Remarks at the Launch of World Refugee Day

(10:00 a.m. EDT)

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Joung-ah, for that kind introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to World Refugee Day, really World Refugee Week, as over the next several days, we will celebrate what we try to do around the world for those of our fellow citizens who are so needy.

I'd like to thank Gil and the National Geographic Society for the generous support they provide every year that helps to make this important event possible. And of course, I am once again pleased to be sharing the stage with the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie. This is not the first time we have done this and I’m sure it will not be the last as well.

We are so thankful that there are beautiful souls like Angelina who so selflessly turn their compassion into action and not just words. Angelina has just returned from the camps in Chad, where she met with the refugees from Sudan's Darfur region and where she heard firsthand of their terrible suffering. (Applause.)

I spent a lot of time in recent days and weeks talking to my counterparts in the international community and my colleagues in the United Nations leadership and to the leaders of the Government of Sudan, in order to put maximum pressure on them to do what they can do, not only the Government of Sudan but the international community to help the suffering people in Darfur, those that Angelina paid witness to and, by her presence, came to publicize to the world what's actually happening out there.

Today, on World Refugee Day, our thoughts turn to the hundreds of thousands of people who are still imperiled in Darfur, and to the millions of other driven, displaced people around the world, some 18 million people within this category. Today, together we renew our commitment to help them at their time of great need. Today, together, we pledge to support and to protect the world refugees as they seek a new life, a better life.

Echoing the theme of today's event, we vow to help them "feel at home" within the international family, within the international community. Together, we will work for the day when the world's refugees can return to their homes in safety. I'm sure that Angelina would agree that there's no better way to begin this important event than with a message from another beautiful soul, one who cares very deeply about the world's refugees, First Lady Laura Bush.

(Videotape is played.)

SECRETARY POWELL: America is a nation that millions of refugees have come to call home. It's a place where people of all races, religions and creeds enjoy the blessings of liberty. We are a nation of nations and we're proud to stand, as President Bush puts it, for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. The plight of refugees serves the hearts of all Americans; we who are so fortunate can hardly imagine what it must be like to flee in terror from our homes with only the clothes on our back, with what few possessions we can carry, pursued by the circling fear of torture, rape and death that could descend upon us at any moment.

We can hardly imagine being rushed from the ones we loved, wrenched and thrown out into the wilderness. We can hardly imagine the agony of day after day without food or clean water. We can hardly imagine waiting for weeks, months, and even years in uncertainty, not knowing where we'll end up, not being able to plan for the future, now knowing if we'll ever be able to feel like home again.

For millions of refugees and displaced people around the world, these horrors are a daily reality. And for them, the feeling of home must seem lost forever. And time and time again, the compassion of the international community and the dedication of the men and women of UNHCR has brought hope to the lives of millions; indeed, the UNHCR has helped millions of people return to their homes or to find new homes in freedom and safety.

The United States is proud, as you heard a moment ago, to be the UNHCR's largest contributor and to support its efforts across the globe. In Iraq, the UNHCR is helping a long-suffering people begin to feel at home after years of tyranny and violence. The United States shares this goal, which is why we are fully committed to a full transfer of sovereignty on the 30th of June, back to the Iraqi people. For the people of Iraq to truly feel at home, they must have ownership of their own country.

In Afghanistan, the UNHCR has worked together with us and our coalition partners to accomplish one of the largest repatriation operations in history. Together, we've helped more than three million refugees return to Afghanistan. UNHCR is helping the people of Afghanistan rebuild their houses, strengthen their communities and reclaim their country. Though the returned refugees of Afghanistan still face many difficult challenges, they are finally, finally starting to feel at home.

UNHCR has also restored hope to hundreds of thousands of refugees throughout Africa. People are now beginning to return to their homes in Angola, Burundi, Sierra Leone and Liberia. UNHCR is working hard to get children back in school, to deliver health care to the sick, and to help farms reclaim and replant their lands.

One needs to look no further than Darfur to remind themselves in the most vivid and painful way of the great challenges that still remain. In addition to the estimated 180,000 refugees in Eastern Chad, an estimated one million more people have been internally displaced within Darfur itself.

As Angelina can attest, the people who fled Darfur were lucky to escape with their lives: their villages and crops were burned; their water sources were destroyed; and many were the victims of rape, mutilation, and other cruelties. The United States is deeply committed to helping the people of Darfur.

As you know, President Bush hosted the G-8 summit meeting in Sea Island, Georgia, last week. The summit leaders issued a strong statement last Thursday, condemning ethnic cleansing in Darfur and holding the Government of Sudan responsible for it. And the following the day, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously for a peacekeeping mission that would help implement an eventual peace accord to end Sudan's civil war.

These were positive and welcome developments. The United States will continue to play a role within the international community to press the Government of Sudan to stop the violence and give us unrestricted access to the suffering people of Darfur. We have flown in many planeloads of supplies but the situation remains dire. Ultimately, we will work within the international community with everything we can to create the conditions that will allow the refugees and displaced people of Darfur to safety return to their homes.

My friends, today we join other nations across the globe in recommitting ourselves to easing the plight of all who will close their eyes tonight in a strange land to dream of the home that they were forced to flee. We must turn our compassion and our good wishes into action. It's up to all of us to defend the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity. It's up to all of us to help the world refugees feel at home again.

Let that be a cause. Let that be a prayer. Let us commit ourselves to that end.

Thank you very much.