Pelosi Remarks Before Meeting with President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Chris Smith, a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, held a brief press availability this evening with President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania prior to their meeting in the Capitol.  Below are their remarks:

Speaker Pelosi.  Good afternoon. It is a great honor to welcome the President of Tanzania to the Capitol of the United States.  He has many friends and fans here because of his leadership -- on education, on growing the economy of Tanzania and his leadership on the issue relating to HIV/AIDS, as well as on the issue of climate change and the environment.  We have a close friendship between the United States and Tanzania.

We also have shared grief in the attack on our embassy there, and we have a friendship to work together to fight terrorism as we go into the future.  And so we have a great deal to discuss.

On a personal level, Mr. President, I have been for many years -- a supporter of the efforts of the Leakey family and the foundation of the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and Jane Goodall in Gombe Stream.  I know they are admirers of yours, and so have followed what is happening in Tanzania over the years, even when it was Tanganyika.

And again, we are watching what is happening on Mount Kilimanjaro in terms of the melting of the snow and what that means for climate change.  So we have many intellectual, political, national security, environmental -- all kinds of issues that bind us together.

And so in that spirit of how we can work together in closer way, I am pleased to welcome the President of the Capitol.  I am also pleased to be joined in doing that by Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey and he has his own remarks to make in welcoming the President.

Congressman Chris Smith.  Madam Speaker, thank you.  Mr. President, on behalf of my colleagues in Congress, joining with Speaker Pelosi, I want to welcome you to the Capitol and say that to have a friend who has done such tremendously good work in the area of AIDS reduction, the PEPFAR Program as many of you may know -- we have spent about $1 billion in your country and you have had tremendous success working with partners in mitigating that horrific pandemic.

I am the congressional delegate to the UN this year, Mr. President, and I had to get back to Washington on Thursday, but I read your speech and I think you made so many important points about the drought, about unemployment in Africa, the importance of a green revolution for Africa.  And as the Speaker said, the environmental issues are at the top of our agenda as well.  So I want to thank you for your good work.

And finally, back in the late ‘90s, I chaired all of the hearing on the terrible mayhem and death caused by Al-Qaeda when our embassy was hit, but many of your countrymen and women died in Dar Es Salaam and again, I want to extend our sympathy.  Thank you for joining all of us in the world community in this war against terror.  You have been a great and strong leader on that fight.  So thank you.

President Jakaya Kikwete.  Thank you Madam Speaker.  I have been to the United States a few times before and several times I met President Bush.  I met President Obama, but I have not had the opportunity to come and call on the Speaker.  So I found it was for me a miss.

As you said, we have excellent relations on quite the political level.  We see eye to eye on many international issues.  But on the development side, we have the possibility of working together.  We have been receiving considerable support for our development.  And through this support we have been able to make a difference in our fight against poverty and to lift ourselves from poverty to prosperity.  In support we have been getting the health sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS, many people now can live a long life because they can get therapies.  In the fight against Malaria, we have reduced by half the death of people from Malaria.

We are looking in the education sector in getting support -- education support, textbooks.  In Zanzibar now, every boy and girl has one textbook for mathematics, a textbook for science, a textbook for English.  In the past, many used to share a textbook.  We are now doing the same problem now for mainland Tanzania.  In infrastructure development, there is nothing like the MCA Program in Tanzania.  We are doing roads, bridges, doing water projects, doing electricity projects.  So I said, in terms of development, there is so much support we have been getting from the U.S.  And I thought, let me come and say thank you.

These things cannot happen without the support of Congress.  Your leadership is critical.  But again, we have been cooperating in the fight against terrorists, in the unfortunate incident, and ever since we have been working together.  And we have been receiving generous support from the U.S. government to train our security forces, to respond to attacks from terrorism or threats from terrorism.  So there are many areas where we are cooperating and working together, which I thought, let me come and express my deepest appreciation and appreciation to the people of the United States -- from the people of the United Republic of Tanzania to the people of the United States of America.

Speaker Pelosi.  Thank you, Mr. President.  Welcome.