Military leaders

"Vae Victis!"

"A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability."

"Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own."

"The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty."

"Colombians! My last wish is for the happiness of the patria. If my death contributes to the end of partisanship and the consolidation of the union, I shall be lowered in peace into my grave."

"The three greatest fools of History have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote . . . and me!"

"Do not compare your material forces with those of the enemy. Spirit cannot be compared with matter. You are human beings, they are beasts. You are free, they are slaves. Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance."

"Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"

"The most grievous error committed by Venezuela in making her start on the political stage was, as none can deny, her fatal adoption of the system of tolerance—a system long condemned as weak and inadequate by every man of common sense, yet tenaciously maintained with an unparalleled blindness to the very end."

"Venezuelans! An army of brothers, sent by the Supreme Congress of New Granada, has come to liberate you, and is now amongst you after having expelled the oppressors from the provinces of Mérida and Trujillo. We have been sent to destroy the Spaniards, to protect Americans and to re-establish the republican governments which made up the Venezuelan Confederation. The states which we have liberated are once again ruled by their old constitutions and leaders, and they fully enjoy their liberty and independence. Our sole mission is to break the chains of servitude which still oppress some of our peoples. We have no intention of passing laws or exercising power, even though the laws of war might authorize us to do so."

"Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves. - Speech spoken in Caracas on 1814, January 2nd."

"We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty."

"Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. Precisely because no form of government is so weak as the democratic, its framework must be firmer, and its institutions must be studied to determine their degree of stability … unless this is done, we will have to reckon with an ungovernable, tumultuous, and anarchic society, not with a social order where happiness, peace, and justice prevail."

"Let us give to our republic a fourth power with authority over the youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, habits, and republican morality. Let us establish this Areopagus to watch over the education of the children, to supervise national education, to purify whatever may be corrupt in the republic, to denounce ingratitude, coldness in the country's service, egotism, sloth, idleness, and to pass judgment upon the first signs of corruption and pernicious example."

"The continuation of authority in the same person has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer Power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny."

"A perverted people, should it attaint its liberty, is bound to lose this very soon, because it would be useless to try to impress upon such people that happiness lies in the practice of righteousness; that the reign of law is more powerful than the reign of tyrants, who are more inflexible, and all ought to submit to the wholesome severity of the law; that good morals, and not force, are the pillars of the law and that the exercise of justice is the exercise of liberty."

"Liberty, says Rousseau, is a succulent food, but difficult to digest. Our feeble fellow citizens will have to strengthen their mind much before they will be ready to assimilate such wholesome nourishment."

"When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World."

"{{Citation"

"Unlimited freedom, absolute democracy, are reefs upon which all the republics have come to grief."

"It must never be forgotten that the excellence of a government consists, not in its theoretic perfection, but in the degree to which it is adapted to the nature and character of the people for whom it is set up."

"It is not right to leave everything to the chances and hazards of an election. The masses are more prone to error than those who have been trained and tempered by education."

"The shouts of human-kind on the battlefield, or in the tumult of assemblies are protests to heaven against inconsistent legislators who have thought it possible to experiment with chimerical constitutions without suffering the consequences"

"Absolute democratic government is as much a tyranny as despotism."

"The most accomplished nation in the world, ancient or modern, was unable to resist the violence of the storms inherent in pure theories. If a European country like France, ever sovereign and independent, was not able to support the burden of unrestricted liberty, how can anyone expect Colombia to realize the delirious hallucinations of Robespierre and Marat. Could anyone even dream of such a piece of political moonshine? Legislators, see to it that the inexorable verdict of posterity does not liken you to the monsters of France!"

"We form a small human race, a world apart, surrounded by vast seas, new in the arts and sciences, though in some ways old in the customs of civil society. Our case is the most extraordinary and complex. We are neither Indians nor Europeans, but a species somewhere between the natives and the Spaniards. It is impossible to designate the human family to which we belong. Our people are rather a composite of Africa and America, which is an emancipation from Europe, since even the Spanish peninsula itself ceases to be European, due to its Moorish blood, its institutions, and its character."

"There will be a metamorphosis in the physical life of the inhabitants of America, in which a new caste will be produced, with a mixture of all races, creating the homogeneity of the people"

"To-day we are beginning to realise that the Colombian dictator was above all things a positivist, a realist. He wrote some trenchant things about codes "drawn up by gentle visionaries who, dreaming of republics away up in the clouds, have sought to attain to political perfection by taking it for granted that human nature is indefinitely perfectible". Despite his republican utterances, he was an uncompromising opponent of democracy, which he defined as "a state of things so incapable of resistance that the slightest difficulty is enough to throw it into confusion and bring it to naught"."

"And so Bolivar, being a realist in politics, was always moved to indignation when he saw the States of South America adopting cut and dried constitutions, based on abstract theory, and not created expressly to suit them. What he would have liked to see put into practice was what Latin-American writers have called the Bolivarian theory, that is to say the principle of "sociocratic heredity" on the Comtean or pre-Comtean pattern. He would have desired, taking his cue no doubt from the example of the Antonines at Rome, that, at the head of each of the Republics he had created, there should be a Life-President, who should appoint his own successor. In this manner he thought to combine absolutism and continuity, the apanage of hereditary monarchies, while discarding the hereditary principle."

"Both San Martín‬ and Bolívar have been accused by their enemies of plotting to make themselves kings, but most scholars agree today that there is no basis for either accusation. Bolívar, with his sense of drama, felt that to make himself monarch would mean a refutation of his entire past career. Such an attempt would render him ridiculous at the bar of history, and although he intended to keep political control in his hands, it was the control exercised by the power of a political chief, a kind of super-boss."

"Bolívar, the hero who brought glory to the nation. Bolívar, the military and political genius, the Liberator, the Father of His Country. Today, the main square of almost every city and town in Venezuela is named Plaza Bolívar. And each one has a statue of the Liberator. Some show him standing, some on horseback. In the city named for him, Bolívar City, which is the capital of Bolívar state, there is of course a Plaza Bolívar, with a Bolívar statue: on a high marble pedestal the Liberator appears in the guise of a Roman emperor or senator, his cape wrapped around him to look like a toga, a sword in his right hand, a law scroll in his left. All this fed what became a state religion: Bolívar as civic god. Venezuelan historians refer to it as Bolívar worship."

"In his eventful forty-seven years Bolívar said enough, wrote enough, gave enough speeches, corresponded widely enough, and changed his thinking often enough, that today you can find material in the vast Bolivarian catalog to support virtually any ideology, position, or cause. Bolívar ruled as a dictator—so Venezuelan dictators held him up as an example of how the country needed to be ruled by a firm hand. Bolívar said that elections were essential—so democrats embraced him. Bolívar warned that elections would lead to anarchy—so conservatives revered him. Outside Venezuela, both Mussolini and Franco saw Bolívar as a fascist precursor. Marx called him “the dastardly, most miserable, and meanest of blackguards.” Cuban communists honored him. Chávez hailed Bolívar as a socialist. Chávez once ordered Bolívar’s remains, entombed in the National Pantheon in Caracas, to be exhumed. He then commissioned a computer-generated portrait of the Liberator, based on digital projections from the great man’s skull. It looked a lot like the portraits of Bolívar painted by his contemporaries, but Chávez said that for the first time, modern Venezuelans were seeing Bolívar’s “true face.” This was a quaint notion. The true face of Bolívar is what you want it to be. He was a democrat. He was an autocrat. He was an egalitarian. He was an elitist. He was an abolitionist. He was a slaveholder. He was a cruel tyrant. He was a tolerant humanist. In fact, he was all those things at one time or another."

"In school, we may have learned that Simón Bolívar proposed expansion into northeastern Colombia in his quest for regional unification. What we may not have learned is that he blithely suggested that “the savages who live there would be civilized and our possessions increased,” using what we call today explicitly settler colonial terms, Indigenous peoples there perceived Colombian intruders as “Spanish” throughout the 19th century, and the return of Catholic missions at the end of the century followed the logic of state-sponsored religious “Hispanicization.”"

"O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."

"Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives."

"In the space of seven years I have succeeded in accomplishing a great work and uniting the whole world in one Empire."

"If one must drink, then let one drink thrice a month, for more is bad. If one gets drunk twice a month, it is better; if one gets drunk once a month, that is better still; and if one doesn't drink at all, that is the best of all."

"My children, I am nearing the end of my life. With the help of Tengri, I leave you such an empire that it is a year's walking distance from its center to its tip. If you want to preserve it, stay united, act together against your enemies, agree to increase the wealth of those who are loyal to you. One of you must sit on the throne. Ögedei will be my successor. Respect this choice after my death."

"Our sons and grandchildren will wear silk clothes, eat delicious and fatty food, ride excellent war horses, hold the most beautiful women and the most charming young girls in their arms, and they will not remember that all of this happened thanks to us."

"God is everywhere, and you can find him everywhere."

"The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms."

"[What, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness?]"

"[Militarily] ... he was the equal of Alexander the Great or Napoleon I."

"Genghis Khan is infamous as a merciless and bloodthirsty conqueror - outside Mongolia, where he is a national hero. One of the greatest organizers in history, he forged mutually hostile and disunited tribes into a Mongolian nation that extended its power over an unprecedentedly vast Empire. He patronized learning and founded dynasties that dominated Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Near East for centuries after his death. Although he slaughtered huge numbers of his enemies, he brought peace to lands he ruled and prosperity to his homeland."

"The one name which Muslims hate and fear most is that of Chengiz Khan. He is a spectre which has haunted Muslim historians for centuries. He swept like a tornado over the then most powerful and extensive Islamic empire of Khwarazm. In a short span of five years (1219-1224 CE), he slaughtered millions of Muslims, forced many others including women and children into slavery, and razed to the ground quite a few of the most populous and prosperous cities of the Muslim world at that time. [...] The logic which declares Tengiri to be a satan and denounces Chengiz Khan as an archcriminal but which, in the same breath, proclaims Allah as divine and hails the Ghaznavis, Ghuris, Timurs and Baburs as heroes, is, to the say the least, worse than casuistry..."

"Possessed of great energy, discernment, genius and understanding."

"Thuswise Chingiz Khan made a nation out of dust."

"Although time was running out for horse-borne warriors, they remained formidable in the right circumstances. In the thirteenth century Genghis Khan welded quarrelling Mongol tribes together into a highly centralised state which proved, for a time, to be an unstoppable military force, sweeping away regimes in China and Persia. Mongol warriors were highly mobile and, when they were challenged by forces from more settled empires, withdrew into the vast spaces of Central Asia. One of the secrets of their success may have been another simple piece of technology like the stirrup. Mongol warriors wore silk undershirts, so that if they were hit by an arrow the silk wrapped around its head. It was not only easier to get the arrow out; the risk of infection, until the modern age a greater killer of soldiers than death in battle, was much less. Under Genghis’s successors his warriors stormed westwards through Central Asia and Russia to the shores of the Black Sea, carrying all before them and leaving a trail of death and ruin. No force could stand against them and by 1241 they were probing into Hungary, Poland and present-day Romania and Austria. It looked as though much of what was a weak and divided Europe would become part of their empire – and think what a different history it would have had – when the Mongols suddenly stopped and withdrew in 1242. It may be because word had come that, thousands of miles to the east, the Great Khan had died, but historians have recently speculated that poor weather had turned the ground marshy and ruined the fodder for the Mongol horses."

"All the nation has been saddened by the extent to which the country has fallen during the last week. I have therefore, with much reluctance, assumed executive authority."

"If we don't put our foot down, they will release every man and his dog."

"If we don't act, this country is going to go to the dogs and no investor will want to come here."

"You have to give it (the tiger) room. If you don't give it room, it will bite you."

"I don't have to be nice to people who are causing great damage to the nation … I refuse to be nice to people who want to overthrow what the military and the security forces have been doing to maintain law and order in this country in the past five years since the illegal overthrow of the Labour Government … I refuse to be nice to people like Jioji Kotobalavu and Qoriniasi Bale. I don't have to be nice to anyone trying to destabilise what the army has built."

"When we wrong God, he does not let us go, he makes us pay for our wrongs but through the death of his own son Jesus Christ. When God's people (Jews) wronged him, he weakened them in battle and caused them to be captives in Babylon for 70 years."

"Let's do right in the eyes of God!"

"Coups will be taken lightly if we condone this Bill, without justice there is no peace. If you honourable chiefs agree that those involved in the coup be forgiven, it will prove that we support the wrong and will be at odds with the integrity of God."

""Our Fiji today is a new Fiji where individual freedom is protected and not a Fiji solely for Fijians. Wise decisions from this august house will promote multiracial harmony and true friendship."

"This Bill is not about crime committed within one group of people but involves many races living in Fiji. Therefore we can not apply one law onto another. We need to protect the whole population; the different faiths; cultures and traditions."

"The Bill will legitimise the 2000 coup and will weaken the law and order agencies. All the good work of rebuilding Fiji to what it is today will be undone. The freeing of anyone (even if their crimes are politically-motivated) will show to the world that we are a nation that condones law breakers. It also means that we support terrorists as the Police Commissioner has commented."

"Why should only a few people be freed and not others when we are all serving under the same law?"

"The military stand is that reconciliation is only possible after justice is served."

"Who's promoting the Bill? These are people in the current Government who participated in the 2000 coup. Some have been convicted, others are facing trial, there are still others left whom the long arm of the law should get at."

"Following the 2000 coup, this august house did not agree to forgive the perpetrators but you decided that justice will take its course. You are confronted with a similar decision now. The military humbly requests that you display the same wisdom then to protect our land now."

"Remember the words of the Bible in Amos 5:24, 'Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-falling stream'."

"Those threats they (Apisai Tora and Tomasi Vakatora) came up with should be condemned. He (Tora) has come up with the same threats that politicians like him throw up before elections. That if any other party especially Labour wins, there will be instability … These people are forcing the population to vote out of fear. These types of talks have to be condemned now."

"This confirms the RFMF view that the Bill has nothing to do with Reconciliation and everything to do with the selfish agenda that George Speight brought into Parliament in 2000 to gather support and ensure his leadership. We better stop lying to ourselves, we better stop these people lying to us."

"As long as this bill hangs over our heads there is no credibility in what people in leadership do."

"The passing of the bill will be a continuation of all the events of 2000."

"I told Mr Downer that I was disappointed with his comments and said that we should stay out of politics. I told him his country has not experienced a coup to feel what the military went through here. He can't compare the situation there to this side."

"We were never involved in politics. It was the political party that pushed their agenda, the Bill, forward and we only reacted to the consequences the Bill would bring."

"We are not interfering with any political agenda or plan. We are only doing our job and that is on the grounds of security."

"This is where we are coming from. The Bill is a continuation of the 2000 coup and it is the consequences of the Bill that we are looking at."

"We are not going to take this Bill for granted. We asked them (the Daily Post reporters) to leave the room because they are for the Bill. And if they are for the Bill, this means they are anti-RFMF."

""We will maintain our stand despite criticisms." (on being told by Downer that the international community would not be happy about the Military's intervention in the political arena)."

"I don’t think they should be discussing the Bill. It represents the lies of those that took the people into Parliament. The same opportunists are using the GCC to push the Bill through."

"There are two things that need to be taken away. First the lies and this government which needs to follow the law and imprison those implicated in the coup. The chiefs are being used just like those that have been made to believe that there is $6million in the bank for them. This Bill was pushed by the SDL party, the very same people that supported what happened in 2000 and there are opportunists seating in the council looking to mislead the council."

"Colonel Ioane Naivalurua, Land Force Commander but now illegal Commissioner of Prison: "Courageous, strong and … a saviour of Fiji in this time of need". (23 June 2005)."

"Senator Adi Koila Nailatikau and now interim military government minister: "The commander is doing a wonderful job because he is not only speaking in his personal capacity as Commander. He is speaking as the Commander of the Fiji battalion in Fiji and those serving overseas, and he has the support of the silent majority." (24 July 2005, referring to Bainimarama's opposition to the Reconciliation and Unity Bill (q.v)."

"Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer: "I do not see the Military Commander of Fiji as a political player in all this. Let me make this very clear: it is not the job of a military commander to play politics; it is the job of the military commander to command troops and the Government is to decide where those troops get deployed, whether to Iraq or RAMSI. It is not the role of the commander to play domestic politics." (29 September 2005, on Bainimarama's opposition to the Reconciliation and Unity Bill (q.v)."

"Senator James Ah Koy: "I think he is doing a good job and I really support him for his strong words against Mr Downer." (1 October 2005)"

"Josaia Waqabaca: "Commander Bainimarama is clean and fighting for the truth. The stand he is taking is going to save the Fijian race. Today, in the streets ordinary Fijians are talking about the truth and cleanliness, which is hard to find in this government." (11 January 2006; quoted in Fiji Sun)."

"Maciu Navakasuasua: "Commander Bainimarama holds the key in putting this country on the rightful path." (11 January 2006; quoted in Fiji Sun)."

"Ropate Sivo, General Secretary of the Conservative Alliance: "I ask Frank to remain where he is and not to interfere in politics. He should not think that he will always be commander because there are other capable people that can do the job. He is only hungry for power and just because he helped bring the present people into power as an interim government, that does not give him the right to threaten the present government." (Quoted in the Fiji Sun, 9 March 2006.)."

"Saula Telawa, President of the New Nationalist Party: "He (Bainimarama) needs to place more faith in God, only God has the answer, we cannot keep bringing up the past. In making decisions about the people, we need to have faith. What has been done should be forgotten as always dwelling on it will not bring about anything good. He is only making things and the future difficult." (Quoted in the Fiji Sun, 9 March 2006.)."

"I have come not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome."

"Ah there is one thing about them more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo."

"nullum contemptu m[ortis incitamentum] ad uincendum homini ab dis immortalibus acrius datum est."

"Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)"

"I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honour and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour."

"When, among other things, he asked Hannibal who he thought had been the greatest general, Hannibal replied Alexander, king of the Macedonians, because with a small number of men he had routed innumerable armies and because he had traveled to the farthest shores, visiting which lay beyond human expectations. When Scipio next asked him whom he placed second he said Pyrrhus: he was the man who had first shown how to lay out a camp, and in addition no one had shown such skill in choosing locations and stationing troops. To the further question of whom he declared third Hannibal replied himself. With a smile, Scipio said: "And what would you say if you had defeated me?" "Well, then, in that case," he replied, "I would have placed myself ahead of Alexander, Pyrrhus, and all the others.""

"Hannibal excelled as a tactician. No battle in history is a finer sample of tactics than Cannae. But he was yet greater in logistics and strategy. No captain ever marched to and fro among so many armies of troops superior to his own numbers and material as fearlessly and skillfully as he. No man ever held his own so long or so ably against such odds. Constantly overmatched by better soldiers, led by generals always respectable, often of great ability, he yet defied all their efforts to drive him from Italy, for half a generation. … As a soldier, in the countenance he presented to the stoutest of foes and in the constancy he exhibited under the bitterest adversity, Hannibal stands alone and unequaled. As a man, no character in history exhibits a purer life or nobler patriotism."

"As to the transcendent military genius of Hannibal there cannot be two opinions. The man who for fifteen years could hold his ground in a hostile country against several powerful armies and a succession of able generals must have been a commander and a tactician of supreme capacity. In the use of strategies and ambuscades he certainly surpassed all other generals of antiquity. Wonderful as his achievements were, we must marvel the more when we take into account the grudging support he received from Carthage. As his veterans melted away, he had to organize fresh levies on the spot. We never hear of a mutiny in his army, composed though it was of North Africans, Iberians and Gauls. Again, all we know of him comes for the most part from hostile sources. The Romans feared and hated him so much that they could not do him justice. Livy speaks of his great qualities, but he adds that his vices were equally great, among which he singles out his more than Punic perfidy and an inhuman cruelty. For the first there would seem to be no further justification than that he was consummately skillful in the use of ambuscades. For the latter there is, we believe, no more ground than that at certain crises he acted in the general spirit of ancient warfare. Sometimes he contrasts most favorably with his enemy. No such brutality stains his name as that perpetrated by Claudius Nero on the vanquished Hasdrubal. Polybius merely says that he was accused of cruelty by the Romans and of avarice by the Carthaginians. He had indeed bitter enemies, and his life was one continuous struggle against destiny. For steadfastness of purpose, for organizing capacity and a mastery of military science he has perhaps never had an equal."

"Of a truth the gods do not give the same man everything: you know how to gain a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to make use of it."

"With the examples of the Greek defeats of the Persians or the Battle of Cannae in the Punic Wars in mind, much but not all of Western strategy over the centuries has revolved around the search for the decisive military victory which will oblige the enemy to surrender. Cannae when Hannibal defeated the Romans is a favourite example – but it is easy to misread its significance. Yes, Hannibal won the battle in a dazzling encircling manoeuvre, but Carthage lost the war because in the end Rome outlasted it. And the price Carthage paid was heavy indeed: the Romans levelled its cities and sowed its fields with salt."

"Among the Carthaginians he [Hannibal] was notorious for his love of money and among the Romans for his cruelty."

"Had Hannibal had a government behind him that knew how to exploit victories – had he been born a Roman, for instance – he might have conquered the world."

"We are seeking our own authenticity, and we will find it because we wish, in the innermost fibers of our being to discover it."

"Zaire is the country that has been the most heavily exploited in the world. That is why farms, ranches, plantations, concessions, commerce, and real estate agencies will be turned over to sons of the country."

"In a word, everything is for sale, anything can be bought in our country. And in this flow, he who holds the slightest cover of public authority uses it illegally to acquire money, goods, prestige or to avoid obligations. The right to be recognized by a public servant, to have one's children enrolled in school, to obtain medical care, etc. ...are all subject to this tax which, though invisible, is known and expected by all."

