate as either chairman or ranking member when the democrats were in control the senate

an african affairs as i've said you tend to lose your heart to africa and it became such an interest to be able to work well with the different countries and the different cultures and learning history of africa and if i may i just quote from a few comments i made on the senate floor not long before i retired a half ago why should we care in this age of instant communication international travel in expanding world trade we cannot ignore a candidate of some eight hundred million people and more than fifty countries from infectious diseases see when firemen and environmental destruction narcotics trafficking to terrorism and i might add human trafficking we live in a world where national and geographic boundaries have less and less milk as a world leader and as a matter of self interest

the united states has a responsibility for promoting peace stability and development in africa well there was about twelve years ago eleven years ago and they would still be the same today although i don't know that any others including myself probably spend that much time thinking about africa and i would like for just a moment if i made before i start a glass over talk a little bit about some of the countries of africa and why i believe the ad is important to think about africa one in south africa which is a country that has changed says the time i took over the work in the committee from an issue of apartheid which everybody was protesting and rallying in a party it was a big issue of the moment in the early eighties and dark i was involved in an effort toward

sanctions which on the whole i don't think ever really achieve what one would like that i believed it was important to send a message of that time that we cared about what happened in south africa and we did care about africa it was crafted in both the house and senate are to be a fairly mild sanctions sanctions package that president reagan had been convinced that it was not a good idea to do and be told it and i must say we overrode the veto and i think it had did send a message that was important that time and following that of course nelson mandela working with on present day clerk of south africa at that time it achieved a conciliation in his release from prison after twenty seven years that really was quite extraordinary i would have to say if there was one person i would say that i met that left a lasting impression one at the top of the list would be nelson mandela

a president says that was unique in leading that country than to reconciliation and taking apart in the world community of nations that it's still struggling to find its way another way i'd mentioned would be some idea where i got very involved at the time is the famine and drought in the civil war there in believe we should be able to send in some of our own forces in a humanitarian role to try and bring peace in somalia well it worked for a time and had failed i suppose is we withdrew and it changed the direction that ended in some disaster and is probably influenced most of our thoughts regarding please keep your actions your research and isn't any better today

and that's probably what's sad that in some ways you take two steps forward and three back and i don't believe it will ever succeed in any of the countries and tell they can be establishment of an independent parliament and independent judiciary and i and many independent financial structure because of those institutions need to be strong and independent to survive the crusading terribly have taken place and one good works have been done can be so easily destroyed it's easier said than done and sometimes we take too much of that for granted here because we have had it and it's something that in a way is hard to see in africa because you see countries they're almost being pulled overnight into a new century and for them and you don't want to see a loss of a

culture that is unique their own are all individually you need me to the different countries that's different from each other that's important but there's no infrastructure so that you have no you have no highway that goes it's so strong highway from one country to the next all the goods can be easily exchange arm hands out when think back to prison eyes narrow his tread the transcontinental highway which really helped along with the railroad of course but the transcontinental highway and they really brought east and west their own traveling together but i like to focus of imam in it on sudan is dark for of course has been in the news a great deal it's a good example of the death of many different styles for one it's a great tragedy president bush's recognize it is genocide taking place and therefore

people are homeless and have been brutalized and murder but it is it isn't something that just happened overnight one was reading a history of sudan it's been conflict between the north and the south for a long time it's been a conflict over potential oil resources it has been a home of terrorists at times in khartoum but now we deal with the government of sudan in a major intelligence way and sell pipeline pressure becomes tricky but the government of khartoum is reluctant if not even god backing a lot of fleet forces who have been brutalizing and in conflict with the rebels in dark for a barren barren region but recently and i just would like to mention this

the international community is exactly right now in a failure to protect can we protect and we go back to rwanda and we go back to call somalia and syria gave all what is our responsibility we can't be everywhere in the world my right now certainly we're focused in the middle east and an interesting doctor and pass the united nations in two thousand six and it was endorsed by the security council by the general assembly by the european union that we signed onto a if a state or sovereign nation has an obligation if a sovereign nation it has an obligation to protect its population from serious harm resulting from internal war insurgency repression or state failure

