ALBUQUERQUE -- President Clinton promised better connections between Indian lands and jobs, investment and opportunity elsewhere, even as he said the federal government has failed American Indians in the past.
"Though many of your ancestors gave up fighting and gave up land and water and mineral rights in exchange for peace, security, health care and education, the federal government did not live up to its end of the deal," Clinton told thousands of cheering Navajos on Monday.Surrounded by tribal leaders in an impoverished Navajo reservation town, Clinton announced more than $100 million in pledges from the computer industry for hard-luck communities nationwide. The money is part of the Clinton administration's effort to erase the "digital divide" that separates poor and prosperous Americans in their access to the Internet.
Clinton was flying to Chicago Tuesday for an afternoon speech before returning to Washington.
The president promised $1-a-month telephone service to 300,000 Indian households.
"In much of America it takes just a modest amount of money and time to get someone on the Internet," Clinton told the Navajos. "But here an astonishing 37 percent of the households are without electricity, about 70 percent without phone service, more than half without work."
The president paid tribute to Navajo "code talkers," whose intricate language proved impossible for the Japanese to crack during World War II. About a dozen elderly men who served as code talkers held flags and marched slowly past the stage before Clinton spoke.
"There are few people in America who better embody the power of communication," Clinton said.
Clinton went to Shiprock, N.M. -- named for a 1,700 foot geological monument rising from the surrounding plains -- after a morning stop in East Palo Alto, Calif. The city is a pocket of poverty in technology-rich Silicon Valley.
More than 24 percent of youngsters in East Palo Alto live in poverty and over 80 percent are eligible for the free-lunch program. Schools have just one computer for every 28 students.
During a stop at an East Palo Alto program to shepherd poor youngsters toward college, Clinton gave perhaps his most expansive reply yet to the question that hangs over each day of his dwindling term.
A young woman at College Track asked Clinton what he plans to do when he leaves office next year. Clinton will be 54, with decades of potential working life left to him.
"I'm going to build a library and public policy center in my home state. And I'm going to work on those issues that were really, really important to me as president," Clinton began.
He mentioned work to erase racial and ethnic prejudice and to speed peace in the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Africa, among other things.
"I think when a person has been president and is healthy and alert you have an obligation to give back for the rest of your life because it's a unique opportunity," Clinton said. "So that's how I'm going to spend the rest of my life: trying to be a good citizen. I'm not planning to run for office again."