"If you want to steal, steal a little in a nice way. But if you steal too much to become rich overnight, you'll be caught."

"Democracy is not for Africa. There was only one African chief and here in Zaire we must make unity."

"We in Zaire spent a lot of time building a strong central state which could resist Soviet aggression quickly and effectively. This enabled us to decisively make the uniform decisions that were necessary to fulfill our national defense obligations and our commitments to the United States."

"I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing."

"It takes two to corrupt – the corrupted and the corrupter."

"When Congo became independent in 1960, the same pattern of economic institutions, incentives, and performance reproduced itself. These Congolese extractive economic institutions were again supported by highly extractive political institutions. The situation was worsened because European colonialism created a polity, Congo, made up of many different precolonial states and societies that the national state, run from Kinshasa, had little control over. Though President Mobutu used the state to enrich himself and his cronies— for example, through the Zairianization program of 1973, which involved the mass expropriation of foreign economic interests—he presided over a noncentralized state with little authority over much of the country, and had to appeal to foreign assistance to stop the provinces of Katanga and Kasai from seceding in the 1960s. This lack of political centralization, almost to the point of total collapse of the state, is a feature that Congo shares with much of sub-Saharan Africa."

"Col. Joseph MOBUTU seized power and declared himself president in a November 1965 coup. He subsequently changed his name - to MOBUTU Sese Seko - as well as that of the country - to Zaire. MOBUTU retained his position for 32 years through several sham elections, as well as through brutal force. Ethnic strife and civil war, touched off by a massive inflow of refugees in 1994 from fighting in Rwanda and Burundi, led in May 1997 to the toppling of the MOBUTU regime by a rebellion backed by Rwanda and Uganda and fronted by Laurent KABILA."

"Mobutu rose from poverty and obscurity to rule a vast country. Profiting from the Cold War, he remained in power for more than 30 years, draining the wealth of the Congo to maintain himself and his cronies. He gave a new meaning to kleptocracy but declined rapidly after he was no longer useful to his foreign backers. His activities converted an enormously rich country into a failed poverty-stricken state."

"His private palace, seven miles outside town in Kawele, brimmed with paintings, sculptures, stained glass, ersatz Louis XIV furniture, marble from Carrara in Italy and two swimming pools surrounded by loudspeakers playing his beloved Gregorian chants or classical music. It hosted countless gaudy nights with Taittinger champagne, salmon and other food served on moving conveyer belts by Congolese and European chefs."

"President Mobutu was a positive dictator, not a negative one. He knew what methods to use to preserve unity, security and peace for his people. You could feel at home anywhere in the Congo under Mobutu’s regime. There is no freedom without security. He understood what the people needed at the time."

"With Mobutu we had a state, but he was a dictator. Today we don’t have a state – it’s a jungle."

"Mobutu is a man, he is gone, but all these things should remain state property. The mistake of this country is they have destroyed and looted everything. They were doing that to rub out Mobutu’s memory, but the history should be preserved. The history might be positive or negative but it remains our history and we should pass it from one generation to another."

"President Mobutu watched from his mansion, the marbled Versailles of the Jungle that he built in the sleepy village of his birth, eating lobster and sausages, washed back with a vintage wine."

"Joseph Desire Mobutu, supported by Belgium and the CIA, seized power in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1965. Mobutu was a Cold War darling of the Western powers and ultimately received more than $1.5 billion in U.S. military and economic aid. He was a colorful character who changed his name in 1972 to Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu Wa Za Benga: "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to rule, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake." Mobutu was also a vicious murderer who stole the profits from the sale of his nation's resources. He lasted in power for thirty-two years until rebel Congolese forces, supported by armies from Rwanda, Uganda, and elsewhere, drove him into exile. Almost ten years after Mobutu's downfall, the DRC is a divided country where civilians are killed by various armies and militia on a regular basis."

"We have had a part in the fact that the Belgians have always let Mobutu do its thing in their own interest."

"They defend Sarajevo."

"They are very dangerous, but we exterminate them like rats."

"I know how to say Allah, and that's it. I'm a citizen of Sarajevo and a Bosnian and full stop."

"He had a notebook: he'd take it, list through it and sing every song one by one over the radio. The chetniks would sing him Ceca and Vesna Zmijanac, and he would sing for them Zaim Imamović and Safet Isović."

"A leader isn't made, he is born. And Juka was a leader: he was able to lead the masses, he had that chemistry. People loved him, stood by him, there is no need to lie: everybody gathered around him."

"Sarajevo, city of mine /the hero Juka is your son."

"He delighted in the role of a hero, he loved Sarajevo and he loved money."

"I want Britain to become an Islamic state. I want to see the flag of Islam raised in 10 Downing Street."

"First of all, Al-Qaeda is a phenomenon...If it is an organization only, I have no link to the organization whatsoever, nor to Sheikh Osama bin Laden, nor to anybody in Al-Qaeda. It is the phenomenon of Al-Qaeda – what they believe, and what their own path is, what their own methods are. I believe Al-Qaeda... Every Muslim around the world shares many things with them. They pray toward the Ka'ba – we pray toward the Ka'ba. They pray five times a day – we pray five times a day. They are Muslims – we are Muslims. They fight against occupiers – we fight against occupiers. So we share with them all these Islamic values. But we don't share with them the structures, activities, and actions. Therefore, if you speak about Al-Qaeda as an organization with a particular dogma, a particular thought and method – definitely, I do not have a relationship with Al-Qaeda. Otherwise I do not think I would be at this table."

"Jihad is a religious means to a religious goal - to elevate the word of Allah. This is what Jihad for the sake of Allah, in the sense of fighting, means, although we accept that there is another meaning to Jihad....we have two kinds of terrorism - commendable terrorism and reprehensible terrorism. Reprehensible terrorism is an attack on women, children, the peaceful, and the innocent....[Quran says,] "Do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except when required by justice." In other words, a Muslim carry out certain religious duties, so when he attacks the enemy attacked on its own land, some innocent people might consequently die, but they are not killed intentionally."

"Caraf trachas Lloegyr, lleudir goglet hediw, ac yn amgant y Lliw lliwas callet. Caraf am rotes rybuched met, myn y dyhaet my meith gwyrysset. Carafy theilu ae thew anhet yndi ac wrth uot y ri rwyfaw dyhet."

"Keueisy vun dunn diwyrnawd; keueisy dwy, handid mwy eu molawd; keueisy deir a pheddir a phawd; keueisy bymp o rei gwymp eu gwyngnawd; keueisy chwech heb odech pechawd; gwen glaer uch gwengaer yt ym daerhawd; keueisy sseith ac ef gweith gordygnawd; keueisy wyth yn hal pwyth peth or wawd yr geint; ys da deint rac tauaed."

"Karafy gaer wennglaer o du gwennylan; myn yd gar gwyldec gweled gwylan yd garwny uyned, kenym cared yn rwy. Ry eitun ouwy y ar veingann y edrtch uy chwaer chwerthin egwan, y adrawt caru, can doeth yn rann."

"Seithwyr y buam, dinam, – digythrudd, Digyfludd eu cyflam, Seithwyr ffyrf ffo ddiadlam, Saith gynt ni gymerynt gam. Can eddyw Hywel, hwyl ddi-oddef – cad (Cydfuam gyd ag ef), Handym oll goll gyfaddef, Handid tegach teulu nef."

"The entire Party and country should wake up, throw into the flames and twist the neck of any one who tramples underfoot the sacred law of the Party in defense of the rights of women and girls."

"In order to continuously strengthen the defence of our country, it is necessary that we keep the military preparedness of all structures at a high level and perfect it day by day."

"Traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism and intriguers like Josif Broz Tito, try in a thousand ways, by hatching up diabolic schemes like the creation of a third force, to mislead these people and the newly-set up states [in Africa and Asia], to detach them from their natural allies, to hitch them up to U.S. imperialism. We should exert all our efforts to defeat the schemes of these lackeys of imperialism."

"Let us look facts straight in the eye. World imperialism headed by its aggressive detachment, U.S. imperialism, is directing the course of its economy towards preparations for war. It is arming itself to the teeth. U.S. imperialism is rearming Bonn's Germany, Japan, and all its allies and satellites with all kinds of weapons. It has set up and perfected aggressive military organizations, it has established and continues to establish military bases all around the socialist camp. It is accumulating stocks of nuclear weapons and refuses to disarm, to stop testing nuclear weapons, and is feverishly engaged in inventing new means of mass extermination. Why is it doing all this? To go to a wedding party? No, to go to war against us, to do away with socialism and communism, to put the peoples under bondage."

"Some one may pose the question: will China win her rights over the United States of America, by possessing and dropping the bomb? No, neither China nor the Soviet Union will ever use the bomb unless they are attacked by those who have aggression and war in their very blood. If the Soviet Union did not possess the bomb, the imperialists would speak in other terms with us. We will never attack with the bomb, we are opposed to war, we are ready to destroy the bomb but we keep it for defensive purposes. "It is fear that guards the vineyard," is a saying of our people. The imperialists should be afraid of us and terribly afraid at that."

"Rankovich wants us to turn our borders into a roadhouse with two gates through which Yugoslav, Italian and Greek agents and weapons could go in and out freely, without visas, in order to bring us their "culture of cutthroats", so that Tito may realize his dream of turning Albania into the seventh republic of Yugoslavia, so that the reactionary Italian bourgeoisie may put into action for the third time their predatory intentions towards Albania, or so that the Greek monarcho-fascists may realize their crazy dream of grabbing southern Albania. Because we have not permitted and will never permit such a thing, we are "warmongers". They know very well that if they violate our borders they will have to fight us and the whole socialist camp."

"Our only "crime" is that in Bucharest we did not agree that a fraternal communist party like the Chinese Communist Party should be unjustly condemned; our only "crime" is that we had the courage to oppose openly, at an international communist meeting (and not in the marketplace) the unjust action of Comrade Khrushchev, our only "crime" is that we are a small Party of a small and poor country which, according to Comrade Khrushchev, should merely applaud and approve but express no opinion of its own. But this is neither Marxist nor acceptable. Marxism-Leninism has granted us the right to have our say and we will not give up this right for any one, neither on account of political and economic pressure nor on account of the threats and epithets that they might hurl at us. On this occasion we would like to ask Comrade Khrushchev why he did not make such a statement to us instead of to a representative of a third party. Or does Comrade Khrushchev think that the Party of Labor of Albania has no views of its own but has made common cause with the Communist Party of China in an unprincipled manner, and therefore, on matters pertaining to our Party, one can talk with the Chinese comrades? No, Comrade Khrushchev, you continue to blunder and hold very wrong opinions about our Party. The Party of Labor of Albania has its own views and will answer for them both to its own people as well as to the international communist and workers' movement."

"The Soviet leaders accused Comrade Stalin of allegedly interfering in other parties, of imposing the views of the Bolshevik Party upon others. We can bear witness to the fact that at no time did comrade Stalin do such a thing towards us, towards the Albanian people and the Party of Labor of Albania, he always behaved as a great Marxist, as an outstanding internationalist, as a comrade, brother and sincere friend of the Albanian people. In 1945, when our people were threatened with starvation, comrade Stalin ordered the ships loaded with grain destined for the Soviet people, who also were in dire need of food at that time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people. Whereas, the present Soviet leaders permit themselves these ugly deeds."

"The Albanian people will throw themselves in to the flames for their true friends, and the Soviet Union is such a friend of the Albanian people. And these are not empty words. I am expressing here the sentiments of our people and of our Party, and let no one ever think that we love the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the sake of some one's beautiful eyes or to please some individual, but because without the Soviet Union there would be no free life in the world today, fascism and capitalist terror would reign supreme. This is why we love and will always be loyal to the Soviet Union and to the Party of the great Lenin."

"The Yugoslavs accuse us of allegedly being chauvinists, of interfering in their internal affairs, and of demanding a rectification of the Albanian -Yugoslav borders. A number of our friends think and imply that we Albanian communists swim in such waters. We tell our friends who think thus that they are grossly mistaken. We are not chauvinists, we have neither demanded nor demand rectification of boundaries. But what we demand and will continually demand from the Titoites, and we will expose them to the end for this, is that they give up perpetrating the crime of genocide against the Albanian minority in Kosova and Metohia, that they give up the white terror against the Albanians of Kosova, that they give up driving the Albanians from their native soil and deporting them 'en masse' to Turkey. We demand that the rights of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia should be recognized according to the Constitution of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Is this chauvinist or Marxist?"

"Did Stalin make mistakes? Of course he did. In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, it is inevitable not only for Joseph Stalin personally but also for the leadership as a collective body to make mistakes. Which is the party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the existing leadership of the Soviet Union is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead and let bygones be bygones, they tell us to avoid polemics, but when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead but they turned right round, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak spots in Stalin's work."

"The cult of the individual of Stalin should, of course be overcome. But can it be said, as it has been claimed, that Stalin himself was the sponsor of this cult of the individual? The cult of the individual should be overthrown without fail, but was it necessary and was it right to go to such lengths as to point the finger at any one who mentioned Stalin's name, to look askance at any one who used a quotation from Stalin with great speed and zeal? Certain persons smashed statues raised to Stalin and changed the names of cities that had been named after him. But why go any further?"

"The world socialist system, which includes in its fold over 1 billion people with a big economic and military potential continually growing at unprecedented rates, has become today the decisive factor in the development of the world history. It exerts a tremendous influence on the world; it has become a great attractive and revolutionizing force. The world socialist system is showing with every passing day its indisputable superiority over the capitalist system. It has become the shield of all the progressive forces of the world, the impregnable bulwark of freedom and peace, democracy and socialism."

"From the changes that have occurred in the world, there must be drawn correct, revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist conclusions: there must be drawn such conclusions as not to create reformist and pacifist illusions and weaken the struggle against imperialism, but to strengthen ever more this just struggle: there must be drawn such conclusions as not to alienate the peoples from the cause of revolution, but bring them ever closer to it, not divert them from the struggle for their national liberation, but raise this struggle to an ever higher level."

"We have never cherished illusions about our enemies, we have not embraced and kissed them, we have not flattered them and we have not caressed them, we have never bowed to them. Our Party and Government have always maintained a firm, principled, Marxist-Leninist stand towards the enemies of peace and socialism; they have sharply and constantly exposed the imperialists, whether U.S. or British, French or Italian, and their policy of war and aggression; they have been irreconcilable with and have energetically and unreservedly supported the just cause of the peoples who have risen in struggle against imperialism. They have rendered all their support to the fraternal Algerian, Cuban, Congolese, Laotian and other peoples in their sacred struggle against imperialism, resolutely condemning all the aggressive attempts of imperialism."

"The sacrifices of our people were very great. Out of a population of one million, 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were made political prisoners in Italy and Germany, and 35,000 made to do forced labour, of ground; all the communications, all the ports, mines and electric power installations were destroyed, our agriculture and livestock were plundered, and our entire national economy was wrecked."

"This is a wrong course the Chinese comrades are trying to lead us on to, it is an opportunist road of vacillation and concessions to the Khrushchev traitor group which finds itself in grave difficulties, and is intriguing in order to escape defeat."

"Capitalism has been fully restored in Yugoslavia, as is well-known, but this capitalism knows how to disguise. Yugoslavia portrays itself as a socialist state, but of a special kind, as the world has never seen it before! The Titoites even boast that their state has nothing in common with the first socialist state which emerged from the socialist October Revolution and which was founded by Lenin and Stalin on the basis of the scientific theory of Marx and Engels."

"The views of Tito and his associates showed from the very beginning that they were far from being “hard-line Marxists”, as the bourgeoisie calls the consistent Marxists, but “reasonable Marxists”, who would collaborate closely with all the old and new bourgeois and reactionary politicians of Yugoslavia."

"The propaganda [the Communist Party of Yugoslavia] used and the authority the party had won during the national liberation war and during the initial steps of the construction of Yugoslavia after the war gave the Yugoslavian working class the impression that this party was in the vanguard. In reality it was not the vanguard of the working class but of a new bourgeois class that had begun to settle in. This class relied strongly on the prestige of the national liberation war of the peoples of Yugoslavia for its own counter-revolutionary aims, while it obscured the perspectives of the construction of the new society. Such a degenerate party like this was bound to lead Titoite Yugoslavia on anti-Marxist paths."

"It didn't take long till the Titoites displayed dominating tendencies, expansionism and hegemonism in their relations with the newly founded states of people's democracy, especially in their relations with our country. As we know they sought to impose their anti-Marxist political, ideological, organisational and state views on us. They went so far as to make despicable attempts to transform Albania into a republic of Yugoslavia. In this unsuccessful and disgraceful undertaking the Titoites encountered our determined opposition. At first, our resistance was uncrystallised because we did not suspect that the Yugoslav leadership had set out on the capitalist and revisionist road. But after some years, when its hegemonic and expansionist tendencies were clearly displayed, we opposed them sternly and unreservedly."

"The canon of the Sharia and the Church, closely linked with the laws of the bourgeosie, treated women as a commodity, a thing to be bought and sold by the male... Just as the bourgeosie had made the worker into its proletarian, so had the savage ancient canons of the [shariah], the Church, feudalism and the bourgeosie, reduced woman to the proletariat of the man."

"Our people, small in numbers, have fought during their whole existence. [The British] have fought too, but the wars of our two people have been of different characters. Our country has been invaded many times, but we have always fought the enemies, we have driven them out and we have never mixed blood with them..."

"I know about your [British] system of democracy, but in that system the workers 'hold keys of straw', as an expression of ours puts it. It is democracy for the capitalists, for the lords, but not for the workers. When we win we shall establish democracy, but not like that democracy of yours. In our country there will be democracy only for the people, while the 'keys of straw' will be in the hands of the beys, aghas and the bajraktars who have always opressed and betrayed the people."

""Heroj Tito, druže Tito, naš Tito!" [Hero Tito, Comrade Tito, our Tito!]. This impressed itself on me because we had heard this slogan from the Italian fascists when they shouted, "Duce a noi!" [The Duce is ours!]. I was astonished how they could permit it."

"Nevertheless, Marxism-Leninism has not disappeared, it is living and flourishing as an ideology and a reality, materialized in the socialist social system constructed according to its teachings. Exemplifying this is socialist Albania, the Marxist-Leninist parties, and those millions and millions of workers and peasants who are fighting every day for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, for democracy and national liberation. No force, no torture, no intrigue, no deception can eradicate Marxism-Leninism from the minds and hearts of men."

"In Cambodia, the Cambodian people, communists and patriots, have risen against the barbarous government of Pol Pot, which was nothing but a group of provocateurs in the service of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Chinese revisionists, in particular, which had as its aim to discredit the idea of socialism in the international arena... The anti-popular line of that regime is confirmed, also, by the fact that the Albanian embassy in the Cambodian capital, the embassy of a country which has given the people of Cambodia every possible aid, was kept isolated, indeed, encircled with barbed wire, as if it were in a concentration camp. The other embassies, too, were in a similar situation. The Albanian diplomats have seen with their own eyes that the Cambodian people were treated inhumanly by the clique of Pol Pot and Yeng Sari. Pnom Pen was turned into a deserted city, empty of people, where food was difficult to secure even for the diplomats, where no doctors or even aspirins could be found. We think that the people and patriots of Cambodia waited too long before overthrowing this clique which was completely linked with Beijing and in its service."

"He is very handsome and leaves a good impression. He is quite cultured, but you sense Western influence on his upbringing."

"Hoxha's picture is plastered on just about every wall in the land. His profile adorns Albania's monetary unit, the lek, and at meetings of the Communist Central Committee (most of whom are related to each other and to the boss by blood or marriage) Hoxha speaks from a podium decorated with a plaster bust of himself. Like his country, Hoxha is full of surprises. Instead of being a rough, tough mountain chieftain, he is a former schoolteacher and was the pampered son of a well-to-do Moslem merchant. Though he has the mentality of a brigand, his manners are those of a cultivated bourgeois and reflect his education at universities in France and Belgium."

"Hoxha seems to be well informed about literature, the theater, and philosophy, particularly the philosophy of education... He might well be pictured holding the sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one hand and the Western "lamp of learning" on the other."

"Hoxha grew up in a world of blood feuds and skulduggery. His country was still part of the Ottoman Empire when he was born. It was a world of Islam, male chauvinism and cultural and philosophical backwardness. He fought his way out of this. He played a major role in building a Communist movement in extremely harsh and adverse conditions and held power longer than any non-hereditary leader in the world-more than forty years. He saw it all. This alone entitles him consideration, even if not respect."

"Hoxha was not just 'quite' cultured, he was very cultured. In spite of coming from the most backward country in Europe, he was by far the best-read head of any Communist party in the bloc. On visits to the other countries in Eastern Europe, he often comments on the philistinism of his bloc colleagues. Hoxha knew fluent French and had a working knowledge (either verbal or written) of Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Russian and English. The range of references in his memoirs is not what one would expect from a Balkan ex-Muslim Stalinist."

"Hoxha is both unusually well read and intelligent on the one hand, and an out-and-out Stalinist, on the other. These two sides of his character coexist without any resolution or synthesis. For Hoxha, Stalin can do no wrong. The world is divided into black and white: Stalin and those who agreed with him are good; those against Stalin are bad. On these issues, Hoxha is entirely predictable and often boring. He manifestly distorts events and flatly refuses to confront the evidence, for example, on Stalin's purges and the show trials in Eastern Europe after the war... In effect, when in trouble he wheels out Marxism-Leninism and deploys it like magic, in an incantatory, ritualistic way. But it is a magic straitjacket."