the new resolution is clearly is a clearly stated obligation on the international community to intervene when a state has failed through lack of willingness or capacity to protect its own people where that's really a rather remarkable resolution and of course everybody signed on to but dr for is a tragic example between formal recognition and what is a kind of what is occurring in implementation of what should be done i was in the senate at the time in rwanda and we were all aghast of what was taking place there but i must say no one really knew what to do about it we were going to send troops in that european countries are reluctant we've always urged the un now to send peacekeepers to our troubled areas and yet so many people denounce the united nations and you can look at the general

assembly and just recently they were killed all of course say those who dislike it's got up and went on and on and on and the new president chavez for one but certainly but on the other hand it's sort of like you know the soapbox at hyde park in london anybody can get up and say what they wage and i don't know that it's doing any great harm necessarily but what does matter i think our actions that the security council takes and harmony be without the united shiite nations dealing with refugees all are the world health organization and things that i think really do matter tillis ray in the community of nations i am we have basically said the african union should take part in solving the problems of dark for khartoum of the government of sudan

have said let them come in on an observer mission but they refused to let the united nations and with peacekeepers and actually if there's a six cd it would really require i think i am the united states and iran western europe pressuring sudan to let them come in and i think we should i nodded as peacekeepers were not going to put any troops in and we don't have them to put in but i think we can and so and some equipment and some advisors which would give us at least a whole human being of assistance i think president bush as well as colin powell is now secretary stay calm and lisa rice visited not president bush did with secretary powell when he was secretary rice had visited are for and i think clearly has shown that it is something that is where all disturbed by what is happening but no one's prepared to commit troops on the ground so we're faced again

with certain irs something that's been undertaken by the community of nations in words but not necessarily able to backup indeed or maybe really even able to do so even if we wished we could we have as i said a close intelligence relationship with sudan and china is the largest importer of oil from sudan and so many are leery of intrusive un measures of intervention know i don't know what his best to do with coping in somalia right now our plate is full you could argue it's i think i would make a case where really neglecting south america camp at how many have you noticed anything in the news recently about what's going on in south america there's not a lot other than what president chavez was going on and on about at the un but there's a growing populous

movement in many of the latin american countries and we have i think a very important stake in south america it's a neighbor it's in our hemisphere it could be a major trading partner and certainly what happens serious important to our own security as well as what it takes place there an ore here and i i really would suggest we all know be more mindful of operettas there that i think would be much more constructive and died in an ad i am i'm also disappointed that today's were looking around the world which i seem to veering off of africa because i think you've heard all you wanna hear about africa but it's so and i'm i just mention before i really racing africa totally the congo which used

to be the congo then it was the zaire and now it's back to congo again the democratic republic of congo but it faces many of the same problems that somalia sudan and others face but also i think it's a shame we seem to really completely moved away from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty maybe it really didn't do much good but it seemed to me it gave us a diplomatic format in which we could work and yet we haven't really shaped another one maybe we we can't but it is important it seems to me to take notice of expanding nuclear protests a patient expanding countries that have the ability and will continue to have the ability and while much has been made of what north korea is doing in many ways probably just to get the world's attention we could also construct a scenario

that would say that development was a very small development they could be put also on the head of a missile test the fact it wasn't large or even was thought of maybe being dynamite at first shouldn't really distract us from saying what i think could be if possible fan a nuclear policy that would provide some constraints would provide access to the iaea and iaea with the credibility that i think it deserves to monitor what's taking place and weapons of mass destruction course the middle east and that's where we are focused today and will be focused it's important to help find some solutions air it's important to us it's important to the country in the region and it won't be easy i think it can be done but it will take a lot of

our efforts to provide some healing support as well i mean being able to bring people together so the plate is full and i feel for those who are in leadership capacity because he is a full plate and today as jim pointed out i am really distressed by our campaign in soundbites which don't give us an opportunity to reflect on the broader scope of the issues involved i would wish as we think about reading and libraries that is so important for all of us are to be able to say you know history as we shape our own views to be unwell i had ten you know anything about africa and i made the mistake of telling the south african president that when i first took office and received an hour lecture and the next time i

