Thank you Ken. It is nice to be back. For six years AID's lawyers tried to stop me from even thinking about NDI!
Ken, you were very kind, but the best thing I did for NDI was asking you to join the team. NDI is bigger and better than it was in 1993, and Ken Wollack deserves the credit. Thank you Ken for all you have done for NDI and for democrats around the world.
And thank you Madeleine Albright for returning to NDI as our chair. You did so much for NDI in the early days and, now as a world leader, you will do even more for the international democracy movement.
Madeleine can look back with satisfaction at a record of great accomplishment as UN Ambassador and Secretary of State. At the top of that list will be the work she did largely behind the scenes, to get Kofi Annan elected Secretary-General of the United Nations. She told Washington that he would make a great Secretary-General and she was right. Kofi Annan has literally saved the United Nations at a time when it is needed more than ever. That is what his Nobel Peace Prize is all about. He is simply the best ever to serve as Secretary-General.
Thank you for that Madeleine, and thank you Mr. Secretary-General for allowing us to honor you tonight.
If I were asked to define what NDI is all about, I would personify the spirit of the organization by remembering Amy Biehl. She came to us from the West coast where she had been an excellent student and a diving champion. She was young and eager to take on the most difficult of jobs. So we gave them to her. She had the energy to work all night or to party all night-whatever was needed!
She was also very idealistic. She knew she could make a difference and it showed. Amy soon become infatuated with Africa, absorbing everything she could about its history and its many cultures. She spent most of her time at NDI traveling to Southern Africa. She didn't have the most glamorous of jobs. She planned training conferences. She helped out logistics. But she made more African friends than anyone else. She was fascinated to learn about their lives, their hardships, their pleasures, and their dreams for the future.
A few years after Amy came to NDI, she asked me to recommend her for the Fulbright program. She wanted to study in South Africa. I asked her what she wanted to achieve. She said she wanted to understand better how people lived under oppressive circumstances. She wanted to help empower women and save the young people of South Africa from a life without hope.
She reminded me of an evening we spent talking to the African participants in a parliamentary training program in Windhoek, Namibia. We were celebrating the successful conclusion of the workshop at a party on the roof of the Kalahari hotel. Amy spent most of the evening talking to the African National Congress representatives from South Africa. One of them had spent several years in a prison on Robben Island. Amy was impressed that this victim of apartheid could be so willing to forgive his oppressors. He wanted to vote, she said, but he didn't want to exclude the people who had excluded him. He wanted to see South Africa become a full-fledged democracy. This experience left a deep impression on Amy; she wanted to sign up for the cause.
Today, when I hear our terrorist detractors describe Americans as selfish and materialistic, I think of Amy Biehl. There are so many more young people like her out there in our country. I have seen them in my classes. They are just waiting for someone to ask them to sacrifice something for the greater good. They want to serve their country.
Amy Biehl died committing an act of generosity. She was giving a ride home to black schoolmates. This generous act was a reflection of her character, of her life.
Perhaps in these memories, we can begin to understand how Amy's life and her loss could transform the lives of her parents. Peter and Linda Biehl, our honorees tonight. Their story has captivated people all over the world. It is an extraordinary story.
The Biehls first tried hard to understand what could motivate people to kill their daughter in an act of senseless rage. They attended the trial of Amy's murderers. She was a symbol of white oppression, the killers said. They thought she was South African.
Unlike so many families of murder victims, Peter and Linda were not seeking revenge; they were trying to understand why. When they felt they understood how devastating the system of apartheid was to the human spirit, they tried to imagine what Amy would do, what Amy would want. They visited the families of the murderers. Then they visited the young men themselves in prison. Then they told the world that Amy would want to forgive time and that they would do the same. Later, they petitioned for amnesty. They asked that Amy's killers be freed.
This generous act represented a powerful message for the people of South Africa. Along with Nelson Mandela's own appeal for forgiveness and his vision of a multi-racial democracy, this message became the clarion call for reconciliation and a new beginning.
Peter and Linda did not stop there. They created a Foundation in Amy's name to continue her work. Today, this Foundation touches the lives of thousands of South Africans, teaching job skills, empowering women, offering dignity and hope to young people in the same townships where Amy worked and where she died.
I had the pleasure of introducing Peter and Linda to the President of the United States during President Clinton's historic state visit to South Africa. Earlier that day, the President was thanked for the contribution made by Americans in the struggle against apartheid. The speaker, introducing the President to the parliament, thanked Amy Biehl and he thanked NDI and USAID as well. That was a very proud moment.
Peter and Linda, Amy always enjoyed the Annual Harriman Award Dinner. She and others at NDI knew that this was our chance to honor the real heroes of the democratic revolution, people who had made real sacrifices and taken courageous positions to promote human rights and democracy. I remember how excited she was the year we honored the democratic opposition of Chile. By the way, she was also thrilled that movie star Christopher Reeves came to the event. Oh well, she wasn't serious all the time!
If Amy is looking down tonight, and some of us know she is, she is bursting with pride that her parents are receiving the award that meant so much to her. More importantly, she is saying, "they deserve it". She is saying, "Thank you Mom and Dad for carrying on my work. You have done what I wanted to do, and you have make a difference".
Now it is my honor to present the Averell Harriman Democracy Award to Peter and Linda Biehl.
Peter & Linda Biehl receive the 2001 Harriman Award
from Brian Atwood (center)