"In a way, even more than Stalin, Hoxha had a vision of 'socialism in one country'- not for geo-strategic reasons, but out of alleged ideological purity, which served as a convenient cloak for nationalism. This is different from isolationism, with which Albania is usually taxed. Rather, Tirana's policy has been one of absentation- refusing, for example, to participate in the European Security Conference (which Hoxha termed 'a conference of insecurity')."

"Hoxha was often called a Stalinist. He was a Stalinist in two important ways. One was his advocacy of a very rigid form of centralised planning... The other was his use of brutal methods and often concocted evidence, compounded by his outspoken enthousiasm for harsh measures. But he was not 'Stalinist' in other important aspects. He was a cultured and well-read man. He was also in much closer contact with the population of his country than Stalin..."

"In 1990 [Mother Teresa] made a trip to Albania, then the most oppressive of the Balkan Stalinist states, and laid a wreath on the grave of the dictator Enver Hoxha as well as on the irredentist monument to "Mother Albania". She was herself of Albanian descent (born in Skopje, Macedonia), but many Albanians were shocked by her embrace of Hoxha's widow and her silence on human rights."

"On the positive side, an objective analysis must conclude that Enver Hoxha's plan to mobilize all of Albania's resources under the regimentation of a central plan was effective and quite successful... Albania was a tribal society, not necessarily primitive but certainly less developed than most. It had no industrial or working class tradition and no experience using modern production techniques. Thus, the results achieved, especially during the phases of initial planning and construction of the economic base were both impressive and positive."

"Albania's Enver Hoxha was unusual in being well read in the European literature classics - and Molotov thought his cosmopolitanism a reason for suspicion. But Hoxha was a conventional communist dictator in denying his people access to disapproved alien culture."

"The Spectator contributor Peter Kemp, who was dropped into Albania during the second world war, was later asked what he thought of Albanians. 'What can you think of a nation,' he answered, 'whose emblem is a two-faced buzzard?' Three years ago, I was with Peter Kemp in Leon, Nicaragua, when one of us spotted the news of the death of Enver Hoxha, Albania's communist leader whom Peter had known in the war. Peter rose to his feet, lifted his beer-mug, and gave the toast: 'Stoke well the furnaces of Hell!' Since Hoxha's death, his long-time interpreter has gone into exile, where he reveals that his former boss indulged in sexual practices which, in the words of the Church of England, 'fall short of the Christian ideal'. He was a rampant and aggressive sodomite who murdered many of those he embraced as well as those who refused him. The late Enver Hoxha, after the second world war, conferred with his namesake Fadil Hoxha, a senior communist in Kosovo, on whether to form an alliance. The break between Tito and Stalin put paid to the notion. Recently Fadil Hoxha fell from grace for making what he later described as a joke. To someone who had complained of the numerous rapes of Serb women in Kosovo, Hoxha replied that if more Serb women were prostitutes, there would be less rape."

"The Spectator, 'TWO-FACED BUZZARDS', 12 December 1987"

"... possibly the most Aztec-like of all Europe's remaining Stalinists."

"For not by numbers of men, nor by measure of body, but by valor of soul is war to be decided."

"Nothing is more shameful than to fall in with the plans of the enemy."

"The Turk is cruel, but he is perfectly stupid , and is no match for the sagacious Albanian."

""When the spring comes, we will manure the plains of Kosova with the bones of Serbs, for we Albanians have suffered too much to forget." — Isa Boletini, Albanian leader 1913"

"In March 1913, Boletini accompanied Ismail Qemal bey Vlora to London to seek British support for the new country. Historian Edwin Jacques reports the anecdote that “upon entering the British Foreign Office building to plead his nation’s cause, the security police asked him to remove the pistol from his belt and check it in the vestibule. He complied with no objection. Following the interview, the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, accompanied Boletini to the vestibule where he put the pistol back in his belt. The foreign secretary remarked with a smile, ‘General, the newspapers might record tomorrow that Isa Boletini, whom even Mahmut Shefqet Pasha could not disarm, was just disarmed in London.’ Boletini replied with a broad smile, ‘No, no, not in London either,’ and he withdrew from his pocket a second pistol.”"

"I think uh...we lost everyday Vietnamese life in fighting the Communists, you know, and and no progress, we have to do something else, you can, we cannot have a more of the same, you know, every, every day, so we, we must change, yes."

"We, we respect very much what the American want to do uh...but, you know sometime the American way of life and the...uh American democracy maybe uh cannot work in a country like mine, you know, in South Vietnam. Uh...so, we, we can have the principle and adapt that in the country but we cannot adapt what you have here, you know, eh two houses, all that stuff, you know, and changing the president every four year. You have many people here who can be leader of the country. We have a few in Vietnam, a few who can uh you know uh lead the country because education, because the training, because all that uh, background that we must have, you know."

"The French Colonial, you know...did not export too much their ideal of d—of democracy outside of the French frontier. Now, with the American people, you export too much your democracy and your...freedom, you know, all that, your way of life and you want to impose that uh in the country like Vietnam, it doesn — it doesn’t, it cannot work. But, in some way, we better adapt and not adopt what you have."

"I staged the coup because uh...the leaders in Saigon at that time did not keep their word. Uh, you know, by example, not killing Diem. Uh, they killed Diem. Uh... secondly, by example... to try to do something better in the fight, in fighting the Communists. But, you remember, I mean uh, at that time, everybody remember that they are a good time in Saigon, you know uh...uh, just enjoy the victory over Diem. And also, the main thing is leader at that time, we feel, was for the French solution of Indochina, for DeGaulle at that time, you know, he want to neutralize South Vietnam and to impose a French solution for the whole Indochina. And leaders at that time were in Saigon, we feel, it was true later on, like by example, Duong Van Minh, you know, who surrender to the Communists at '75 and we know that now we tory we know that Minh was one of the men of the policemen in Saigon who took, took over. So, I think we were ah, ah right, we were right at that time to change the leadership in Saigon."

"Now I had the power, I want to realize the goals of the Vietnamese revolution back in 1945. The goals were and still be right now is, they uh, independence, that means national sovereignty, the uh, freedom, and the happiness of the whole population. It was the national aim, strategically, but when I had the power the country was divided in two parts on the 17th parallel, we had insurgency in South Vietnam and I want to uh, how to said it, integrate the Front of Liberation, the non-communist people and the Front of Liberation with me and then uh...to fight the North Vietnamese if at that time, the North Vietnamese do not uh, did not want to have a peaceful solution in North Vietnam, in South Vietnam."

"Yeah, we, we uh, we had a march North, movement at that time, in July '64. I prepare at that time the psychology of the South Vietnamese people that maybe we need to go north to answer to the aggression from North Vietnam. You, you cannot defend yourself always to have a defensive plan, you know. Uh...what the...the...one of the uh military principle is you better defend yourself by having an offensive plan."

"Ambassador Taylor and, and, and, and me, and I, we had a very bad moment together at that day in the general staff. Ambassador want to see me uh because he uh made what we called a young turk at that time, a young general officer, namely Nguyen Cao Ky, and Nguyen Van Thieu, and other general. And uh... to kind of to insult them uh for, you know, being changing what we call the civilian government at that time."

"I was against the idea to commit the ground American troops in South Vietnam for the simple reason that we do not need that. We need the support, the technical support, the technology of the of the uh...American armed forces but we do not need the combat troops at that time...You know, uh...how can we justify with the population if the American come to fight for us? We just can't. So, this error...is main, one of the main error that we made...in the year '65, to bring in the combat troops, American combat troop in South Vietnam. And, then the South Vietnamese armed forces become a kind of uh subletive, you know, the the second reign on the, and the, the national mission of these forces cannot be uh in the Vietnamese hand. Then it, 't...are under the American hand. And later, later on when we see the American withdrawal we changing government back in Washington 'n 'n policy, and then when the element of the American troops is getting out of the country, the disaster we saw later on in '75 is a result of the decision to send the...the troops, the American troop to fight for the Vietnamese troops."

"The council uh, forced me to leave the, the country. That was officially, but, in fact, you know, it's 'n...uh...there are many books writing of that, that, that uh incident and the American official in Saigon are very pleased at that time to see me uh out of the country."

"I feel very, very badly and uh I left Saigon...with some of my...soil of the you know Vietnam you know in my hand...I left uh seeing the soldier that I always command, you know, for two decades. Uh...behind. I feel that I missed to bring peace to my people. And I feel that uh maybe the only time that we can have that peace, you know, and have dignity of South Vietnam, the sovereignty, respected by every people and I feel very badly, of course."

"I was supporting the Buddhists. But the, the Buddhists in a a general uh strategy. You know, we have uh...India, Burma, Cambodia...uh Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan. What we call that...it's a Yellow Bear. Yellow Bear to stop the red invasion. That's a kind of, of uh, uh...religion side of the fight again the Communists. So I was for the organization of kind of international Buddhists. And if you remember, we had a headquarters, international Buddhists at that time, in Saigon to all, to buil—build its forces, to face Communists red, "vague" of red, you know, invasion from the China, Indochina or Russian."

"I put Huong, I put Duong Van Minh like uh...chief of state. I put Huong, I put Quat, Quat on the prime minister role. Anytime we feel that they do not answer, I mean, deal with the situation we change them. They are not a coup. Either Quat, either Huong, or Minh does not come in office with election with the power, with the population, you know. The people give him the mandate to be prime minister, or to be, to be uh chief state. The mandate it coming from the armed forces at that time before we have any constitution, you know, uh set up later on. So, when we change a government it's not a coup. We just change somebody what we just want to put in. That's all."

"The boat people, the boat people, in getting out what got in, getting out of South Vietnam, that so called communist paradise and that’s to show enough to the whole world that the communist regime doesn't work in South Vietnam. And maybe if we are in fight now inside in...in...South Vietnam, we will have certainly the support of the general, of the majority, of the population. We never had that thing before. But now, if there is some, something, you know, moving over there, I am almost sure that we have I am sure that we have, the support, the majority of the population."

"I an a political asylum situation here. Legally, I cannot tell that I am making any politics action here. But I always want to be with my people over there. I want to go back to Vietnam, of course, if possible."

"I remember that day clearly when I left Saigon. I left my country in honor that day, not like Thieu who fled later. My cabinet, my troops, the whole diplomatic corps were there at the airport to bid me farewell."

"I have a promise to keep; to return to a free and democratic Vietnam."

"Very much! China presents Vietnam with a very big problem. China is taking over Vietnam, from Cholon, where there are rich Chinese, to Haiphong. They are everywhere now with their product. My wife is from the North, people there resent China more than the South feared the Viet Cong. The Chinese are invaders — like any other foreigners — to fight. We must stop the Chinese. You know the dikes built on the Red River? If they break, what happens? A flood!"

"I took with me in my hand on the departing plane a bag of sand, a bag of earth from the soil of a free South Vietnam. My western hero had always been General Douglas MacArthur who made the famous promise "I shall return", after he lost a battle in the Philippines."

"Look. What happened, that was just business. Personal betrayal I can understand. But never betrayal of one’s people you serve, or your country."

"China believes it is the center of the universe. Look at its flag: one big star surrounded by satellite stars. Arrogant!"

"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance - for myself and my children's children - forever"

"To appreciate Christmas to the full, one must know how it feels to be deprived of its blessings"

"People thrive where there is mutual respect. Civilisation is built on it. Futures are better for it. But co-existence must be made, and made again, in every generation. The common good is defended only by vigilance and action. This means more than security measures. Humanity must arm itself with ideas, with justice and with economic and social inclusion. Today, these challenges have special importance. Our world faces an assault by terrorists with ruthless ambition. The motive is not faith, it is power; power pursued by ripping countries and communities apart in sectarian conflicts, and inflicting suffering across the world."

"There are those living in Europe today who remember the ravages that struck the continent in the late 1930s and the World War that followed because of an aggressive, expansionist ideology based on hate and disregard for the very essence of humanity. Europe’s war became the World’s War. Today, we are fighting a similar war. A war against an expansionist ideology that feeds on hate; that is committing murder in the name of God and religion to justify evil actions that no religion tolerates — a war against terrorists who disrespect Islam’s values and humanity’s values. Our victory now depends on our unity. Europe’s role is vital. Only by cooperation can our regions shut down the sources of terrorist support and defeat their purposes. It is also essential that our regions renew the source of our great strength: the mutual respect that binds and sustains us. Young people, especially, must be inspired by values that reject violence, create peace and build inclusive society."

"A dialogue of respect is the rock-bed of all societies. Attacking and excluding others, insulting other peoples and their faith and convictions — this is no way forward. The future lies in unity and respect, not division and stereotypes."

"I and countless other Muslims, have been taught from our earliest years that our religion demanded respect and caring for others. The Prophet Mohammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.” This is what it means to be a Muslim. Among the very names of God, we hear: the Compassionate, the All-Merciful. All my life, every day, I have heard and used the greeting, Assalamu aleikum — a wish for the other to be blessed with peace. This is what it means to be a Muslim. More than a thousand years before the Geneva Conventions, Muslim soldiers were ordered not to kill a child, a woman or an old person, not to destroy a tree, not to harm a priest, not to destroy a church. These are the same values of Islam we were taught in school as children: not to destroy or desecrate a place where God is worshipped, not a mosque, not a church, not a synagogue. This is what it means to be a Muslim. These are the values I teach my children and they will hand on to theirs."

"I am outraged and grieved by the recent attacks in some countries against Christian and minority communities. This is an offense against humanity as well as Islam. Arab Christians are an integral part of our region’s past, present and future. Jordan is a Muslim country, with a deeply-rooted Christian community. Together, the Jordanian people make up an in- divisible society, friends and partners in building our country. The world’s Muslims have a critical role in global understanding. Our faith, like yours, commands mercy, peace and tolerance. It upholds, as yours does, the equal human dignity of every person — men and women, neighbours and strangers. Those outlaws of Islam who deny these truths are vastly outnumbered by the ocean of believers — 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. In fact, these terrorists have made the world’s Muslims their greatest target. We will not allow them to hijack our faith."

"It is time to think about the future, and how this ongoing conflict will breed further hate, violence and terror across the world. How can we fight the ideological battle, if we do not chart the way forward towards Palestinian-Israeli peace? Our countries, united, must provide the momentum and chart the way forward towards a final, comprehensive settlement."

"Radicalisation thrives on economic insecurity and exclusion. To create stakeholders in a peaceful world, people need opportunities to fulfil their potential and build good lives. Helping them is a powerful message of respect."

"Jordan also takes seriously our moral obligations to others. Despite scarce resources, the people of Jordan have opened their arms to refugees fleeing regional violence. Jordan has taken in thousands of Iraqi Christians over the past year. This is in addition to giving shelter to 1.4 million Syrian refugees, which is 20 per cent of the population, over the past few years. This is more than the equivalent of France hosting the entire population of Belgium. My small country is now the world’s third-largest refugee host and I thank all of you who are helping us to uphold this global responsibility."

"History, geography and future bind us. Let no one separate us. Together, we can create pillars of mutual respect that will support the common good for generations to come."

"For what fortress, what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?"

"Here you stand, after conquering mighty nations and subduing the world. I therefore think it foolish for me to goad you with words, as though you were men who had not been proved in action. Let a new leader or an untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to say anything common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and, repenting too late, clamor for protection against battle in the open fields. You know how slight a matter the Roman attack is. While they are still gathering in order and forming in one line with locked shields, they are checked, I will not say by the first wound, but even by the dust of battle. Then on to the fray with stout hearts, as is your wont. Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should Fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations, unless it were to prepare them for the joy of this conflict. Who was it revealed to our sires the path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages a closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield to you, when you were as yet unarmed? Even a mass of federated nations could not endure the sight of the Huns. I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so many victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear at the foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights, he is a dead man."

"If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic."

"Attila is a brilliant tactician; he comes to the walls of Constantinople, he threatens, he gets his bribe, he goes away, he can come back, so he's like that mafia boss that keeps on coming, keeps on extorting. In the end, he's a part of your life, he's a part of your culture, and you can't get rid of him."

"In the title which he assumed, we shall see the skill with which he availed himself of the legends and creeds of other nations as well as of his own. He designated himself 'Attila, Descendant of the Great Nimrod. Nurtured in Engaddi. By the grace of God, King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes. The Dread of the World.'"

"He called himself flagellum Dei, the scourge of God, and even today, 1,500 years after his blood-drenched death, his name remains a byword for brutality. Ancient artists placed great stress on his inhumanity, depicting him with goatish beard and devil’s horns. Then as now, he seemed the epitome of an Asian steppe nomad: ugly, squat and fearsome, lethal with a bow, interested chiefly in looting and in rape."

"What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?"

"The haughty step and demeanour of the king of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his superiority above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he inspired. Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon; and Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master. He delighted in war; but, after he had ascended the throne in a mature age, his head, rather than his hand, achieved the conquest of the North; and the fame of an adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent and successful general."

"The crowd of vulgar kings, the leaders of so many martial tribes, who served under the standard of Attila, were ranged in the submissive order of guards and domestics round the person of their master. They watched his nod; they trembled at his frown; and at the first signal of his will, they executed, without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands. In time of peace, the dependent princes, with their national troops, attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila collected his military force he was able to bring into the field an army of five, or, according to another account, of seven hundred thousand barbarians."

"His is one of the few names from antiquity that still prompt instant recognition, putting him alongside the likes of Alexander, Caesar, Cleopatra and Nero. Attila has become the barbarian of the ancient world."

"Attila's not interested in taking cities; he just wants to break down the gate, get in and trash the city, then get out as fast as he can, and the more people that get killed in the process, the better it is for his reputation."

"At any time since the end of the Punic Wars, losing Carthage and suffering the emergence of a new and destabilizing kingdom in north Africa would have been a grave problem for the Roman west. In the middle of the fifth century it was even more so, because at exactly the same time, the emperors in Ravenna were forced to deal with the emergence of a rival state on a vulnerable frontier. This was the short-lived but disruptive kingdom of Attila the Hun. A genuinely larger-than-life character whose name remains notorious today, Attila took command of the Huns in the mid-430s, shortly before Carthage fell to the Vandals. And in the two decades of his reign he dragged the western Roman Empire further along its path to ruin."

"His army is said to have numbered five hundred thousand men. He was a man born into the world to shake the nations, the scourge of all lands, who in some way terrified all mankind by the dreadful rumors noised abroad concerning him. He was haughty in his walk, rolling his eyes hither and thither, so that the power of his proud spirit appeared in the movement of his body. He was indeed a lover of war, yet restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants and lenient to those who were once received into his protection. He was short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with gray; and he had a flat nose and a swarthy complexion, showing the evidences of his origin. And though his temper was such that he always had great self-confidence, yet his assurance was increased by finding the sword of Mars, always esteemed sacred among the kings of the Scythians."

"On the following day, when a great part of the morning was spent, the royal attendants suspected some ill and, after a great uproar, broke in the doors. There they found the death of Attila accomplished by an effusion of blood, without any wound, and the girl with downcast face weeping beneath her veil. Then, as is the custom of that race, they plucked out the hair of their heads and made their faces hideous with deep wounds, that the renowned warrior might be mourned, not by effeminate wailings and tears, but by the blood of men. Moreover a wondrous thing took place in connection with Attila's death. For in a dream some god stood at the side of Marcian, Emperor of the East, while he was disquieted about his fierce foe, and showed him the bow of Attila broken in that same night, as if to intimate that the race of Huns owed much to that weapon. This account the historian Priscus says he accepts upon truthful evidence. For so terrible was Attila thought to be to great empires that the gods announced his death to rulers as a special boon. His body was placed in the midst of a plain and lay in state in a silken tent as a sight for men's admiration. The best horsemen of the entire tribe of the Huns rode around in circles, after the manner of circus games, in the place to which he had been brought and told of his deeds in a funeral dirge in the following manner: "The chief of the Huns, King Attila, born of his sire Mundiuch, lord of bravest tribes, sole possessor of the Scythian and German realms—powers unknown before—captured cities and terrified both empires of the Roman world and, appeased by their prayers, took annual tribute to save the rest from plunder. And when he had accomplished all this by the favor of fortune, he fell, not by wound of the foe, nor by treachery of friends, but in the midst of his nation at peace, happy in his joy and without sense of pain. Who can rate this as death, when none believes it calls for vengeance?" When they had mourned him with such lamentations, a strava, as they call it, was celebrated over his tomb with great revelling. They gave way in turn to the extremes of feeling and displayed funereal grief alternating with joy. Then in the secrecy of night they buried his body in the earth. They bound his coffins, the first with gold, the second with silver and the third with the strength of iron, showing by such means that these three things suited the mightiest of kings; iron because he subdued the nations, gold and silver because he received the honors of both empires. They also added the arms of foemen won in the fight, trappings of rare worth, sparkling with various gems, and ornaments of all sorts whereby princely state is maintained. And that so great riches might be kept from human curiosity, they slew those appointed to the work—a dreadful pay for their labor; and thus sudden death was the lot of those who buried him as well as of him who was buried."

"The slaughter of the Burgundians by Attila reinforces in my mind this view that he's working for money. There's no greater goal. It's destruction for destruction's sake, out of pure spite and hatred."

"The method that Attila uses to kill his enemies demonstrates a particularly brutal and sadistic cruelty."

