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From Nigeria, I flew to Arusha, Tanzania, to the Burundi peace talks, which Nelson Mandela had been chairingMandela wanted me to join him and several other African leaders for the closing session to exhort the leaders of Burundis numerous factions to sign the agreement and avoid another RwandaMandela gave me clear instructions: We were doing a good cop/bad cop routineI would give a positive speech urging them to do the right thing, then Mandela would demand that the parties sign on to his proposalIt worked: President Pierre Buyoya and thirteen of the nineteen warring parties signed the agreementSoon all but two of them would signAlthough it was a burdensome trip, going to the Burundi peace conference was an important way to demonstrate to Africa and the world that the United States was a peacemakerAs I said to myself before we began our Camp David talks, were either going to succeed or get caught trying On August 30, I flew to Cartagena, Colombia, with Speaker Dennis Hastert and six other House members, Senator Joe Biden and three other senators, and several cabinet membersWe all wanted to reinforce Americas commitment to President Andrs Pastranas Plan Colombia, which was intended to free his country of the narco-traffickers and terrorists who controlled about one-third of its territoryPastrana had risked his life in an attempt to make peace, going alone to meet omega geneve with the guerrillas in their lairWhen he failed, he had asked the United States to help him defeat them with Plan ColombiaWith Hasterts strong support, I had gotten more than $1 billion from Congress to do our part Cartagena is a beautiful old walled cityPastrana took us out into the streets to meet officials who were fighting the narco-traffickers and some of the people who had been affected by the violence, including the widow of a police officer slain in the line of duty, one of hundreds killed for their honesty and braveryAndrs also introduced Chelsea and me to an adorable group of young musicians who called themselves the Children of Vallenato, their home village in an area often ruled by violenceThey sang and danced for peace in traditional native dress, and that evening in the streets of Cartagena, Pastrana, Chelsea, and I danced with them At the end of the first week of September, after vetoing a bill repealing the estate tax, announcing that I would defer a decision on deploying a missile defense system to my successor, and campaigning with Hillary at the New York State Fair, I went to the United Nations for its Millennium SummitIt was the largest assembly of world leaders ever gatheredMy last UN speech was a brief but impassioned appeal for international cooperation on the issues of security, peace, and shared prosperity, in order to build a world that fendi replica spy bag operated according to simple rules: Everyone counts; everyone has a role to play; and we all do better when we help each other After the speech I walked out into the hall to sit with Madeleine Albright and Dick Holbrooke to listen to the next speaker: President Mohammed Khatami of IranIran had held several elections in recent years, for the presidency, for parliament, and for municipal officesIn every case the reformers had won between two-thirds and 70 percent of the voteThe problem was that under the Iranian constitution, a council of Islamic fundamentalists led by Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei held enormous power; they could nullify certain legislation and prohibit candidates from running for officeAnd they controlled Irans foreign intelligence operations and funded its support for terrorismWe had tried to reach out to Khatami and to promote more people-to-people contactsI had also said that the United States was wrong to support the overthrow of an elected government in Iran in the 1950sI hoped my gesture of respect would make more progress possible under the next President Kofi Annan and I hosted the traditional luncheon, and when it was over I followed my usual custom of standing by my table to shake hands with the leaders who stopped by on the way outI thought I was at the end when I shook hands with a giant Namibian official, who towered over meHe then moved on, gucci indy bag revealing a last greeter who had been invisible behind him: Fidel CastroCastro stuck out his hand and I shook it, the first President to do so in more than forty yearsHe said he didnt wish to cause me any trouble but wanted to pay his respects before I left officeI replied that I hoped that someday our nations would be reconciled After the UN meetings, OPEC announced an increase in oil production of 800,000 barrels a day, Prime Minister Vajpayee of India came to Washington for a state visit, and on September 19, the Senate followed the House in approving the bill granting normal trade relations with China, thus clearing the way for its entry into the WTOI was convinced that in time it would prove to be one of the most important foreign policy developments of my eight years Hillary had a good SeptemberShe won the primary on the twelfth and handily defeated Lazio in their debate moderated by Tim Russert in BuffaloLazio had three problems: he claimed that the still distressed economy of upstate New York had turned the corner; ran a misleading ad (for which he was called to account) that implied that Senator Moynihan was supporting him, not Hillary; and got in Hillarys face and tried to bully her into signing a pledge on campaign finance that was not credibleAll Hillary had to do was keep her composure and answer the ques-tions, which she did very wellA week later, a kelly handbag new poll showed her leading Lazio 4839 percent, with new strength among suburban women On September 16, I bid an emotional farewell to a large, predominantly African-American crowd at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner, reviewing the record, making my case for Gore and Lieberman, and asking their support for well-qualified but still unconfirmed black judgesThen I threw away the script and closed with these words: I thank you from the bottom of my heartToni Morrison once said I was the first black President this country ever hadAnd I would rather have that than a Nobel Prize, and Ill tell you whyBecause somewhere, in the deep and lost threads of my own memory, are the roots of understanding of what you have knownSomewhere, there was a deep longing to share the fate of the people who had been left out and left behind, sometimes brutalized, and too often ignored or forgotten I dont exactly know who all I have to thank for thatBut Im quite sure I dont deserve any credit for it, because whatever I did, I really felt I had no other choice I made the same points a few days later, on September 20, to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus dinner, and to the Bishops Conference of the Church of God in Christ, where I noted that there were only 120 days left in my presidency and that I would give them 120 hard days working with Congress and trying to make peace in the Middle chanel pearls