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President Bush Meets with President Lugo of Paraguay
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary October 27, 2008

President Bush Meets with President Lugo of Paraguay Oval Office

˙ /news/releases/2008/10/20081027.wm.v.html ˙˙Presidential Remarks
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˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

11:55 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Bienvenidos, Se¤or Presidente, a la Casa Blanca. I am
honored you are here to visit me in the White House. We have had a
meaningful conversation -- a conversation that you would expect among
people who have a deep desire to serve their respective people.

Mr. President, I've been impressed by un corazon grande. You care deeply
about the people of your country. And I have felt that compassion.

I told the President that the United States wants to help. We want to help
with education and health care. We care deeply about people being able to
work. Our -- we believe in the social justice agenda. I believe that --
that it's important that the United States be in a position to help
influence the lives of citizens that simply want a more hopeful day. And
Mr. President, it gives me great comfort to know that you're the person
with whom we can work.

I'm impressed by the fact that you want to take a strong stand against
corruption. There's nothing more discouraging than to have the government
of a people steal their money.

And so we stand with you. It's -- you got a hard job. I understand that.
But you bring the right spirit to the job. And I so I want to -- I want to
welcome you to the White House, and thank you for your conversation.

PRESIDENT LUGO: (As translated.) First of all, thank you very much for the
invitation. It is a commitment and a joy to be able to reinforce our
historic relationship with the United States.

Many people have asked, why now? And I think that it's particularly
important to visit President Bush in his last days in the White House
because we think it's very important to impress upon the world the
importance of democratic institutions, and also because we believe that we,
as individual people, pass. We have written that our personal history is
not as important as the history of our respective peoples.

In Paraguay, I have entered politics in order to change the history of our
country. We have not come into politics in order to get into the smokeless
industry that is to steal from the people of the country. We came in as
Christians, because our Christian duty is to serve the poorest and the
neediest of our people. And today, as President of Paraguay, we're taking
on all of the challenges with the greatest serenity possible so that we can
help our people.

We are profoundly hurt in our souls by poverty, by the exodus of our young
people, by the lack of education, by people who don't have roofs over their
heads. We are profoundly moved by those people. But that pain is also
impregnated with courage and decisiveness. And we have said since the very
beginning that if there was anything that was to distinguish our
government, it would be international solidarity.

I'll never forget that when I talked to one of our agricultural people, one
of the people out in the country, a farmer who said, "What we need is
bread. We don't care if it comes from the left hand or from the right hand,
we just need somebody to give us food." And that's why we're here, because
the Paraguayans have asked us to be here as President to try to recover
Paraguay's dignity as a nation.

And I told President Bush that we have a lot of dreams, collective dreams,
but also my personal dream. And our dream is that Paraguay be known not for
its corruption, but for its transparency and for its dignity as a people
and as a country. And we believe, we're convinced, that we will be able to
achieve that.

Thank you.

PRESIDENT BUSH: SĄ. Gracias, se¤or. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

END 12:02 P.M. EDT

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