"His violence, his conquering doesn't seem directed to any specific end. He wants to go out and destroy almost for destruction's sake itself. He's a cruel, remorseless killer. Attila is at the top of a scale of psychopathic behavior... Compared to the other ancient tyrants, Attila is very low on a scale of creativity. He doesn't solve problems, he doesn't build anything, he doesn't leave anything behind. When in doubt, kill... Attila reminds me of a drug lord, a Pablo Escobar; they're interested only in naked power, money. They create nothing, they build nothing. If anyone gets in your way, kill them."

"Attila, king of the Huns from 434 to 453, was an outstanding general and formidable warrior with a voracious appetite for gold, land and power. Defeated only once, he was the most powerful of the barbarian rulers who fed off the last vestiges of the crumbling Roman Empire. According to legend, he carried the ‘Sword of Mars’, bestowed on him by the gods as a sign he would rule the world."

"To his people, Attila was an idol, helping to consolidate a mighty and prosperous empire. The 6th century Gothic historian Jordanes later described him as a ‘lover of war, yet restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants and lenient to those who were once received into his protection’. Yet to the Romans he was the ‘Scourge of God’, ‘the ravager of the provinces of Europe’, personally responsible for wanton cruelty and violence, and in Dante’s Divine Comedy, he appeared in the seventh circle of Hell."

"Attila the Hun is a dubious character upon whom to base a metaphor on leadership. He's been portrayed throughout history as a barbaric, ugly little tyrant whose hordes, in total disregard of accepted principles of conservation, ruthlessly destroyed the beautiful and tranquil countryside, then went on to plunder and pillage numerous cities and villages inhabited by more civilized citizens of European nations.Void of any characterization as a brilliant leader, a genius civilizer or a compassionate and adept king, the sinister Attila is commonly used as a referent for entertaining satire and serves as a universally agreed upon example of those qualities and attributes dreadfully abhorred in leaders of any generation, organization or cause."

"Seen in perspectives different from those who wrote his history — much of which must be to some degree apocryphal, if not biased by political preferences — Attila might today be characterized as an entrepreneur, diplomat, social reformer, statesman, civilizer, brilliant field marshal and host of some terrific parties."

"Attila resisted the propaganda spewed at him by his Roman mentors. He personally rejected everything about them. Though he tried to ignite the spirit of resistance among the other child hostages, his attempts failed. On at least two occasions, Attila tried to escape. Failing to gain freedom, he prowled the palace as if he were a caged animal. His hatred for the empire's policies and practices grew stronger day by day."

"His rule as King of Huns was marked by swift yet considerate justice. He did not act in haste. He gave the Huns a national goal — to bring under their control the Germanic and Slavic nations, to conquer Rome and Constantinople, to march against all of Asia, then on to Africa. Thus, the Huns would reign over all the lands to the north, south, east and west. Indeed, Attila would rule the world. Attila's plan was ambitious, fired by boyhood dreams, shaped by those images formed in his youth. He aimed to realize it step by step. His method was tempered by patience and unrelenting tenacity born of Asiatic virtues and by the political insight mastered by one who listens and watches while he waits for the precise moment to act."

"Attila is an example of the type of leader who is never satisfied — preferring to take the initiative, acting rather than doing nothing.Attila was less savage than the Romans, who cast thousands of Christians to wild animals for mere entertainment. In comparison, he was less cruel than Ivan the Terrible, Cortes or Pizarro. In his sparing of Rome, he showed more mercy than did Genserich, Belizar, the Norsemen, the Germans and the Spanish mercenaries, who all pillaged it without regard.Attila's legacy is generally unfamiliar to us in the Western World. We are naive about his historical importance as a genius civilizer, his open-mindedness and richness of views, in all of which he far exceeded Alexander the Great or Caesar.The controversy surrounding Attila will perhaps never be resolved, but his "leadership secrets" present insightful opportunity to learn, by way of metaphor, age old characteristics, values and principles that separate those who lead from those who follow."

"Attila was well-schooled in the power of rumor. He knew that advantageous rumor in the hearts and minds of ten could result in thousands becoming his victims. Thus, through rumor, many obstacles to his "great conquest" could be removed.He considered himself to be above the reproach of the masses; therefore, his reputation was important to him and him alone. He knew who he was, what he could achieve; his reputation was not as important to his feelings of self-worth as it was to influencing the outcome of battles and negotiations. Thus, Attila turned a nickname that in certain circles might have been considered unflattering into an advantage and, in doing so, gained riches for his treasury and tribute from untold thousands."

"Scorning the pompous garb of noble Romans, Attila attired himself in the simple, crude skins of animals, which was the custom of his people. Even his crown, as king, was one of a simple leather helmet adorned by only a single feather. It was headgear similar to that of his warriors."

"By way of fulfilling the obligation of his title, Attila exhibited patience — not haste — and never showed a lack of prudent judgment; his plan had been formulated over years. It was a calculated scheme of sequenced events that resulted in Attila's short-lived but complete leadership over a nation of barbarians whom, for a time, the world held in fear."

"I know nothing of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims."

"Of course we do not know how the name sounded in the language of the Huns. Sometime, somewhere, somehow a proto-form like *agtala- changed to *attila. We cannot tell if the assimilation of "gt" to "tt", and/or if loss of a final consonant took place in Hunnic or if these changes were part of the adaptation process into Latin, Gothic and Greek... Truly, our knowledge of the Hunnic language is almost zero. One can only guess a solution to this riddle of Attila's name."

"Attila conceived himself to have a divine claim to the dominion of the earth: — the Spaniards subdued the Indians under plea of converting them to Christianity; hanging thirteen refractory ones in honour of Jesus Christ and his apostles: and we English justify our colonial aggressions by saying that the Creator intends the Anglo-Saxon race to people the world!"

"Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German."

"„I'm honoured that I could fight in four wars for your honour, my dear people, for your rights and your freedom.”"

"„Be humane, be just and recognise that, over all ambitions, intrigues and hatred, there is the Motherland, the eternal of the people, and we always have to meet there, even though we disagree sometimes.”"

"(letter adressed to Mihai Antonescu, 6 september 1941) „We must all understand that this is not a fight against Slavs, but against the Jews. It's a battle for life and death. Either we win and the world will purify, or they'll win and we'll become their slaves. Both the war in general and the battles at Odessa, especially, have made the proof that the Jew is Satan."

"(transcripts from Council of Ministers meeting 13 noiembrie 1941) I. Antonescu: „I'd like you to remove all Jews from Odesa immediately, because the resistence at Sevastopol makes us think that we can expect a landing at Odesa. I thought Sevastopol will fall earlier. Yet today, because the Russian fleet has the possibility to use Sevastopol, it can make us an unpleasent surpirse.”"

"„The principle is that what is Romanian we'll put in Bucovina: what is foreign, Ukrainian, etc. we'll put in camps and from there dispatch them to the Slavic countries. (...) Gentlemen, you shall consider the need for this people to profit - in this desaster - to be puriefied, to be homogeneous. We're without mercy. I don't think at man; I think at the general interests of the Romanian people, who dictate for us to no longer be lenient as we were until now which resulted in our country being filled with so many neighbours who did for us the worst evil.”"

"Far from disappearing after Corneliu Codreanu's execution (see Chapter 7), the Iron Guard had grown in power; indeed, after the overthrow of the monarchy, General Ion Antonescu had appointed Codreanu's successor, Horia Sima, as his Vice-Premier and proclaimed a 'National Legionary State'. As loyal allies, Romanian troops were also responsible for some of the worst anti-Semitic violence after the invasion of the Soviet Union, notably in Odessa. Some Hungarians also betrayed their Jewish neighbours, if only by denouncing them once the Germans had occupied their country."

"Some already in power allied themselves with Hitler, including his chief ally, Benito Mussolini; Marshal Pétain (1856-1951; died in prison), the French premier who surrendered much of France to the Nazis; Pierre Laval (1883-1945; executed), former French prime minister who became leader of the Vichy government he helped the Germans establish; Marshal lon Antonescu (1882-1946; executed), the vehemently anti-Semitic and anti-Russian conducator of Romania, who forced King Carol II to abdicate, supported the Germans on the Eastern Front, and oversaw the murder of 380,000 Jews and 10,000 Gypsies; Boris III, tsar of Bulgaria (1894-1943; possibly poisoned), who agreed to deport 13,000 Jews from recently reannexed territories though protected those in Bulgaria; Admiral Miklós Horthy (1868-1957), Regent of Hungary who collaborated with the Nazis through fear of communism, but eventually broke with Hitler; and generals Georgios Tsolakoglou (1886-1948), Konstantinos Logothetopoulos (1878-1961) and Ioannis Rallis (4878-1946), Nazi puppets in Greece."

"Of the Quislings, apart from Pavelic, the Romanian Antonescu, who ordered the frenzied massacres of Odessan and Romanian Jews, was Hitler’s most murderous ally: ‘The Jew,’ he said, ‘is Satan.’"

"They will not rest satisfied without establishing their own power and authority, and will unite with the hill rajas, whom we have dispossessed. We have hitherto but hunted deer; if we engage in this war, we must prepare to fight tigers."

"म बाघको बच्चा डमरु हुँ, सिनो खाने कुकुर हैन ।"

"Further to the westward lies the valley of the Dhoon [Dehradun], and the territory of Sue-na-Ghur [Srinagar, Uttarakhand]; and further still, the more recent conquests, stretching to the village, in which Umar Sing [Amar Singh Thapa], a chief of uncommon talents, commanded, and indeed, exercised an authority almost independent."

"It was not customary to receive or answer letters at such unreasonable hours."

"I shall meet your General in the warfield."

"Go capture the fort which you could not win by war, but now we've left it at our own will."

"This is inscribed as a tribute of respect for our gallant adversary Bulbudder, Commander of the fort and his brave Goorkas who were afterwards, while in the service of Runjeet Sing, shot down in their ranks to the last man by Afghan artillery."

"I hear from higher up that China seems to be succeeding on many fronts – engineering, commerce, hotels, agriculture - everything. In many ways, don’t we need to take them as a model example for us?"

"It is the party’s steadfast determination to ensure that the people will never have to tighten their belt again."

"Yesterday, we were a weak and small country trampled upon by big powers. Today, our geopolitical location remains the same, but we are transformed into a proud political and military power and an independent people that no one can dare provoke. The days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs."

"The effort to develop the economy and improve the people’s standard of living can be successful only when it is backed by powerful military capabilities, nuclear forces. In the spirit with which we conquered outer space and with the mettle with which we succeeded in the nuclear test of a high level, we must push ahead simultaneously with the campaign to defend the country and the construction of an economic giant, and thus achieve the happiness of the people and the prosperity of the powerful Paektusan nation without fail."

"President Donald Trump's remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last. [...] Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say. [...] I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire."

"In no way would the United States dare to ignite a war against me and our country. The whole of its mainland is within the range of our nuclear strike and the nuclear button is on my office desk all the time; the United States needs to be clearly aware that this is not merely a threat but a reality."

"I know the Americans are inherently disposed against us, but when they talk with us, they will see that I am not the kind of person who would shoot nuclear weapons to the south, over the Pacific or at the United States."

"Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists."

"Few Americans can remember when the United States was not the richest and most powerful nation on the planet, and most Americans have similarly considered their country the champion of democracy and the foremost defender of liberty in the world. Now however instead of “making the world safe for democracy,” it may become the arsenal of tyranny that undermines freedom far and wide. For if democracy is overthrown in America, that will embolden authoritarian movements around the world. Every free country has seedlings of authoritarians determined to grow mighty, and nothing would be more encouraging to them than having democracy crumble in the United States. Furthermore, even democracies that were not destabilized would likely find a totalitarian America viewed them with enmity. Our long-standing allies got a preview of the hostility that demagogues feel toward free nations when Donald Trump withdrew from international accords, threatened old alliances, sucked up to Vladimir Putin and “fell in love” with the brutal killer, Kim Jong-Un."

"Friedman: In an op-ed in 2013 in the Los Angeles Times, you wrote, “South Africa has illustrated that long-term security can be far better assured by the abrogation of nuclear weapons than by their retention.” It seems that Kim Jong Un of North Korea has, at least according to his propaganda, learned the opposite lesson: that if you’re [Libya’s Muammar] Qaddafi or Saddam [Hussein in Iraq] and you give up your [pursuit of] nuclear weapons, you reduce your security [and bring about your demise at the hands of the U.S. and its allies]. Or if you’re Ukraine and you sign up to the Budapest Memorandum, and then Russia two decades later invades you, that you’ve actually given up security by relinquishing nuclear weapons."

"I think that Mr Kim Jong Un has obviously won this round. He has completed his strategic task: he has a nuclear weapon, he has missiles of global reach, up to 13,000 km, which can reach almost any point of the globe. He is an absolutely competent and already mature politician."

"How many guys- he was like twenty-six or twenty-five when his father died- take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden... he goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss. It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn't play games, and we can't play games with him."

"Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me "old," when I would NEVER call him "short and fat?" Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen!"

"He's the head of a country, and I mean he's the strong head, don't let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."

"I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth, and then we fell in love, OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love."

"[The general religious policy of Muḥammad b. al‑Qāsim is noted by al‑Balāḏurī:] He conquered the city by treaty (ṣulḥ) with the condition that he would not kill them nor enter their temple (budd). And he said: ‘The budd will be considered similar to the churches of the Christians and Jews and the fire-temples of the Zoroastrians (maǧūs)’. He imposed the tribute (ḫarāǧ) on those in al‑Rūr and built a mosque."

"On the receipt of this letter, Hijaj obtained the consent of Wuleed, the son of Abdool Mullik, to invade India, for the purpose of propagating the faith and at the same time deputed a chief of the name of Budmeen, with three hundred cavalry, to join Haroon in Mikran, who was directed to reinforce the party with one thousand good soldiers more to attack Deebul. Budmeen failed in his expedition, and lost his life in the first action. Hijaj, not deterred by this defeat, resolved to follow up the enterprise by another. In consequence, in the year AH 93 (AD 711) he deputed his cousin and son-in-law, Imad-ood-Deen Mahomed Kasim, the son of Akil Shukhfy, then only seventeen years of age, with six thousand soldiers, chiefly Assyrians, with the necessary implements for taking forts, to attack Deebul'... 'On reaching this place, he made preparations to besiege it, but the approach was covered by a fortified temple, surrounded by strong wall, built of hewn stone and mortar, one hundred and twenty feet in height. After some time a bramin, belonging to the temple, being taken, and brought before Kasim, stated, that four thousand Rajpoots defended the place, in which were from two to three thousand bramins, with shorn heads, and that all his efforts would be vain; for the standard of the temple was sacred; and while it remained entire no profane foot dared to step beyond the threshold of the holy edifice. Mahomed Kasim having caused the catapults to be directed against the magic flag-staff, succeeded, on the third discharge, in striking the standard, and broke it down... Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose... On reaching Mooltan, Mahomed Kasim also subdued that province; and himself occupying the city, he erected mosques on the site of the Hindoo temples."

"My ruling is given: Kill anyone belonging to the combatants (ahl-i-ḥarb); arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them. Whoever submits … grant them amān and settle their tribute (amwāl) as dhimmah."

"I am appalled by your bad judgement and astounded by your policies. Why are you so intent on giving amān, even to an enemy whom you have tested and found hostile and intransigent? It is not necessary to give amān to everyone without discrimination. … In any case, if [the Sindis] sincerely request amān and desist from treachery, they will surely stop fighting. Then income will meet expenditures and this long situation can be concluded."

"It is acknowledged that all your procedures have been in accordance with religious law (bar jādah-yi shar‘) except for the one practice of giving amān. For you are giving amān to everyone without distinguishing between friend and foe."

"Muhammad took the fort [of Rawar] and stayed there for two or three days. He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependents and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children... When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Rai Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of Ka'ab, son of Mharak. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before Allah, offered thanksgivings and praises... Hajjaj then forwarded the head, the umbrellas, and wealth, and the prisoners to Walid the Khalifa. When the Khalifa of the time had read the letter, he praised Almighty Allah. He sold some of those daughters of the chiefs, and some he granted as rewards. When he saw the daughter of Rai Dahir’s sister he was much struck with her beauty and charms, and began to bite his finger with astonishment.... It is said that after the conquest was effected and the affairs of the country were settled and the report of the conquest had reached Hajjaj, he sent a reply to the following effect. 'O my cousin! I received your life-inspiring letter. I was much pleased and overjoyed when it reached me. The events were recounted in an excellent and beautiful style, and I learnt that the ways and rules you follow are conformable to the Law. Except that you give protection to all, great and small alike, and make no difference between enemy and friend. God says, - Give no quarter to Infidels, but cut their throats. Then know that this is the command of the great God [Allah]. You shall not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this, give no quarter to any enemy except to those who are of rank."

"He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependants and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children. It is said that when the fort was captured, all the treasures, property, and arms, except those which were taken away by Jaisiya, fell into the hands of the victors, and they were all brought before Muhammad Kasim. When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya.' They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of K'ab, son of Maharat. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before God, offered thanksgi-vings and praises, for, he said, he had in reality obtained all the wealth and treasures and dominions of the world."

"Muhammad Kasim marched from Dhalila, and encamped on the banks of the stream of the Jalwali to the east of Brahmanabad. He sent some confidential messengers to Brahmanabad to invite its people to submission and to the Muhammadan faith, to preach to them Islam, to demand the Jizya, or poll-tax, and also to inform them that if they would not submit, they must prepare to fight... They sent their messengers, and craved for themselves and their families exemption from death and captivity. Muhammad Kasim granted them protection on their faithful promises, but put the soldiers to death, and took all their followers and dependents prisoners. All the captives, up to about thirty years of age, who were able to work, he made slaves, and put a price upon them... When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers. Protection was given to the artificers, the merchants, and the common people, and those who had been seized from those classes were all liberated. But he (Kasim) sat on the seat of cruelty, and put all those who had fought to the sword. It is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but, according to some, sixteen thousand were killed, and the rest were pardoned."

"When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside ; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers."

"Muhammad Qasim then entered and all the town people came to the temple of Nobhar, and prostrated themselves before an idol. Muhammad Kasim enquired: 'Whose house is this, in which all the people high and low are respectfully kneeling and bowing down.' They replied: 'This is an idol-house called Nobhar.' Then, by Muhammad Kasim's order, the temple was opened. Entering it with his officers he saw an equestrian statue. The body of the idol was made of marble or alabaster, and it had on its arms golden bracelets, set with jewels and rubies. Muhammad Kasim stretched his hand and took off a bracelet from one of the idol's arms. Then he asked the keeper of the Budh temple Nobhar: 'Is this your idol?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'but it had two bracelets on, and one is missing.' 'Well' said Muhammad Kasim, 'cannot your god know who has taken away his bracelet?' The keeper bent his head down. Muhammad Kasim laughed and returned the bracelet to him, and he fixed it again on the idol's arm.'"

"Muhammad built at Nirun a mosque on the site of the temple of Budh, and ordered prayers to be proclaimed in the Muhammadan fashion and appointed an Imam."

"The forts of Siwistan and Sisam have been already taken. The nephew of Dahir, his warriors, and principal officers have been despatched, and the infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worship have been built, pulpits have been erected, the Khutba is read, the call to prayers is raised, so that devotions are performed at the stated hours. The takbir and praise to the Almighty Allah are offered every morning and evening."

"Muhammad Kasim fixed a tax upon all the subjects, according to the laws of the Prophet. Those who embraced the Muhammadan faith were exempted from slavery, the tribute, and the poll-tax, and from those who did not change their creed a tax was exacted according to three grades. The first grade was of great men, and each of these was to pay silver, equal to forty-eight dirams in weight, the second grade twenty-four dirams, and the lowest grade twelve dirams. It was ordered that all who should become Musulmans at once should be exempted from the payment, but those who were desirous of their old persuasion must pay the tribute and poll-tax. Some showed an inclination to abide by their creed, and some having resolved upon paying tribute, held by the faith of their forefathers, but their lands and property were not taken from them..."

"The agriculturists in this part of the country were Jats, and they made their submission and were granted protection. When all these circumstances were communicated to Hajjaj [Muhammed bin Qasim's uncle], he sent an emphatic answer, ordering that those who showed fight should be destroyed, or that their sons and daughters should be taken as hostages and kept. Those who choose to submit, and in whose throats the water of sincerity flowed, were to be treated with mercy, and their property secured to them..."

"A mine was dug, and in two or three days the walls fell down, and the fort of Multan was taken. Six thousand warriors were put to death, and all their relations and dependents were taken as slaves. Protection was given to the merchants, artisans and the agriculturists. Muhammad Kasim said the booty ought to be sent to the treasury of the Khalifa; but as the soldiers have taken so much pains, have suffered so many hardships, have hazarded their lives, and have been so long a time employed in digging the mine and carrying on the war, and as the fort is now taken, it is proper that the booty should be divided, and their dues given to the soldiers. Then all the great and principal inhabitants of the city assembled together, and silver to the weight of sixty thousand dirams was distributed and every horseman got a share of four hundred dirams weight. After this, Muhammad Kasim said that some plan should be devised for realizing the money to be sent to the Khalifa. He was pondering over this, when suddenly a Brahman came and said, 'Heathenism is now at an end, the temples are thrown down, the world has received the light of Islam, and mosques are built instead of idol temples. I have heard from the elders of Multan that in ancient times there was a chief in this city whose name was Jibawin, and who was a descendent of the Rai of Kashmir. He was a Brahman and a monk, he strictly followed his religion, and always occupied his time in worshipping idols. When his treasures exceeded all limits and computation, he made a reservoir on the eastern side of Multan, which was hundred yards square. In the middle of it he built a temple fifty yards square, and he made a chamber in which he concealed forty copper jars each of which was filled with African gold dust. A treasure of three hundred and thirty mans of gold was buried there. Over it there is an idol made of red gold, and trees are planted round the reservoir.' ...It is related by historians, on the authority of ... Ali bin Muhammad who had heard it from Abu Muhammad Hindui that Muhammad Kasim arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants, went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold, and its two eye were bright red rubies... Muhammad Kasim ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty mans of gold were obtained, and forty jars filled with gold dust... This gold and the image were brought to treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan."