saw him of course he was very opposed to use supporting apartheid and the structure of the next hour i saw it in south africa i said i'm going to talk first for just a few minutes or otherwise i won't be able to say anything that i didn't know and i don't know that i know now but i do know it's important to read history it's important to read particularly i think to the history of the middle east and there is a book i read that i thought was interesting without being too long and deep like the great game is is very long length people think it's dust a vampire by my hair and i think as we go back to the divisions in the middle east that have occurred through the wars way back and then even recently and more recently built world war won a world war two we see if we could only realize how difficult it is for someone to come in and try and

impose a way of life that isn't there isn't there for them at that time and it may be there but we need i think to better understand what might be a role for us or un and other countries if we sat on of course it isn't as much as we have in the middle east or what i do believe that history of course it's just because it's been an interest i've always hair will repeat itself if we don't take something from the past it's a new time in a new era in a new age were so instantly were so instantly drawn together today that we hear about what's happening to the world immediately and it's hard for is to sort through a tragedy here in a tragedy there where do we focus our interest what can we do should we do anything there those today that say protect our borders

build a wall and by golly we're going to have free trade agreements either i don't think we can be self sufficient like that in today's world we need allies we need to understand what it means to bring people together and are all i think is as a leader in a leader who understands that some of the limitations of our own ability if we were to keep our country strong but also back up what we say and if we say we're going to impose sanctions on north korea ever been and board ships to see what's coming in and going out we better be prepared to do it and so it's easy sometimes to sit in a group or whether it's the security council our own cabinet meetings and decide that this is what we should do that on the other hand think through what it's like to get to the

end of the goal that we wish to achieve and that isn't an easy thing to do that's why we elect those leaders who provide that type of leadership and that's why it's important i think for us to have those who are running for office to be able to talk about the issues in the larger context of what is at stake but you know i always wonder if we could find a crowd that would sit through the lincoln douglas debate you know when they're most of the day and it did see it it isn't done and p i am just odd because i am a technologically illiterate how many people were saying working with computers they're awful they were on the stations were all full of younger and older people i realize maybe i better learn how to do email you know the time i could do email or i could be reading a book or and there's that

their recent piece that was said to me how about how a poll that was showing a public letter at not reading as much i think it was not a letter but not reading as much ambassador there was well it's a good thing we're in a new era where technology has changed and you can say ah you need to say in an email and you've got text messaging and now we have bloggers and we have all these other things and more and more i hear people say anyone who can you believe that who do you trust i go i am willing to listen to fox news or by god i am willing to listen to cnn or you can't listen to cnn they never get it right they always have their own agenda or you know recent ice or stop listening and not really you have to tune in some way to get the news and i said to somebody well into the lair news mar was really what i like to watch and they said

well it's so boring so it doesn't have to be something that grabs people's attention but on the other hand it's a serious time for us it's a very serious time and there's some dramatic changes taking place around the world i hear it i just want to go back to a legacy of learning that i think that our library offers it offers a place for young and old to gather to find books they want on the shelf it and jess so taken with what is here you've got to be proud of this state of the art library and is it what it offers to the community i think is invaluable but it must say i hope we never lose the importance of reading and the importance of having books email doesn't take the place of reading a good

book and it doesn't take a place an instant snapshot on tv because as we see the tragedies unfolding israel and lebanon palestine in africa it in dod are for we must understand the history of what went before and then try and see where we will go next probably the best thing sometimes we can say is that we're not sure but on the other hand what gives everyone confidence i think is that we all do care they were searching for the right way to find answers to difficult questions and at the end of the day we are very fortunate that we usually answers so ross but sometimes in a rough patch we have to go through but that's the good thing about being able to speak

out in this country and try and sort through the conflicting voices that are there because it only images our lives if we can use a in ways that are positive in constructing and as when you grew up in the old library this is a great example of what community efforts did to build a wonderful new wen thank you very much you think he does it for fifty seven fifteen few thousand sex at marvin auditorium at the topeka public library kassebaum baker's remarks were presentation of a doctor cotter hirshberg lecture series the recording engineer was chubby snap