"In a letter Hajjaj instructed Muhammad bin Qasim on how to deal with the adversary. “The way of granting pardon prescribed by law is that when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads… make a great slaughter among them… (Those that survive) bind them in bonds… grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them” etc., etc."

"At Brahmanabad, after many people were killed, “all prisoners of or under the age of 30 years were put in chains… All the other people capable of bearing arms were beheaded and their followers and dependents were made prisoners.”"

"Of the prisoners captured a selection was made from the slaves and other spoils, “in order to detach the usual one-fifth share of the State. The number of the selected slaves came to about 20,000. The rest were distributed among the troops.”"

"During the Arab invasion of Sindh (712 C.E.), Muhammad bin Qasim first attacked Debal, a word derived from Deval meaning temple. It was situated on the sea-coast not far from modern Karachi. It was garrisoned by 4000 Kshatriya soldiers and served by 3000 Brahmans. All males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword and their women and children were enslaved. “700 beautiful females, who were under the protection of Budh (that is, had taken shelter in the temple), were all captured with their valuable ornaments, and clothes adorned with jewels.” Muhammad despatched one-fifth of the legal spoil to Hajjaj which included seventy-five damsels, the rest four-fifths were distributed among the soldiers. Thereafter whichever places he attacked like Rawar, Sehwan, Dhalila, Brahmanabad and Multan, Hindu soldiers and men with arms were slain, the common people fled, or, if flight was not possible, accepted Islam, or paid the poll tax, or died with their religion. Many women of the higher class immolated themselves in Jauhar, most others became prize of the victors. These women and children were enslaved and converted, and batches of them were dispatched to the Caliph in regular installments."

"At the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh the head of the State was the Caliph and prisoners taken in Sindh were regularly forwarded to him. Kufi, the author of the Chachnama, rightly sums up the position. Out of the total catch, four-fifths was the share of the soldiers, “what remained of the cash and slaves was… sent to Hajjaj (the Governor of Iraq )” for onward transportation to the Khalifa. In such a situation any special acquisition had to be paid for in cash. Muhammad bin Qasim who wished to possess Raja Dahir’s wife Ladi, avers the Chachnama, “purchased her out of the spoils, before making her his wife.” But the price he paid is not mentioned. Similarly, when Hajjaj sent 60,000 slaves captured in India to the Caliph Walid I (705-715 C.E.), the latter “sold some of those female slaves of royal birth”,5 but again their price has not been specified."

"When Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind, he took captives wherever he went and sent many prisoners, especially women prisoners, to his homeland. Parimal Devi and Suraj Devi, the two daughters of Raja Dahir, who were sent to Hajjaj to adorn the harem of the Caliph, were part of a large bunch of maidens remitted as one-fifth share of the state (Khums) from the booty of war (Ghanaim). The Chachnama gives the details. After the capture of the fort of Rawar, Muhammad bin Qasim “halted there for three day, during which time he masscered 6,000 …men. Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” When the (total) number of prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons (Kalichbeg has sixty thousand), amongst whom thirty were the daughters of the chiefs. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of prisoners were forwarded in charge of the Black Slave Kaab, son of Mubarak Rasti.96 In Sind itself female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives. In the final stages of the conquest of Sind, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”.97 Obviously, a few lakhs of women were enslaved and distributed among the elite and the soldiers."

"Such was the erosion of demography and prosperity that after the capture of Brahmanabad, "all people, the merchants, artisans and agriculturists were divided separately into their respective classes, and (only) ten thousand men, high and low, were counted. Muhammad Qasim then ordered twelve dirhams weight of silver (i.e., twelve silver coins or their equivalent) to be assigned to each man (for rehabilitation), because all their property had been plundered."15 The Brahmans, "the attendants of the temples were likewise in distress. For fear of the (Muslim) army, the alms and bread were not regularly given to them, and therefore they were reduced to poverty."16 From the destruction of Debal to the end of the campaign temples had been broken with the zeal of an iconoclast and their purohits and other dependents had no employment, no income. "It was ordained (by Qasim) that the Brahman should, like beggars, take a copper basin in their hands, go to the doors of the houses, and take whatever grain or other thing that might be offered to them, so that they might not remain unprovided for.""

"There was at Debal a loft temple (budd) surmounted by a long pole, and on the pole was fixed a red flag, which when the high breeze blew was unfurled over the city. The budd is a high steeple, below which the idol or idols are deposited, as in this instance. The Indians give in general the name of budd to anything connected with their worship or which forms the object of their veneration. So an idol is called a budd.... (The Muslims) brought down the flagstaff (with one of their catapult war machines), and it was broken; at which the infidels were sore afflicted. The idolators advanced to the combat, but were put to flight; ladders were then brought and the Musulmans escaladed the wall... The town was thus taken by assault, and the carnage endured for three days. The governor of the town, appointed by Dahir, fled and the priests of the temple were massacred. Muhammad marked a place for the Musalmans to dwell in, built a mosque, and left four thousand Musalmans to garrison the place. Ambissa son of Ishak Az Zabbi, the governor of Sindh, in the Khilafat of Mutasim billah knocked down the upper part of the minaret of the temple and converted it into a prison. At the same time he began to repair the ruined town with the stones of the minaret"

"He then crossed the Biyas, and went towards Multan... Muhammad destroyed the water-course; upon which the inhabitants, oppressed with thirst, surrendered at discretion. He massacred the men capable of bearing arms, but the children were taken captive, as well as the ministers of the temple, to the number of six thousand. The Muslamans found there much gold in a chamber ten cubits long by eight broad, and there was an aperture above, through which the gold was poured into the chamber."

"Muhammad Kasim, ascertaining that large offerings were made to the idol, and wishing to add to his resources by those means, left it uninjured, but in order to show his horror of Indian superstition, he attached a piece of cow's flesh to its neck, by which he was able to gratify his avarice and malignity at the same time."

"[Within two years of the death of Muhammad bin Qasim ], the people of India rebelled, and threw off their yoke, and the country from Debalpur to the salt sea only remained under the dominions of the Khalifa."

"Eight, or some say twenty-six thousand, men were put to the sword."

"Janaki was one of the daughters of King Dahir of Sindh. She was captured along with her sister and sent to the Khalifa at Baghdad. When the Khalifa invited Janaki to share his bed, she lied to him that she had already been violated by Muhammad bin Qasim. Her sister supported her statement. The Khalifa ordered that Muhammad be sewed up in raw hide and sent to his court. Muhammad was already dead when the chest containing him arrived in Baghdad. Janaki accused the Khalifa of having killed one of his great generals without making proper enquiry. She said, 'The king has committed a very grievous mistake, for he ought not, on account of two slave girls, to have destroyed a person who had taken captive a hundred thousand modest women like us,... and who instead of temples had erected mosques, pulpits and minarets."

"Mahommad bin Qasim's first act of religious zeal was forcibly to circumcise the Brahmins of the captured city of Debul ; but on discovering that they objected to this sort of conversion, he proceeded to put all above the age of 17 to death, and to order all others, with women and children, to be led into slavery. The temple of the Hindus was looted, and the rich booty was divided equally among the soldiers, after one-fifth, the legal portion for the government, had been set aside."

"Muhammad b. Qasim declared that he had no orders (i.e., from his superior al-Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq) to spare the inhabitants, and thus for three days a ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter ensued. In the aftermath, the local temple was defiled, and “700 beautiful females who had sought for shelter there, were all captured.” The capture of Raor was accompanied by a similar tragic outcome. Muhammad massacred 6000 fighting men who were found in the fort, and their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoners. Sixty thousand slaves, including 30 young ladies of royal blood, were sent to Hajjaj, along with the head of Dahar [the Hindu ruler]. We can now well understand why the capture of a fort by the Muslim forces was followed by the terrible jauhar ceremony (in which females threw themselves in fire [they] kindled by themselves), the earliest recorded instance of which is found in the Chachnama. As a result, the Chachnama records, “some [Hindus] resolved to live in their native land, but others took flight in order to maintain the faith of their ancestors, and their horses, domestics, and other property.”"

"When Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq, asked the Caliph for permission to send another expedition, the Caliph wrote back: “This affair will be a source of great anxiety and so we must put it off, for every time an army goes, [vast] numbers of Mussalmans are killed. So think no more of such a design.” But Hajjaj was a very tenacious imperialist. He spent the next four years in equipping an army more formidable than any which had so far been sent against Sindh. While sending off his nephew as well as son-in-law, Muhammad bin Qasim, with this army in AD 712, Hajjaj said: “I swear by Allah that I am determined to spend the whole wealth of Iraq, that is in my possession, on this expedition.”"

"In September 1979, on Defence of Pakistan Day, there was a long article in the Pakistan Times on Bin Qasim as a strategist. The assessment was military, neutral, fair to the soldiers of both sides. It drew a rebuke from the chairman of the National Commission on Historical and Cultural Research. “Employment of appropriate phraseology is necessary when one is projecting the image of a hero. Expressions such as ‘invader’ and ‘defenders,’ and ‘the Indian army’ fighting bravely but not being quick enough to ‘fall upon the withdrawing enemy’ loom large in the article. It is further marred by some imbalanced statements such as follows: ‘Had Raja Dahar defended the Indus heroically and stopped Qasim from crossing it, the history of this sub-continent might have been quite different.’ One fails to understand whether the writer is applauding the victory of the hero or lamenting the defeat of his rival?”"

"After his men had scaled the walls of the fort of Debal, the besieged Indians opened the gates and asked for mercy. Muhammad replied that he had no orders to Spare anyone in the town, and so, no quarter was given, and for three days the inhabitants were ruthlessly slaughtered. The local temple was defiled and “700 beautiful females, who had sought for shelter there, were all captured.” The same tragedy was enacted after the capture of Raor. Muhammad massacred 6000 fighting men who were found in the fort, and their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children, were taken prisoners.2 Sixty thousand slaves, including 30 young ladies of royal blood, were sent to Hajjaj together with the head of Dahar. We can now well under- stand why the capture of a fort by the Muslim forces was followed by the terrible jauhar ceremony (in which the females threw them- selves in fire kindled by themselves), the earliest recorded instance of which is found in the Chach-nima."

"From the seventh century onwards and with a peak during Muhammad al-Qasim's campaigns in 712-713 a considerable number of Jats [Hindus] was captured as prisoners of war and deported to Iraq and elsewhere as slaves."

"Utu, I greet you! Let me be ill no longer! Hero, 's son, I greet you! Let me be ill no longer! Utu, you have let me come up into the mountains in the company of my brothers. In the mountain cave, the most dreadful spot on earth, let me be ill no longer! Here where there is no mother, there is no father, there is no acquaintance, no one whom I value, my mother is not here to say "Alas, my child!" My brother is not here to say "Alas, my brother!" … Don't make me flow away like water in a violent death! Don't make me eat saltpetre as if it were barley! Don't make me fall like a throw-stick somewhere in the desert unknown to me! Afflicted with a name which excites my brothers' scorn, let me be ill no longer! Afflicted with the derision of my comrades, let me be ill no longer! Let me not come to an end in the mountains like a weakling!"

"A man should not perish."

"A lost dog is bad; a lost man is terrible."

"King whom one cannot reach in the distant sky! Suen whom one cannot reach in the distant sky! King who loves justice, who hates evil! Suen who loves justice, who hates evil! Justice brings joy justly to your heart."

"Utu, shepherd of the land, father of the black-headed, when you go to sleep, the people go to sleep with you; youth Utu, when you rise, the people rise with you."

"Lugalbanda lies idle in the mountains, in the faraway places; he has ventured into the Zabu mountains. No mother is with him to offer advice, no father is with him to talk to him. No one is with him whom he knows, whom he values, no confidant is there to talk to him. In his heart he speaks to himself: "I shall treat the bird as befits him, I shall treat Anzud as befits him. I shall greet his wife affectionately. I shall seat Anzud's wife and Anzud's child at a banquet. An will fetch Ninguena for me from her mountain home -- the expert woman who redounds to her mother's credit, the expert who redounds to her mother's credit. Her fermenting-vat is of green lapis lazuli, her beer cask is of refined silver and of gold. If she stands by the beer, there is joy, if she sits by the beer, there is gladness; as cupbearer she mixes the beer, never wearying as she walks back and forth, Ninkasi, the keg at her side, on her hips; may she make my beer-serving perfect. When the bird has drunk the beer and is happy, when Anzud has drunk the beer and is happy, he can help me find the place to which the troops of Unug are going, Anzud can put me on the track of my brothers.""

"Let the power of running be in my thighs, let me never grow tired! Let there be strength in my arms, let me stretch my arms wide, let my arms never become weak! Moving like the sunlight, like Inana, like the seven storms, those of Iškur, let me leap like a flame, blaze like lightning! Let me go wherever I look to, set foot wherever I cast my glance, reach wherever my heart desires and let me loosen my shoes in whatever place my heart has named to me! When Utu lets me reach Kulaba my city, let him who curses me have no joy thereof; let him who wishes to strive with me never say "Just let him come!" I shall have the woodcarvers fashion statues of you, and you will be breathtaking to look upon. Your name will be made famous thereby in Sumer and will redound to the credit of the temples of the great gods."

"The king lay down not to sleep, he lay down to dream."

"Lugalbanda is wise and he achieves mighty exploits. In preparation of the sweet celestial cakes he added carefulness to carefulness."

"Anzud flew on high, Lugalbanda walked on the ground. The bird, looking from above, spies the troops. Lugalbanda, looking from below, spies the dust that the troops have stirred up."

"Come now, my Lugalbanda. I shall give you some advice: may my advice be heeded. I shall say words to you: bear them in mind."

"Why will you go alone and keep company with no one on the journey? If our beneficent spirit does not stand by you there, if our good protective deity does not go with you there, you will never again stand with us where we stand, you will never again dwell with us where we dwell, you will never again set your feet on the ground where our feet are. You will not come back from the great mountains, where no one goes alone, whence no one returns to mankind!"

"The Czech people has never had any sensitivity to current affairs. They were always prepared to defend the stale and unviable. In the Middle Ages, they wanted to reform the moribund Western Gothic with the Hussite movement. In the Great War, they lapsed into a primitive Slavophile doctrine and then they began to throw in their lot with morally putrid Western democracy."

"For too long, gentlemen by way of abuses that one can never too strongly accuse of having taken place because of our lack of understanding and ignorance - for a very long time, I say - we have been victims of your greed and your avarice. Under the blows of your barbarous whip we have accumulated for you the treasures you this colony; the human race has suffered to see with what barbarity you have treated men like yourself..."

"Let the sacred flame of liberty that we have won lead all our acts. Let us go forth to plant the tree of liberty, breaking the chains of those of our brothers still held captive under the shameful yoke of slavery. Let us bring them under the compass of our rights, the imperceptible and inalienable rights of free men. [Let us overcome] the barriers that separate nations, and unite the human species into a single brotherhood. We seek only to bring to men the liberty that [God] has given them, and that other men have taken from them only by transgressing His immutable will."

"We are black, it is true, but tell us, gentle men, you who are so judicious, what is the law that says that the black man must belong to and be the property of the white man?"

"For too long we have borne your chains without thinking of shaking them off, but any authority which is not founded on virtue and humanity, and which only tends to subject one's fellow man to slavery, must come to an end, and that end is yours."

"When the people of St-Domingue first tasted the fruit of liberty that they hold from the equity of France; when to the violent upheavals of the revolution that announced it succeeded the pleasures of tranquility; when finally the rule of law took the place of anarchy under which the unfortunate colony had too long suffered, what fatality can have led the greatest enemy of its prosperity and of our happiness still to dare to threaten us with the return of slavery?"

"It is for you, Citizen Directors, to remove from over our heads the storm that the eternal enemies of our liberty are preparing in the shades of silence. It is for you to enlighten the Legislature, it is for you to prevent the enemies of the present system from spreading themselves on our unfortunate shores to sully them with new crimes. Do not allow our brothers, our friends, to be sacrificed to men who wish to reign over the ruins of the human species. But no, your wisdom will enable you to avoid the dangerous snares which our common enemies hold out for you."

"Since the revolution, I have done all that depended upon me to return happiness to my country and to ensure liberty for my fellow citizens. Forced to combat internal and external enemies of the French Republic, I made war with courage, honor and loyalty. I have never strayed from the rules of justice with my enemies as much as was in my power I sought to soften the horrors of war, to spare the blood of men."

"Idleness is the source of all disorders, and if it is at all tolerated, I shall hold the military commanders responsible, persuaded that those who tolerate idleness and vagabonds are secret enemies of the government."

"...We have no other resource than destruction and flame. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest aliment. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the fountains; burn and annihilate everything, in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of hell which they deserve."

"He was one of the leaders. There were others: Boukman, a Jamaican who in 1791 organized a Vodou ceremony where people pledged to fight for liberty or to die. There was Mackandal. And then L’Ouverture, who was on a plantation, who started organizing, and had military training. There were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, “Cut their heads off, burn their houses.” L’Ouverture was taken from Haiti and imprisoned in France, where he died. Wordsworth wrote a poem about him. One of L’Ouverture’s most quoted sayings was, when he was about to be taken off by the French, “You can cut the branches of the tree of liberty, but you can’t destroy the roots because they are too strong and too many.” He was a phenomenal leader, but it’s important to acknowledge the others. Because it’s a problem we have thinking that one person can make a revolution, whether it’s now or in the past."

"Hopefully, these characters bring us closer to a sense of self: honest and honored. Icons: Toussaint Louverture to José Martí to lesser known heroes, Atahualpa and Denmark Vesey. We lace our visions with Celia Cruz and Aretha Franklin."

"I heard news that the hostile Martu have entered inside your territories. [...] They are stronger than me, while I am condemned to sitting around."

"The place there where the boats moor will be under my responsibility."

"If you have not got enough grain, I myself shall have grain brought in to you. My lord has become distressed about the battles in Elam. But the Elamites' grain rations have quickly been exhausted, so do not slacken your forces! Do not fall head first into their slavery, nor follow at their heels!"

"That I should guard for you , and Nibru: let it be my responsibility. My lord should know this!"

"My lord, I am without fear!"

"Urim, your , rivalling heaven and earth, whose great prince you are, [...] which dispenses the divine powers and makes the foundations and the plans firm both in the south and in the uplands, will surely escape from the grasp."

"Elam, a raging dog, a destroyer, will not defile E-kic-nu-jal, the sanctuary which covers heaven and earth. [...] Its protective spirits shall not be split apart!"

"My lord: the loudest roarer."

"May An, Enlil and Enki, who have loved Ibbi-Suen from the womb, look upon him approvingly."

"Your heart should not fret over this. [...] Let your heart be glad over."

"As long as my lord is alive, he will exercise kingship over Urim."

"Before Utu, I will not change my word."

"Say to Icbi-Erra: this is what your lord, Ibbi-Suen, says: As long as Enlil was my lord, what course were you following? And is this how you alter your word? Today Enlil detests me, he detests his son Suen (the principal deity of Urim), and is handing Urim over to the enemy. Its central part is gone, the enemy has risen up, and all the lands are thrown into disarray. But on the day when Enlil turns again towards his son Suen, you and your word will be marked out!"

"How could you allow Puzur-Numucda, the commander of the fortress Igi-hursaja, to let the hostile Martu penetrate into my Land? Until now he has not sent to you word about engaging in battle. There are puny men in the Land! Why has he not faced the Martu?"

"Say to Puzur-Culgi, the governor of : this is what Ibbi-Suen, your lord, says: [...] [A]s in my own case, are not your troops proof of your importance? Why have you sent me somebody saying: "Icbi-Erra has got his eyes upon me -- so let me come to you when he falls upon me"? [...] How come you did not know how long it would take to make Icbi-Erra return to the mountain lands? Why have you and Girbubu, the governor of Jirikal, not confronted him with the troops which you had at hand? Today Enlil loathes and has elevated to the shepherdship of the Land an ape which has descended from those mountain lands. Now Enlil has given kingship to an idiot, a seller of -- to Icbi-Erra, who is not of Sumerian origin."

"See, the assembly where the gods are and Sumer itself have been dispersed! Father Enlil, whose words prevail, said: "Until the enemy has been expelled from Urim, Icbi-Erra, the man from Mari, will tear out Urim's foundations. He will indeed measure out Sumer like grain." He has spoken just so."

"The others will defect to Icbi-Erra, in accordance with Enlil's word. Should you hand over your city to the enemy like your companions, Icbi-Erra will not recognise you as his faithful and agreeable servant? May it now be brought about that good words should be restored and treason extinguished. Let Icbi-Erra participate in the harvest among the people there; but you yourself, do not turn back, and do not come to me! His grasp should not get hold of the city! This man from Mari, with the understanding of a dog, should not exercise lordship!"

"Say to Ibbi-Suen, my lord: this is what Puzur-Culgi, the governor of Kazallu, your servant, says: A messenger of Icbi-Erra came to me. He presented himself before me announcing: "Icbi-Erra, my lord, sends you a message: Enlil, my lord, [...] has told me to bring before Ninisina the cities, deities and troops of the region of the Tigris, Euphrates, Ab-gal and Me-Enlila watercourses, from the province of to the sea of Magan, so as to make Isin the storehouse of Enlil, to make it famous, and to make those regions its spoils of war and to make Isin's citizens occupy their cities. Why do you oppose me? I swear by the name of my lord Enlil and by Dagan, my personal god, that I will indeed get hold of Kazallu! The cities and the province which Enlil has promised me I want to build up within Isin. [...] I want to perform at their ecec festivals. I want to install my statues, my emblems, my en priests and nindijir priestesses in their jipar shrines. And as for you, I want to remove from within his country the man in whom you placed your trust! I want to rebuild the fortification of Isin and name it Idil-pacunu!""

"Just as he said he would, he has rebuilt the fortification of Isin and named it Idil-pacunu. He has captured Nibru and installed his garrison there. Also he has captured Nijdugani, the chief administrator of Nibru. He has imprisoned Zinnum, the governor of Subir. He has plundered Hamazi. He has made Nur-ahi, the governor of Ecnunna, Cu-Enlil, the governor of Kec, and Puzur-Tutu, the governor of Bad-ziaba, return to their posts. At his cry of victory [...] Icbi-Erra is constantly at the head of his soldiers! Just as he said he would, he has captured the regions of the Tigris, Euphrates, the Ab-gal and Me-Enlila watercourses. He has made Iddin enter Malgium. Opposing Girbubu, the governor of Jirikal, he cut off his strap and captured him. His cry of victory lies heavily upon us. Now Icbi-Erra is looking in my direction. I have no ally, nobody with whom I can align myself. Since he has not yet been able to get me in his grasp, let me come to you when he falls upon me. My lord should know this!"

"You have made me so happy with the news and everything. Who could give me a house-born slave such as you are? Who has such a capable man, so beneficial to his lord? [...] From today, you are my son who makes me happy. The cities of the province, the land of the Martu, Elam -- all of them I have placed before you: you are just as important as I am. So sit before them on a throne on a golden dais! [...] Let their messengers prostrate themselves in front of you! [...] Remove a governor -- appoint a governor! Appoint a commander! Designate a captain-general! Certainly you should put a man to death, a man who has killed: blind the man who has killed! Build your house of manhood for an attendant who has been favourably looked upon! Make sure your recompense is great! Now, you should not suddenly alter your word about all that I have been sending to you."

"و وباء #كورونا يجتاح العالم مهددا للبشريةندعو مجلس الأمن والأمين العام للأمم المتحدة انتونيو غوتيرش @antoniojuterres لايقاف القوى المعتدية عن عدوانها على الشعب اليمني وفك الحصار عليه فالوباء ينتشر بكافة أنحاء العالم ويجب أن تنعم شعوب العالم بالسلام وتتمكن من مكافحة الوباء الخطير"

"Do not allow these dissident forces to intimidate or influence you, there will be a curfew at 18:00 in the afternoon to stay at home, if you are seen on the street at that time, you will be considered rebellious and immediately executed"

"I look at the events of the last 10 years with great pride."

"There are conflicts and troubles in many parts of the world, but the places where people have come together for talks and to find political solutions are now much safer and more prosperous,"

"Turkey's goal is to contribute to the formation of a Libya that has ensured its territorial integrity and political unity, and lives in peace, tranquility and stability,"

"Turkey's hydrocarbon-related activities in east Mediterranean are completely based on her legitimate rights and international law. Energy projects in the east Mediterranean that exclude Turkey from the energy equation are doomed to fail. We strongly believe peace and stability in the region can be achieved through dialogue,"

"The Crown is not a symbol of the past, but a unique representation of our Independence, Sovereignty and Unity. The Crown is a reflection of the state and the nation. The Crown has strengthened Romania through Loyalty, Courage, Respect, Seriousness and Modesty. I do not see Romania today as an inheritance from our parents, but as a country that we borrowed from our children. So Help us God! Michael I R’"

"Because tens of millions of people have been destroyed practically, gone through absolute hell, and then suddenly they say, 'Well, it's all finished, let's forget it.' You don't forget it."

"The last 20 years have brought democracy, freedom and a beginning of prosperity."... "The time has come after 20 years to... break for good with the bad habits of the past", such as "demagogy, selfishness and attempts to cling to power"... "It is within our power to make this country prosperous and worthy of admiration."

"What - and leave the country in the hands of a child?"

"Concern about outside pressure was greatly accentuated by the war. For the Soviets, Eastern Europe served not only as an economic resource and an ideological bridgehead, but also as a strategic glacis. The Soviet determination to dominate Eastern Europe was a key cause of tension, both local and international, not least because domination meant the imposition, through force and manipulation, of Communist governments. The Soviets were not satisfied by the nuances of influence. The 1946 Polish elections in which the Communists did well were fraudulent. Force played an important role in the extension of Communist control. For example, King Michael of Romania abdicated on 30 December 1947 after the royal palace in the capital, Bucharest, was surrounded by troops of the Romanian division raised in the Soviet Union."

"Michael is the only person who may be able to pull the country through the coming months and save it from anarchy or communism."

"I would like to pay tribute to his role when, in 1997, he undertook a tour of European capitals to promote Romania's entry into the European Union. Twenty-two years later, his beloved country will, for the first time in the first half of 2019, hold the presidency of the European Union. This will be an important moment for Romania and an important moment for the future of our Union. The memory of King Michael, who went through the most tragic periods of European history of the 20th century, will then be more than ever present in our thoughts..."

"It is amazing that His Majesty King Michael I waited seventy years for the crown to be placed on him. It was very touching to hear the huge crowd chanting loudly ‘monarchy, kingdom…’. His Majesty was a great man who was deeply respected by everyone."

"King Michael I was simply exceptional…his strength, his dignity, his moral fibre..his devotion to his people left a huge mark and inspiration on many generations of Romanians."

"As Churchill and Roosevelt were overselling Yalta to the West, the agreements made there broke down in Eastern Europe during the month after the conference. The Soviets dragged their feet on repatriating prisoners of war. They did not send representatives to London to start up the new Control Commission for Germany. In Romania they forced the king to appoint a new government dominated by communists. In Poland they allowed the communist provisional government to veto candidates for its own “reconstruction” and to exclude Western observers, while potential rivals in Poland were butchered or sent to the camps. Stalin also said that Molotov was too busy to come to San Francisco and that the Soviet delegation to the UN founding conference would be led by Andrei Gromyko, then a midlevel diplomat. This was taken not only as a blatant snub but also as a real threat to the whole structure of postwar cooperation."

"Romania posed a particular challenge for Soviet policies. It, too, had been a German ally, imitating the Nazis by murdering hundreds of thousands of Jews and Roma. It switched sides only in August 1944, when the war was going very badly for Hitler. The Communist Party there was weak and faction-ridden and did not have a key leader such as Dimitrov in Bulgaria. Worse, in Stalin’s view the Romanian party was dominated by “non-Romanians”—basically, Jews and Hungarians—who would not be recognized as “national” leaders. By the end of the war the Red Army had full military control, with a million Soviet soldiers stationed in Romania. But where to turn for effective local leadership? The Soviets decided to install a coalition government, as in Bulgaria, with the Communist Party in control of the ministry of justice and therefore the police. The young Romanian king, Michael, protested. Michael was regarded as a national hero after dismissing the pro-German leadership, but the Soviet emissary Andrei Vyshinskii gave him no choice. “You have two hours and five minutes to make it known to the public that [the government] has been dismissed,” the Soviet deputy foreign minister barked at the king. “By eight o’clock you must inform the public of [the] successor.” In November 1945 the Communist-led coalition won an election through widespread intimidation and fraud. Two years later it forced the king to abdicate. The government announced that a new People’s Republic of Romania was up and running."

"1981 was a year in which we extricated ourselves from political and social chaos and restored stability. As a result, substantive progress was achieved, including a 7 percent economic growth - a reversal of the negative growth of 1980."

"The ultimate goal of our diplomatic policy is to ease tension and secure lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, thus paving a broad avenue for peaceful unification of the people and the country."

"The KAL plane incident made us clearly realize once again the cold-hearted logic of the international society that force wielded by those who believe in force must be met with force."

"The Soviet Union which forcibly occupied the northern half of our land and instigated its communist puppets (in North Korea) to touch off the fratricidal Korean War (of 1950-53) did not stop there but continues to direct its expansionist strategy toward us."

"The North Korean communists have failed to even mention the KAL plane incident while many communist nations have criticized Russia's act of barbarism. This is because the North Korean communists are a group who do not hesitate to commit actions even more barbarous than the Russians."

"It is true that [North] Korea has more arms than we have but they do not have the means to fight against us and the US forces based in my country. President Kim Il-sung knows that he can not attack us and I know it and he knows that I know it."

"Neither the USSR nor China will allow North Korea to attack South Korea. North Korea is not in a position to attack us. If we were to give them three sports now, afterwards they would ask for five sports."

"The problem of the danger of war depends on whether the USSR is inclined to fight against the United States in my region. I can assure you that that country does not want war either."

"Let it be well understood. North Korea was opposed in principle to our Olympic Games; afterwards, they wanted divided Games, then they changed their demands at least two or three times before asking, as you said, for five sports. My question is this : through whom did they ask for it?"

"President Kim Il-sung and his son said that Seoul could not organise the Olympic Games as there is nothing in Seoul but beggars in the streets. It was only propaganda and I know it, but when they realised that these Games could be a success, they became very nervous. They can only get out of this problem with threats. They can do nothing to stop Seoul. Time is passing and, I repeat, you and your organisation are greatly respected and you may be assured that North Korea can not win the battle against the IOC."

"Because social stability and national harmony were being undermined by the recent continuing demonstrations and strife over the constitutional issue, I believe that you, my fellow countrymen, not only experienced serious inconvenience and anxiety but were also worried that catastrophe might befall the nation if that state of affairs continued."

"Fellow citizens, as I have repeatedly emphasized, the key to democratic development in our country lies in establishing a tradition of the president peacefully handing over the reins of government to a successor at the end of his term of office and then retiring with the blessing of the public."

"I have always maintained an unwavering resolve to set such an example to insure that a tradition of peaceful changes of administrations, which is the long cherished goal of the 40-year political history of the republic, will evolve and take hold in this land. In fact, I have always run the affairs of state with that goal in mind."

"However, I clearly recognize the fact that regardless of the possible merits and demerits of a particular system, and irrespective of the preferences of any specific political parties, the general public has an ardent desire to choose the president directly."

"No matter how good a system may be, it is of no use if the people do not want it. I believe that the intrinsic function of politics is to carry out the public will, if only on a probational basis, and to make sure it works well."

"Fellow citizens, we must all realize that both the fruit of the growth that we have achieved thus far and the opportunity at hand to make a big leap forward are too precious to spoil. Not only I, but all citizens, deeply desire to successfully carry out sustained economic development, a peaceful change of administrations, and the '88 Olympics that will be a catalyst for national prosperity."

"At the same time, however, many of my fellow citizens who remember our political past must be worried whether or not a direct presidential election system will function without a major hitch. And yet, I am confident that if you, my fellow citizens, watchfully prod the politicians in the right direction with such an anxious concern, things will really work out all right."

"The legacy of mistrust, antagonism, arbitrary rule and extreme confrontation that persisted over the past four decades must now be committed to the dustbin of history. Let us now take the lead in spurring social development by virtue of mutual concession, compromise, trust and harmony."

"To develop such advanced politics, I solicit my fellow countrymen not only to serve as wise judges in your capacity as mature democratic citizens but also to alertly guard against and sternly condemn undemocratic acts that undermine stability and harmony, as well as dialogue and fair play. Let us work another miracle by developing Korea into a model of political development deserving to be so recorded in world history; we must not be content with having merely become a model of economic development."

"The people strongly demand an end to the authoritarian system. It has become a stark reality that an authoritarian system can no longer maintain national unity, achieve economic development and preserve national security."

"I place the organization ahead of individuals. I think two ordinary men are better than one genius. I always choose teamwork rather than individual efforts."

"The military was the last resort to contain social and political chaos. It would have been very dangerous if the military had faltered . . . . The troops were mobilized to save the nation. We did not intend to take power. It is not proper at all to link the incident with a coup."

"I did not desire to become a politician or a presidential candidate. I think it is my fate, shaped by the conditions of an era."

"One of the most moving experiences for me was to see realized the people’s desire to elect the president with their own hands and to see the release of politicians and others who were imprisoned because of their conviction."

"I emphasized that authoritarianism . . . should be removed and that we should renovate both the system and the way of thinking that then prevailed. In my inaugural speech, I asked political leaders and government officials not to turn me into a Don Quixote. I emphasized the need for a completely fresh way of thinking . . . . Although the authority of the president should be preserved, authoritarianism should be eliminated."

"As the nation transforms itself into a democracy, the public expects and demands more than ever that politicians and political parties work harder in the best interest of the country, the people and society. Our politicians, however, have given the impression that, on the contrary, they are engrossed in self-serving maneuvers to advance the interests of only their parties, factions or themselves, personally. The process of liquidating such negative political legacies of the old era has progressed more slowly than the people expected."

"I am aware of the recent discussions about creating a nuclear-free zone in the Korean peninsula. But, in my view, it is meaningless to talk about declaring a nuclear-free zone in Korea alone. For the Korean peninsula to be protected against a nuclear threat, the neighboring countries of China and the Soviet Union must be free of nuclear weapons. To exclude this factor and talk only about U.S. nuclear weapons in (South) Korea--and I am not aware of whether they exist here--is not logical. The three countries that possess nuclear weapons (in this region) should get together and discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons. That, I think, is more logical."

"North Korea’s recent decision to go along with South Korea in joining the United Nations separately means a change in North Korea’s policy toward the South remains to be seen. In these circumstances, I believe that South Korea and the United States must continue to maintain their solid cooperative relationship."

"You can take my freedom, even my life, but not my thought, not my truth, not my contribution to the history of the people to which I belong."

"In this difficult moment and at a historical turning point, I call on you, brothers and sisters, to fulfill your sacred duty in defending the homeland. Let us be united in the fight for the freedom of our Croatian country, our sea and sky over our only and eternal Croatia."

"In carrying out our duties we need to always keep in mind the fact that in almost fourteen centuries of written history about Croats there has never been in any other institution of Croatian national life such outstanding declaration for survival, independence and self-determination as in the continued perpetuity and performance of the Croatian parliament."

"It is not only others who are to blame for all our evils. Nor will in any circumstances only others shape our destiny. And for the present situation we all bear part of the responsibility in our own way. And especially for the future: our personal, our vocation and our people."

"We live in an exciting and turbulent time. In a time that is filled with many openly present threats and insidious dangers. Many contemporaries were, and some still are, possessed by the nightmare of all kinds of hazards preying upon us along all our roads towards democracy and national sovereignty. Instead of tragic faintheartedness and passive feeling of impasse, I have personally always been more inclined to discovery and noticing those big chances that hid in that dramatic time and in the breaking point of a historical period. The history has already given us the answer, which says that we were in the right when we did not want to reconcile with the prospect of continuing as an object of foreign politics and when we consciously took the risk in becoming the recognized subject and creator of our own destiny."

"The creation of our independent State was the outcome of the indestructible moral strength of the Croatian people, based on a firm national awareness that has burned for centuries as an eternal fire in our hearts. A nation may have existed from time immemorial, but if it lacks the moral strength and an awareness of its unique individual being, of its nationhood and statehood, it will disappear from the stage of world history. The Croatian people yearned for their State and rallied to achieve it."

"The fall of Soviet and other European Communist and totalitarian systems has reinforced hope and provided the prerequisites for the comprehensive democratization of the world while simultaneously raising the question of what kind of multilateralism is required and possible in the contemporary world."

"Despite the inalienable right of the Croatian people -one of the oldest European peoples - to self-determination and to the renewal of their own State, despite the blatant barbaric aggression aimed at territorial conquest, the genocidal expulsion of the population and the destruction of the most precious cultural heritage of the Croatian people, such as Vukovar and Dubrovnik, the Croats would never have won the right to self-determination, to their State, to freedom and independence, had they not been prepared to make human and material sacrifices, had they not shown a firm nation-building will, with which they have resolutely asserted themselves as a member of the international community, while manifesting their readiness to be a constructive force in the development of the new international order to replace the unviable and failed old system."

"But today it is Croatian Knin and never again it will go back to what was before, when they spread cancer which has been destroying Croatian national being in the middle of Croatia and didn’t allow Croatian people to be truly alone on it’s [sic] own, that Croatia becomes capable of being independent and sovereign state...They were gone in a few days as if they had never been here, as I said. They did not even have time to collect their rotten money and dirty underwear."

"Between healthy nationalism and chauvinism, he chose chauvinism; between free-market economy and clientelism, he chose the latter. Instead of the cult of freedom, he chose the cult of the state. Between modernity and openness to the world, he chose traditionalism; a fatal choice for a small state like Croatia that needs to open for the sake of development."

"Unlike Milosevic, who was guided by the desire for power, Tuđman was possessed by Croatian nationalism. His devotion to Croatia was of the most primitive type, and he never showed understanding or interest in democratic values."

"It is easy to challenge such views of the past but not to shake the faith of those who wish to believe in them. In the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1980s and 1990s, the old historical myths came to the forefront again. Yet again, the Serbs were fighting on alone in a hostile world. In 1986, a memorandum from the Serbian Academy of Sciences warned that all the gains the Serbs had made since they first rebelled against the Ottomans in 1804 were going to be lost. Croats were terrorizing the Serbs in Croatia, and Albanians were forcing Serbs to flee the province of Kosovo. In 1989, Slobodan Milošević went to Kosovo on the six-hundredth anniversary of the battle and declared, “The Kosovo heroism does not allow us to forget that, at one time, we were brave and dignified and one of the few who went into battle undefeated.” At the same time, in Croatia, nationalists were looking back into their past to argue that a greater Croatia, incorporating hundreds of thousands of Serbs, was historically necessary. History did not destroy Yugoslavia or lead to the horrors that accompanied that destruction, but its skillful manipulation by men such as Milošević and, in Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, helped to mobilize their followers and intimidate the uncommitted."

"Tuđman is a nationalist leader who made some very bad mistakes early in his presidency toward Croatia's Serbian minority. He also advocated a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. He has given at least passive support to Croatian military forces in Bosnia. That said, he is a man who has learned from his mistakes."

"I invite everyone here and all Thai people to share my determination and work together, each according to his status and duty, with the nation’s prosperity and the people’s happiness as the ultimate goals."

"I shall maintain my loyalty to the country and honesty to the people. I will perform my duties to the best of my abilities with dedication, for the prosperity, peace and lasting security of the Thai kingdom, till the day I die."

"Thais are patriotic. They love the Kingdom. It is our national characteristic. Thai people are as knowledgeable and capable as citizens of any countries. That is why it should be trusted that if we put our heads and join our hands together we should certainly be able to tackle obstacles, problems or any incident of irregularities in our country."

"I and the queen are pleased and delighted to see the people having goodwill. Your unity in showing your goodwill is a good sign for everyone to do good things for the prosperity of the nation."

"There are many ways to work, it’s important to have dedication and resolve to serve the people, the country and the highest institutions of the nation. The people want to be happy. The people want to have confidence and security, and they are willing to walk in the right direction. Therefore, the cabinet has a duty to steer, safeguard and protect our nation."

"I want the unity shown here with this goodwill to be an encouraging sign for everybody, all sides to perform their duties for the prosperity of our country."

"Knowledge, understanding and cooperation will lead the country to happiness, security and progress."

"(It is) the Russian world we are fighting for, and in this sense, each of us is Russian."

"Tt is unimaginable how much the peoples of the region pay for the failure of a strong, efficient and integrated Maghreb union."

"The personalisation of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man (Alpha Condé). We will entrust it to the people (of Guinea)."

"We are not going to involve ourselves militarily, this is a political dispute. I am not going to involve my soldiers in a stupid fight. I love my men."

"Despite conflicts and challenges that have occurred in different parts of the world, in general, peace, security and development cooperation among all nations remain the prevailing trend of this era. This is the important achievement of the United Nations in fulfilling its mandate as stipulated in the Charter. .. Nevertheless, the international environment continues to undergo numerous challenges such as armed conflicts, terrorism, poverty and hunger, infectious diseases, climate change and natural disasters which have posed major threats to peace and development. Therefore, I am of the view that we must enhance our political will, mutual assistance and cooperation under the banner of the United Nations in order to collectively address the said challenges facing us. .. Today, conflicts have often occurred in many regions of the world such as in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe, which have caused major concerns for the international community. Therefore, it is important to find solutions and restore peace and development to those regions. .. In the era of interdependence, cooperation and engagement are the key factors for peaceful co-existence and mutual benefit. The Lao PDR, therefore, welcomes the recent re-establishment of the diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba, which has opened a new chapter in the history of relations between the two countries, that had been stalled for many decades. .. Climate change and severe natural disasters, which have occurred more frequently, have caused huge impact on the development of countries, especially developing countries, including the least developed countries that are most vulnerable due to their limited infrastructure, insufficient technology, financial and human resources to respond to and address those phenomena. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the international community to help these vulnerable countries, through, among other things, building their long-term capacity to tackle such challenges. .. The Lao PDR attaches great importance to promoting and protecting human rights and has become state party to seven of the main international human rights instruments."

"I pardon your offence against me. Pray that God also may pardon you."

"We have good hopes that God will grant us to restore the authority over the remaining countries which the ancient Romans possessed to the limit of both oceans and lost by subsequent neglect."

"Procopius wrote, "Now such was Justinian in appearance; but his character was something I could not fully describe. For he was at once villainous and amenable; as people say colloquially, a moron. He was never truthful with anyone, but always guileful in what he said and did, yet easily hoodwinked by any who wanted to deceive him. His nature was an unnatural mixture of folly and wickedness. What in olden times a peripatetic philosopher said was also true of him, that opposite qualities combine in a man as in the mixing of colors. I will try to portray him, however, insofar as I can fathom his complexity."

"Certainly in architectural brilliance and innovation alone his age deserves to be rated as a great one. Haghía Sophia, one of the greatest achievements of Christian, or human, architecture, and the Corpus juris civilis, a supreme landmark of Roman, and European, Law, stand forth as Justinian's most enviable monuments. What ruler could hope to leave finer ones?"

"Justinian was the last of the great Roman Emperors. He reunited the Mediterranean world, issued a code that remained the basis of law for a thousand years and patronized magnificent works of art and architecture. At the same time, he was a revolutionary who wanted to transform society and who tolerated no deviation. His powerful wife, Theodora, mitigated some of his policies but made others more vicious, crushing anyone who might stand in the way of the imperial couple. Although Justinian's Empire did not last, his laws and buildings formed an enduring heritage."

"Justinian had many detractors – for he did not care whom he trampled over as he attempted to rebuild his empire in the aftermath of the barbarian conquests. The writer Procopius called him a demon in disguise, who had the blood of one thousand billion men on his hands; who ‘cheerfully banished wealth from Roman soil and became the architect of poverty for all.’ Yet for others, particularly those who did not have to deal with him at first hand, Justinian was a totemic emperor who deserved mention in the same breath as Augustus and Constantine."

"Justinian is said to have restored one hundred and fifty cities in Africa, some of which had been altogether, and others extensively ruined; and this he did with surpassing magnificence, in private and public works and embellishments, in fortifications, and other vast structures by which cities are adorned and the Deity propitiated: also in aqueducts for use and ornament, the supply of water having been in some cases conveyed to the cities for the first time, in others restored to its former state."

"I always wondered how it would be to be in the sky like a bird, flying that huge machine."

"At the time, as a girl in my community, the best you could do was be a nurse or a teacher. There was little inspiration to be a pilot. I had to rely on my own research and the little career guidance to learn more about aviation."

"I realized that teaching was not my passion"

"But even then, I did not get the blessing of my parents"

"There were times I felt like throwing in the towel but, I liked the idea of serving my country, and at the back of my mind, I also wanted to see myself in the cockpit of a military plane"

"It is such grassroots programs that are helping young people to develop an interest in aviation and engineering. Botswana is one of the few countries in which Airbus Foundation has launched the famed Little Engineers Discovery program"

"To date, we have flown close to 400 students in partnership with Air Botswana and the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana"

"This initiative will train 30 youth aged between 18 and 35 years for three months and equip them with the latest skills in CV writing, social media and digital branding, and business planning, among others"

"I have fulfilled my dreams. I hope to inspire young women to be fearless in pursuing what sets their souls on fire. I want to teach them to be brave enough to explore uncharted territory and make strides in male-dominated industries"

"When I was growing up, I never had the chance to sit like this with a pilot or get into an airplane until I had the chance to fly one. After I qualified as a pilot, I sat down and thought: ‘What can I do to give the upcoming generation, especially those who grew up in a village, like me, an opportunity to do that?’"

"I started Dare to Dream to give back to the community and to try and open up their eyes to opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to"

"We just need to channel the youth in the right direction to take advantage of the technological era, and prepare them for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the businesses of tomorrow, which will be definitely different from the businesses of today,” she says."

"In other African countries such as Rwanda, you’ll find that coding and robotics are part of the curriculum"

"This time around I knew nobody was going to stand on my way, now I was going to follow my dreams. My mother cried. I told her “No mother, this is my dream, this what I want; this is what resonates in my hear"

"When I was growing up as a dusty little village girl, I never had the chance to sit down with a pilot nor see the inside of a flying machine until I had the opportunity to fly it"

"Therefore, seven years ago I started Dare to Dream, to give the upcoming generation a chance I never had!"

"The positive evolution which marked international relations in recent months and which gave rise to rightful feelings of hope within people who love peace, freedom, and justice will only be fruitful if appropriate remedies are found for the serious development problems facing Third World countries in general and Africa in particular."

"I would like to take this solemn opportunity to once again appeal to the friendly nations of Africa, such as the United States, so that, like the aid granted to the Eastern countries, they set up a real Marshall plan in favor of the African Continent. Just as in the past, I'm quite sure that Togo can rely on your country, to which it is bound by links of friendship and cooperation covering not only agricultural, social, and political sectors but cultural ones as well."

"I, therefore, wish to invite American investors to come in numbers and settle in Togo where, within the framework of that industrial-free zone, they could enjoy a climate of peace, security, and freedom, a necessary condition for the development of their businesses, including the best attracting conditions of investments."

"Our country has a strong belief in the future of the close cooperation which links our two nations, and there is no doubt on my mind that this official visit will further consolidate the friendship and the solidarity which bind the people of both nations and strengthen our thoughtful and sincere relations in any field."

"The institution we have created for ourselves has stood the test of time, despite the storms and hurricanes that it has had to brave. It has held firm because its foundations are solid, but this does not mean that it does not need to be revitalized. It is in this context that I would like to mention two important areas whose image I think the United Nations should transform: on the one hand, peacekeeping, and, on the other, development."

"In the area of development, it is clear that multinational and transnational corporations play a crucial role today in world economic affairs."

"Yet despite the progress our continent has made over the past 40 years, Africa continues to be weakened by the ills of underdevelopment. Today, 33 of the world's 48 least developed countries are African countries. In other words, three fifths of the States of our continent belong to that group of countries that are lagging behind in the pursuit of development."

"As the world's least developed region, Africa suffers from a number of specific ills which hamper its growth and for which it is important that the international community help provide a substantial, effective remedy."

"The African debt problem was also of concern to the OAU Heads of State and Government at the Lomé summit. At a session more than 12 years ago, the African countries adopted a common position on the African foreign debt crisis. Unfortunately, our continent continues to be the region of the world where the debt burden is heaviest. As the General Assembly noted last year in resolution 54/202, "the continuing debt and debt-servicing problems of heavily indebted developing countries", are one of the factors that hinder their development and economic growth. This finding should motivate the international community, especially the developed countries and international financial institutions, to take more courageous measures, such as the outright cancellation of the African countries' debt. Such a decision would greatly contribute to the success of the efforts of our countries, which have committed themselves to implementing sustained programmes to eradicate poverty."

"At a more global level, we note that major transnational companies, which play a crucial role in the world economy, are remarkably absent from United Nations economic forums. As in the International Labour Organization (ILO), where representatives of Governments, employers and employees work together, it is desirable that in the Economic and Social Council representatives of Governments should sit side by side with those of multinational companies. That would enhance the effectiveness and impact of this important United Nations body. The international community, for its part, should prove, by decisive action, that it truly wishes to put an end to the suffering of the poorest peoples, the largest proportion of whom, unfortunately, are in Africa."

"It is well known that our continent is not afflicted solely by the economic underdevelopment that puts it in last place in terms of the quality of life. It is also a region of the world where numerous lethal conflicts continue to sow death and desolation."

"We must recognize very sadly, however, that, by comparison to other regions of the world that have also experienced bloody conflicts, the attention that our continent receives from the international community is somewhat meagre."

"Despite its imperfections and shortcomings, I think that the United Nations is irreplaceable, but we must do everything possible to enhance its impact and influence."

"In conclusion, I would like to underscore that the African continent, despite its difficulties, continues to be a region of great potential wealth; however, its resources have inadequately been inventoried, developed and exploited. We must not despair and think that Africa will not overcome these difficulties. We are resolved to do everything within our power to improve the political, economic and social situation of our continent."

"We simply need the benevolent assistance of all those who are today richer and are prepared to join us to bolster our efforts."

"Democracy in Africa moves on at its own pace and in its own way."

"Famous for his lavish gifts to visitors and his obliviousness to calls for human rights, Eyadema helped institutionalise the image of the African despot in dark glasses who named the streets of Togo's capital, Lomé, after red-letter dates in his life."

"On reaching Dãwar, he surrounded the enemy in the mountain of Zûr, where there was a famous Hindu temple."

"…Their idol of Zûr was of gold, and its eyes were two rubies. The zealous Musalmãns cut off its hands and plucked out its eyes, and then remarked to the Marzabãn how powerless was his idol to do either good or evil…"

"Other authorities say that Kutaibah granted peace for 700,000 dirhams and entertainment for the Moslems for three days. The terms of surrender included also the houses of the idols and the fire temples. The idols were thrown out, plundered of their ornaments and burned, although the Persians used to say that among them was an idol with which whoever trifled would perish. But when Kutaibah set fire to it with his own hand, many of them accepted Islãm."

"“The ultimate capture of Beykund (in AD 706) rewarded him with an incalculable booty; even more than had hitherto fallen into the hands of the Mahommedans by the conquest of the entire province of Khorassaun; and the unfortunate merchants of the town, having been absent on a trading excursion while their country was assailed by the enemy, and finding their habitations desolate on their return contributed further to enrich the invaders, by the ransom which they paid for the recovery of their wives and children. The ornaments alone, of which these women had been plundered, being melted down, produced, in gold, one hundred and fifty thousand meskals; of a dram and a half each. Among the articles of the booty, is also described an image of gold, of fifty thousand meskals, of which the eyes were two pearls, the exquisite beauty and magnitude of which excited the surprise and admiration of Kateibah. They were transmitted by him, with a fifth of the spoil to Hejauje, together with a request that he might be permitted to distribute, to the troops, the arms which had been found in the place in great profusion.”"

"“A breach was, however, at last effected in the walls of the city in AD 712 by the warlike machines of Kateibah; and some of the most daring of its defenders having fallen by the skill of his archers, the besieged demanded a cessation of arms to the following day, when they promised to capitulate. The request was acceded to by Kateibah; and a treaty was the next day accordingly concluded between him and the prince of Samarkand, by which the latter engaged for the annual payment of ten millions of dirhems, and a supply of three thousand slaves; of whom it was particularly stipulated, that none should either be in a state of infancy, or ineffective from old age and debility. He further contracted that the ministers of his religion should be expelled from their temples and their idols destroyed and burnt; that Kateibah should be allowed to establish a mosque in the place of the principal temple, in which, to discharge the duties of his faith… To all this, Ghurek, with whatever reluctance, was compelled to subscribe, and he proceeded accordingly to prepare for the reception of Kateibah; who at the period agreed upon, entered Samarkand with a retinue of four hundred persons, selected from his own relatives, and the principal commanders of his army. He was met by Ghurek, with a respect bordering on adoration, and conducted to the gate of the principal temple, which he immediately entered; and after performing two rekkauts of the ritual of his faith, directed the images of pagan worship to be brought before him, for the purpose of being committed to the flames. From this some of the Turks or Tartars of Samarkand, endeavouring to dissuade him, by a declaration, that among the images, there was one, which if any person ventured to consume, that person should certainly perish; Kateibah informed them, that he should not shrink from the experiment, and accordingly set fire to the whole collection with his own hands; it was soon consumed to ashes, and fifty thousand meskals of gold and silver, collected from the nails which has been used in the workmanship of the images.”"

"[To Mudli during Sigujana's Coronation] Does my presence frighten you, Elder? Or is it your guilt that prevents your allegiance"

"[Shaka to the Fasimba regiment] Our strategy is ludicrous, in fact we go on our way to make ourselves known. We toss away our weapon hoping that the enemy will be courteous enough to return it back to us."

"[The nameless one to Shaka] As you possess this blade, so it will possess you"

"[Ngomane to General Bhuza]There's always been a fine line between soldiering and killing general, many would say soldiers are killers"

"Our homeland is confidently developing along the path of building the material and technological foundation of socialism. Our economy is steadily growing, year by year. The aggregate social product, generated national income and social labor productivity growth figures for 1981 exceed the average annual growth figures for the preceding five years. The working people of our country, engaging in socialist competition in honor of the historic anniversaries of the party and people's revolution, have achieved concrete results in meeting the plan targets of the first year of the 7th Five-Year Plan. Our rural working people produced 9.1 million head of young livestock, which is 7 percent more than the figure for 1980."

"All our organizations should devote special attention to ensuring uninterrupted growth and development of agricultural production, normal growth in livestock herds and productivity, and increased farm crop yields. To achieve this we must work with a will to improve style, forms and methods of guiding the development of agricultural production on the part of party, government and agricultural agencies. One should intelligently utilize in this area party and government measures aimed at encouraging agricultural production. We know that since 1971 procurement prices on principal livestock products have been increased five times, in amounts from 5 to 230 percent."

"Our principal shortcoming is poor organization of party and government Verification. We must seek to ensure that each and every worker develops a reflex of an implacable attitude toward all negative elements which impede our forward movement. We must ensure that well organized verification becomes a continuously operating positive stimulus and companion in the work of party, government and public organizations at all levels. Monitoring and verification of execution is an indissoluble, unique component part and the heart of organizational work, the right hand of party, government and public organizations in performance of their principal functions. Well-organized monitoring and verification of execution should be utilized as a powerful means of day-by-day correction of discovered shortcomings and assurance of unity of word and deed. In order to achieve the stated goals the directives, decrees and tasks of our organizations should always be specific in indicating the person responsible for executing the goals and the timetable for their completion."

"Continuously improving the oversight mechanism, the party sets for itself the goal of ensuring a high degree of efficiency, organization and follow-through by cadres. Proceeding from this, it is Our obligation to develop in a systematic manner follow-through discipline in each and every official of party, government and public organizations, by steadily increasing demandingness and by better organization of political indoctrination work among labor forces."

"Every individual should constantly bear in mind that the absence of or poorly organized oversight as well as a low degree of demandingness on oneself and others lead to the appearance and growth of weeds in our ranks. Weeds are the worst enemy of a good harvest. It is our sacred task promptly to pull out by the roots weeds of all types and varieties. Each and every member of the socialist society is obligated strictly to evaluate his activities and conformity between the level of his knowledge and abilities with today's demands, and constantly to expand his horizons of knowledgeability, bearing in mind that history is not standing still, that every day there is an increase in the pace of scientific and technological advance, work forms and methods are enriched, and the know-how and abilities of leading labor performers become improved. Working systematically to increase demandingness on ourselves and others, we should always ensure an implacable attitude toward violations of party, state and labor discipline and eliminate cases of failure to carry out party and government decisions and to observe the laws of the state."

"The primary task of party, governmental, public, economic, and cultural organizations is to ensure the most painstaking and attentive approach to worker letters and complaints, bearing in mind the fact that there are major shortcomings in this work both at the central level and in the localities."

"As we know, through the fault of the most aggressive imperialist circles, particularly U.S. imperialism and hegemonist forces working together with them, the world situation remains tense. The Reagan Administration and NATO ruling circles are launching furious attacks against the process of détente, against present world international political realities, especially in the 1970's. They are vainly attempting to turn to their advantage the advance of world events, to weaken and drive back the forces of peace and socialism, and to crush the struggle of peoples for national and social liberation. The present U.S. administration is implementing a new global strategy, aimed at gaining U.S. domination in world affairs. Attempting to achieve military superiority over the Soviet Union, U.S. imperialist circles are escalating the arms race and increasing the production of new weapons of mass destruction. Washington strategists are persistently seeking to expand the realm of activities of the aggressive NATO bloc, are hastily putting together military-political alliances in various parts of the world, and are establishing so-called "rapid deployment forces" with the aim of direct interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations and crushing the national liberation movement of peoples."

"Our party has always attached and continues to attach primary importance to strengthening the unity and solidarity of the socialist countries, their close interaction and coordination of foreign policy efforts. The necessity of strengthening the unity of the brother parties, countries and peoples is more urgent than ever before, because international imperialism is today waging a frontal attack against world socialism, making every effort to undermine it from within. This is evidenced in particular by intrigues on the part of the imperialists and hegemonists in regard to People's Poland and socialist Cuba, as well as the brother countries of Indochina. They do not hide their plans to weaken Poland, to detach it from the harmonious family of the socialist community, thus undermining its unified might. Everybody knows what serious consequences would result ^rom disruption of the correlation of military-political forces established on the European continent and throughout the world."

"We should note that imperialist circles, together with the Chinese hegemonists, are stepping up their hostile actions and intrigues against the cause of peace, freedom, independence and social progress of the peoples of Asia. There is being formed what is virtually an aggressive military-political tripartite alliance between the United States, China, and Japan, the cutting edge of which is directed primarily against the Soviet Union and the other Asian socialist countries. The Reagan Administration's decision to sell modern offensive weapons to China, as well as the intensifying remilitarization of Japan are fraught with a serious threat not only to their neighbors but also to world security."

"Southeast Asia remains a region of intensive struggle by peoples for the right to determine their destiny independently. Shots continue to be fired from the Chinese side of the border between Vietnam and China. Through their accomplices in this region, Beijing and Washington are stubbornly attempting to restore the old order in Laos and Kampuchea and to push their peoples off the path they have chosen. In spite of various obstacles put up by hostile forces, however, the peoples of Indochina are striding confidently along the road of progress and strengthening of national independence."

"The forces of peace and progress are capable of pushing back and eliminating the threat of another world war. Today the struggle of peoples and all progressive forces throughout the world to avert the threat of war is assuming an unprecedented scale and depth. Millions of people of the most diverse orientation, belonging to various political, public, religious and other organizations, are taking part in this campaign. The peoples of Europe and people of good will throughout the world are becoming increasingly more deeply aware of their direct responsibility for resolving the most critical problem of the present day — holding nuclear war in check and defending the peace."

"Comrades! The current upsurge in aggressiveness on the part of the most reactionary imperialist circles is due primarily to a radical change in the correlation of sociopolitical forces in the world arena and the progressive loss by monopoly capital of its international position. It is connected with further weakening of the foundations of world imperialism as a consequence of the deepening crisis phenomena in its citadel and reflects its attempts to overcome them by means of external political adventures and to dump all the consequences on the shoulders of peoples."

"The formation of the USSR was an event second in importance only to the October Revolution, ...It was of importance to world history, and it was the direct offspring of that revolution. As is well known, the Great October sounded the summons for all nations that were under the oppression of the tsarist autocracy to take part in the active struggle. After winning a historic victory over the exploiters, the peoples of the former Russian empire united, in accordance with voluntary principles, into a single multinational socialist state, that was created on principles of genuine equality and brotherhood."

"The entire post-October history of the development of mankind is the history of the unbelievably difficult, but victorious procession of socialism. In the struggle against imperialism and every other form of reaction, the peoples of the earth constantly derived, and continue to derive, inspiration from the example of the Great October and its homeland, the Soviet Union, which marched, and continues to march, in the vanguard of that struggle. The active peace-loving policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, a policy based on principles of the friendship and mutual understanding of nations, of equal cooperation and the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, is a decisive factor that guarantees lasting peace and the security of nations. Continuing the traditions that were laid down by the great Lenin, the Soviet state is fighting actively to bridle the arms race and to take effective steps in the area of disarmament so as to preclude once and for all from the life of mankind the threat of a nuclear catastrophe."

"Confronted by the increase in the aggressive strivings on the part of American imperialism, directed against the socialist community and the peaceful life of the peoples of various continents, the Soviet Union and the other countries of socialism were forced to take steps to reinforce their defensive might, as the chief means of bridling the imperialistic forces of aggression. This finds the understanding and support of all the peace-loving forces. The Soviet Union and its Armed Forces have repeatedly proven their adherence to the cause of peace and their faithfulness to their pledges to serve as allies of their friends. We view the concern shown by the Soviet leadership for the Soviet Armed Forces to be noble efforts for preserving the peace and guaranteeing the peaceful life of the peoples of all the continents. Everyone who treasures peace and calm on the earth looks hopefully and trustingly toward the Soviet Union, justly seeing in the first state of workers and peasants a might defender and an invincible bulwark of peace on our planet. And so today, on the eve of the glorious anniversary of the Great October, it is especially gratifying for us to note that the Soviet Union, undeviatingly following the behests of the great Lenin, holds high the banner of peace and progress, under which newer and newer nations from various continents on the earth are consolidating themselves."

"For more than 60 years the Mongolian nation has traveled along the path of freedom and happiness that was laid by the Great October. During all these years we sensed, and continue to sense, the steadily/increasing, noble support of the Soviet citizens, their selfless, varied, fraternal assistance in our laborious forward movement from the backward feudal past to modern economic and social achievements. The entire experience of the construction of socialism in Mongolia, bypassing capitalism, is the most brilliant confirmation of the viability and rightness of Leninist theory, the real embodiment of which began with the victory of the Great October."

"The history of human development has witnessed great progress. Human intelligence has transformed the world, making human life better, more developed and more perfect in all aspects. However, it is also humans who are also the cause of difficulties and challenges that the humanity is facing. Specifically, it is the cause of climate change, epidemics, resource depletion or the creation of weapons of mass destruction, etc. Right now, the choices we make will shape our future."

"Scientific and technological achievements must serve social progress, focus on humanity, liberate and develop humanity in a comprehensive manner, constantly improve life, for the benefits and happiness of humanity and for future generations."

"Scientific and technological achievements should be to promote cooperation, instead of being tools against nations, going against the aspirations for peace, development, equality and justice of nations."

"We will relentlessly strive to ensure that the people fully enjoy development achievements and future generations are well prepared for their paths ahead."

"Culture is a special product of the people and the nation. Preserving and promoting the strength of culture is an area that any country must pay attention to because this task is closely linked to social development, enriching the spiritual life of the people and the effective operation of the state."

"In the process of building and developing the country, spreading throughout the lifeblood of the Fatherland like blood cells, the team of artists continues to sacrifice and endure hardships to reflect and affirm the colorful vitality in all regions and professions, creating works imbued with cultural and humanistic values, adding vitality to aesthetics and art, creating spiritual resources for the country on the path to prosperity and beauty, especially the beauty of the Vietnamese soul."

"Besides the achievements, frankly admit that compared to the period of resistance war and national construction, literary and artistic activities in the period of national renovation are somewhat stagnant, lacking enthusiasm; lacking works with high artistic generalization, with the ability to appeal, move, encourage, and motivate the entire people and army to join hands, unite, and be determined to implement the strategic policies of the Party and State. The literary and artistic foundation has not yet vividly and fully reflected the reality of the renovation and international integration, traditional cultural values ​​have been lost; confused, passive, not proactively absorbing the quintessence of human culture, not promptly preventing the "poisonous wind" of foreign culture from invading national culture."

"Many products follow the trend of petty and temporary entertainment; some incite low instincts; some eagerly embrace foreign artistic views that are unselective, far from the function of truth, goodness, and beauty; has not fulfilled its noble mission as a torch of humanity, a torch of wisdom and culture to illuminate, guide and create healthy and progressive values ​​and lifestyles. Some artists are still passive, lacking in aspiration, not committed, even degenerate in political ideology, have distorted thinking, follow trivial tastes, follow immediate personal interests, fall into depravity, violate the law. The artistic environment sometimes and in some places has not really created a source of inspiration, contributing to arousing the aspirations and passion of artists. In the creation, performance and dissemination of literary and artistic works, there are still many works and activities that have not demonstrated progress and national identity."

"From a land without a name on the world map, from a war-torn country, Viet Nam has risen to become a symbol of peace, stability, hospitality, and a destination for international investors and tourists."

"In the context of global landscape with both opportunities and challenges, Viet Nam, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Viet Nam will certainly enter the a new era, an era of rising up, constantly striving, making greater contributions to maintaining peace, stability and development in the region and the world by promoting the spirit of self-reliance, self-confidence, and national pride, taking the great national solidarity and pure international solidarity as the driving force, strongly mobilizing the people's strength, closely linking the Party's will with the people's hearts as the foundation."

"We firmly believe that, together, we will overcome all challenges, seize opportunities to join hands to build a world of peace and sustainable development, and shape a fair international political and and economic order based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and international law."

"After nearly 80 years of national founding and nearly 40 years of Renovation, under the comprehensive leadership of the Communist Party, Vietnam is standing at a new historical starting point, a new era - the era of the Vietnamese people's rise. The great and historically significant achievements of the Renovation process are the premise for the Vietnamese people to believe in the future ahead."

"The great achievements we have made originate from the right path that Vietnam has chosen under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, with the efforts and determination of the entire nation. Overcoming many difficulties and challenges, from a country of slavery, devastated by war, Vietnam has regained independence and today has affirmed its position as a dynamically developing economy."

"We are living in a rapidly changing world. But for Vietnam, one thing remains unchanged: Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, we continue to consistently implement a foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralization, diversification, being a friend, a reliable partner, and an active, responsible member of the international community."

"In the coming time, the world and regional situation will continue to have many complex and unpredictable changes, opportunities and challenges will continue to intertwine. The good news is that peace, cooperation and development are still the major trend, the common aspiration of all peoples."

"Looking back at the journey that the Vietnamese people have gone through, more than ever, we are confident, steadfast and moving forward. In the new era, the era of the Vietnamese people's rise under the leadership of the Communist Party, we will do our best to realize that aspiration of the nation. On the journey towards the future, Vietnam will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with international friends and partners, sharing the same vision, coordinating actions, for the best goals for all of humanity."

"National independence and the peoples' sovereignty are basic principles to which we fully adhere. We maintain and at the same time apply these principles in our attitude towards other nations in the world."

"The fight for freedom has culminated in the proclamation of our independence, but our struggle had still to be continued years after. Up to the present moment, the Indonesian people have still to endure the consequences of their sacrifice in the effort to achieve their territorial integrity. One of them is the people's plight in the economic field. We are therefore determined to defend whatever we have achieved painfully."

"To the Indonesian people, independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity are very important principles; they do not only constitute our rights and honour, but they also serve as one of the important instruments for nation building in its broadest sense."

"In this world, that still contains greed to influence other nations' internal affairs which in some instances were conducted by force of arms we also realize the necessity of a physical defence capable of protecting the Indonesian nation and our country's integrity."

"However, the Indonesian people believe that the means for defence, which are decisive and at the same time advantageous, are the conviction in its own national identity and the standard of prosperity of its people."

"I get the impression that an exchange of visits between leaders of nations is extremely useful for strengthening the bonds of friendship, because mutual visits bring mutual understanding. It is mutual understanding and mutual esteem that are absolute requisites for the realisation of everlasting peace in the world."

"The relationship between Man and his environment, especially since the Industrial Revolution, has been an exploitative and predatory one. Until the early seventies, little or nothing was done. In the absence of global accountability, greatly accelerated economic activities as well as population pressures combined to erode the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem, to destroy natural resources and habitats, and bring about widespread pollution of air and water as well as the degradation of the soil."

"Alarming statistics, reflecting wasteful patterns of production and consumption, inter alia resulting in global warming and the progressive depletion of the ozone layer, have jolted the world into renewed and heightened concern. Unless these self-destructive practices are halted or drastically reduced, our planet is doomed to ecological catastrophe. Life as we know it is at stake. Conditions in the developing South also have an adverse impact on the environment. But here, degradation of the environment primarily results from population pressures and their corollary, pervasive poverty."

"To us, the interaction among development, environment and population is a cornerstone of national policy. We have learned to be concerned not only with population growth rates but also with the quality of the population, the levels of education that the people attain, and the skills and capabilities that they acquire. We have to consider the rights of individuals as they constitute population and a society, such as the right of men and women alike to determine the size of their families, the right to further the interests of the communities to which they belong, and other rights guaranteed under our laws. Such rights, together with the right to development and to obtain the best possible quality of life, as well as the right to a proper social and physical environment, are part of the spectrum of human rights that we uphold."

"Development has many facets, including social and cultural, but development is primarily an economic endeavour comprising the pursuit of material wealth, of income and earning capacity. Aware as we are of the link between development and environment, we are convinced that when a country is able to increase its material wealth and financial resources, to the same degree it is able to strengthen its pursuit of sustainable development. By serving the cause of economic development we thus serve the cause of the environment"

"Sustainable development implies the integration of two elements: environment and development. Both must be simultaneously and equally attended to and their respective objectives reconciled and harmonised. One cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the other. And its implementation requires above all the equitable sharing of responsibilities as well as of opportunities."

"In this shrinking world we do not want to isolate ourselves. Proposals, suggestions and criticisms expressed in an atmosphere of friendship will be respected. Comments and criticisms expressed only to exaggerate our shortcomings in our national development which tend to interfere in our domestic affairs, is another matter."

"For the assistance and support of the people while I led the nation and state of Indonesia, I express my thanks and I seek forgiveness if there was any mistakes and shortcomings. May the Indonesian nation remain victorious with Pancasila and the 1945 constitution."

"Winds of change have blown in order to lift the injustice to which the world is subjected by America and its supporters and the Jews who are collaborating with them. Look at what is happening these days in Indonesia, where Suharto, a despot who ruled for 30 years, was overthrown. The time will come, sooner rather than later, when criminal despots who betrayed God and his Prophet, and betrayed their trust and their nation, will face the same fate."

"The worst kleptocrat was Mohamed Suharto, Indonesian president from 1967 until 1998 but virtual military ruler from 1957. His brutal regime saw 2 million massacred following an attempted Communist coup in 1965, 250,000 killed in his 1975 invasion of East Timor and hundreds of thousands tortured and murdered during his dictatorship. Spectacular economic growth brought limited benefit to his people, far more to Suharto and his cronies, who fabulously enriched themselves, his wife’s lucrative commission earning her the nickname ‘Madam Ten Percent’. His klepocracy was laid bare after his forced resignation in 1998 following Asian financial meltdown: US$15-35 billion according to Transparency International. Disputed claims of ill health, however, allowed him to escape justice; he died in 2008."

"I respect Suharto because he changed Indonesia from being a troubled country under Sukarno rule, and he did so while maintaining unity among the many different ethnicities from the 13,000 islands. Indonesia is not an easy country to rule, but he kept it intact. After he took over, Indonesia did not split up – there was some trouble in Aceh, but in general he changed Indonesia's image to be a more developed one. Yes, there were things he did which were wrong, but the same can be said of any leader."

"We believe that the terrorism we are witnessing today comes from imperialism, and we are fighting it. If we put an end to this war, if we have a strong army, we will be able to engage in developing our homeland. That is what we see as the purpose of our struggle. This is why it is utterly important to build and train staff."

"I would also like to apologize to the elders. Please, forgive me if I have wronged you in any way. My generation is asking many questions without getting any answers, but we feel at home, in our family here."

"The role of Africa and Russia in combating Nazism has been mostly forgotten. We have come together today because we need to talk about our countries’ future. What will happen tomorrow in this new, free world which we are striving for, a world without interference in our internal affairs? We have the same prospects."

"I cannot understand why Africa, with its huge mineral resources, water and sun, is the poorest continent where hunger abounds, and why we have to ask for help. We ask these questions, but we are not getting any answers."

"As for Burkina Faso, for the past eight years we have been fighting the most barbaric and cruel form of colonialism and imperialism, which are forcing a modern form of slavery on us. We have learned one thing very well: a slave who cannot protest deserves nothing more than pity, and his future is miserable. We did not wait for anybody to take care of us. We decided to fight the terrorists who are preventing our development."

"In this struggle, our courageous people decided to take up arms against terrorism. We were surprised to learn that imperialists refer to them as armed groups or militarized groups, while calling people in Europe who take up arms to defend their homeland patriots. Our forefathers were deported to save Europe, and this happened against their will. But when they came back and tried to assert their basic rights, they faced cruel repression."

"The problem is not when people decide to take up arms. The problem is that the leaders of African countries do not bring anything to people fighting imperialism, calling us armed groups or criminals. We do not agree with this approach. We, the heads of African states, must stop acting as puppets ready to act whenever the imperialists pull the strings."

"I am almost out of time, but I would like to say that we must pay tribute to our nations who fight and struggle. Glory to our nations! Dignity and respect for our nations! Victory to our nations! Thank you, comrades. Homeland or death!"

"Your Holiness, we Africans know the power of the cross. We know the hymns, the prayers, the litanies. We have built churches with calloused hands and defended our faith with our blood."

"But we also know another truth, one that too many preferred to bury, that the church at times walked beside colonizers, that while missionaries prayed for our souls, soldiers littered our lands, that while you predecessors spoke of heaven, our ancestors were chained on earth."

"Will you be the Pope who sees Africa not as a periphery, but as the prophetic center? Will you be the Pope who does not only visit slums for photo opportunities, but who dares to speak with rage against the forces that make those slums permanent?"

"I lead a nation that was tossed aside by the world until we refused to be silent. We were told we were too poor to be independent, too weak to be sovereign, too unstable to resist. But I tell you this with the thunder of ancestors in my voice. We are done asking for permission to exist."

"Your Holiness, I speak now only for Burkina Faso, but for a continent too long patronized. Africa is not a continent of pity, we are a continent of prophets. Prophets who were jailed, exiled and murdered for daring to challenge the empire."

"What we need is a Pope who will name the modern-day Herod who will thunder against economic empires just as boldly as the Church once thundered against communism."

"Even when it comes dressed in a tailored suit, carrying diplomatic credentials and smiling through its sins, Your Holiness the world stands at a precipice and Africa this battered and beautiful continent is not merely watching from below we are climbing. We are bleeding, we are rising, and we are daring to ask questions that echo louder than canon law. Where was the church when our presidents were overthrown by foreign-backed mercenaries? Where was the church when our youth were abducted and indoctrinated into wars funded by nations that pretend to be peacekeepers. Where was the church when our currencies collapsed? When the IMF choked our economies? When our leaders were punished for choosing sovereignty over submission? Do not tell us to forgive while the whip is still in the hand of the abuser."

"We are a people of the crossroads of prophecy and politics, and Africa’s time is no longer coming. It is here. We are rewriting the narrative, reshaping the future, reclaiming the dignity denied to us by centuries of foreign domination and spiritual manipulation. And the church must decide where it stands, with the powers that be here, with the people who bleed. I do not write this letter to condemn. I write it to invite you, Your Holiness, into a deeper solidarity, to a solidarity that walks barefoot with the poor, that dares to speak truth in Rome as boldly as it does in Rwanda, that names the Saints not just by miracles, but by their commitment to justice. We await your voices, not from balconies, but from trenches and from favelas. From refugee camps, from behind the bars of political prisons where truth is incarcerated."

"A charismatic 37-year-old, Burkina Faso's military ruler Capt Ibrahim Traoré has skilfully built the persona of a pan-Africanist leader determined to free his nation from what he regards as the clutches of Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.[..] Traoré's popularity comes despite the fact that he has failed to fulfil his pledge to quell a 10-year Islamist insurgency that has fuelled ethnic divisions and has now spread to once-peaceful neighbours like Benin."

"Despite the effort to present Traoré as a bold reformer and saviour, the political, security and economic ramifications from his junta rule will reverberate through Burkina Faso for decades to come."

"Traoré has rejected financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, insisting the country can develop without the West’s loans and conditionalities. For some, this is a demonstration of Africans handling their own affairs. For the youth, Traoré’s regime is a chance to show what young people can achieve. But for most ordinary Burkinabé, the priority is simply improving their daily living conditions. At a time of increasing global uncertainty and a decline in international aid, Africa must strive for self-reliance and control of its resources. Like many African countries, Burkina Faso is blessed with natural resources that, if properly managed, could transform citizens’ lives."

"Our national policy is to cooperate in wide range with all the freedom-loving and democratic countries of the world"

"This is Colonel Bokassa speaking to you.At 3 a.m. this morning, your army took control of the government. The Dacko government has resigned.The hour of justice is at hand! The bourgeoisie is abolished.A new era of equality among all has begun. Central Africans, wherever you may be, be assured that the army will defend you and your property.Long live the Central African Republic!"

"They were jealous of me because I had an empire and they didn’t"

"Mettius Curtius ab Sabinis princeps ab arce decucurrerat et effusos egerat Romanos toto quantum foro spatium est. Nec procul iam a porta Palati erat, clamitans: "Vicimus perfidos hospites, imbelles hostes; iam sciunt longe aliud esse virgines rapere, aliud pugnare cum viris." In eum haec gloriantem cum globo ferocissimorum iuvenum Romulus impetum facit. Ex equo tum forte Mettius pugnabat; eo pelli facilius fuit. Pulsum Romani persequuntur; et alia Romana acies, audacia regis accensa, fundit Sabinos. Mettius in paludem sese strepitu sequentium trepidante equo coniecit; averteratque ea res etiam Sabinos tanti periculo viri. Et ille quidem adnuentibus ac vocantibus suis favore multorum addito animo evadit: Romani Sabinique in media conualle duorum montium redintegrant proelium; sed res Romana erat superior."

"At the beginning, nobody wanted to mix the brigades that were organized according to religious sects. When I was appointed there was a Maronite brigade, a Sunni brigade, a Druze brigade and so on. There are 18 official sects in Lebanon and there were 12 brigades.From the start, I had problems with those who were politically responsible who said that we just went out of the civil war, and if we make the change they will kill each other. I said that if we treat them right, it would work. And it worked. And that’s how the army became national. As president there were many important moments, but this time they were related more to international politics."

"We are in a state of war with Israel. Inside the army they will know the leaders of the resistance. They will hit them to weaken the resistance. Now they don’t know. They cannot work in known operations. In the army, you give an order – for example, to go through Beirut to Saida, up the mountain…. With Hizballah, nobody knows what holes they are in. They are underground. They have their rockets hidden underground. This is their strength. I can understand why they say that it’s important to have only one commander in chief, but in fact if you have only one of both, we are no stronger than Egypt, Jordan etc. Israel defeated them all in 6 days. Here they stayed 30 days and they had to run away. This means that it worked. I can understand when foreigners like you ask why don’t you make a commander for all, but for a Lebanese to say this it means that they have an outside agenda – one that goes through Europe, America to Israel."

"Do you know how many Syrian soldiers were in Lebanon? 40 000. Do you know how many there were when they officially left? 11 000. It was confidence building between us, and slowly they were leaving. At the time of the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, Lebanon was according to Interpol the number one country in the world in terms of security and stability. It was all over the Internet. Number two was Austria and number three was Switzerland. They killed him because our enemies did not want Lebanon to stay strong."

"I said it before Hizballah. For as long as we are in a state of war with Israel, we need to be strong. When there will be peace, I will be the first to ask Hizballah to give up its weapons. But from now until that day comes, they want to trick us."

"The trouble with Maronites, and just to be frank about it, is that everyone thinks he is a president. This is the mentality. Because of this it is very difficult for them to agree, and we pay a high price. Lebanon was created because of the Maronites. They wanted one country in the whole Middle East for all sects, and Lebanon, as the Pope said is a message that we can live together, and we must prove we can live, but for that we need to be strong and united. Strong we are, we need to be united. Unless they make us fight each other and then we lose everything again."

"We are going through critical times. On the one hand there are the fundamentalists, and on the other the elections and lots of countries with agendas and interests. If we don’t put aside the private interests, and this is difficult to achieve in Lebanon and I know this from my experience as Commander in Chief of the army for nine years and President for nine years, that inside the system you cannot find more than ten honest politicians, though many are outside, but the rest are concerned about individual gains and that cannot make a state. And because it’s critical, I am afraid something will happen."

"That's why I'm saying you must have a quick ceasefire, because the more the Israelis escalate — the things they're doing now, it's not done in the 21st century, when they use smart bombs against civilian buildings, when they use phosphorus bombs and right now they're investigating about it, when they're throwing three tonne bombs on one building — well all this is not allowed. So what I'm saying, you should have a ceasefire as quickly as possible because force will bring force, and there will be a cycle of violence so nobody knows what will happen; it will be really a catastrophe like it is now in Lebanon. That's why I'm saying that we should think about stopping the fire instead of thinking what will happen next. We must stop it and start to talk."

"In Lebanon, Israel cannot have an influence. Believe me, the best thing now is to stop these ideas about under fire to dictate conditions of Israel. It will not work. Now they're using aircrafts again, and they can, use, kill the people they want, they make I mean threats to everybody, that we can get you everywhere, we know, they can get us everywhere, but they cannot get all Lebanon."

"You see, Israel can destroy Lebanon. But it will never have an influence on the people of Lebanon. That's different. As I was saying yesterday, they can hit us, kill us, but we will never kneel, because we've seen what happened when Lebanese knelt in the past, what happened to Lebanon."

"Despite the hail of bombs, the Israelis have been unable to produce one single photo of a destroyed resistance base, because they don't know where they are. Army bases, on the other hand, are well known and this is why they are invariably destroying our armed forces and, above all, civilian targets."

"The Israeli armed forces are destroying Lebanon, and the international community isn't trying to hold them back, but giving them more time to complete their plan of destruction."

"We have today around half a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, their birth rate is three times higher than the Lebanese. That is a time bomb. It is the basic problem of our country, it led to the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and still remains unsolved today. Everybody today is talking about UN resolution 1559, but nobody mentions resolution 194, which recognizes the Palestinians' right of return (to Israel). Lebanon is small and can't integrate the Palestinians."

"Lebanon respects international laws and acts accordingly and it has never transgressed the rights of others. Lebanon is waiting in return to be treated in the same way and that all its rights, including its waters, are recovered. The fact that Lebanon is securing living requirements for its citizens does not deserve all this brouhaha."

"Lebanon has resisted the Israeli war machine and forced the Israeli occupying forces to back out and withdraw. The threats made by Sharon and others will not prevent Lebanon from holding onto their land and their legitimate rights. As far as the U.S. position is concerned, we are waiting for them to implement what they have been calling for -- supporting human rights and respecting international laws. Based on this, we have extended our hand to everybody, but we will only refer to the authority able to solve such issues -- the United Nations."

"Lebanon may not possess a large military force similar to the U.S. and Israel. Its military arsenal may be modest compared to theirs. However, its solid will, the steadfastness of its people, and its continued cooperation with Syria, as well as coordination with friendly countries are sufficient to achieve what all weapons, however sophisticated and violent may be, cannot achieve. This is not a philosophical theory, but a tangible reality that Lebanon has lived, and that the Palestinian people are living everyday."

"No country can raise itself and continue without building a strong national army. This is a general understanding and a simple condition for establishing a state. I should point out the big role Syria played in helping rebuild the strong Lebanese army. Syria was generous in providing moral and logistic support and remains supportive of the Lebanese army. If not for Syrian support, this country could not have recovered. The help to rebuild the army is one of many steps adopted by the Syrian command in support of Lebanon. Reality proves that Syria always stood by Lebanon, especially when it faced problems and difficult days in its efforts to liberate its land from Israeli occupation that lasted more than 25 years."

""There is no doubt that the primary targets of the latest Israeli war in Lebanon was also to destroy the awakening and prosperity of our country. The Israelis themselves said that they want to take Lebanon 20 years back. Lebanon is Israel's chief rival in the field of finance, culture and tourism. And that is why we can see that whenever Lebanon bounces back and begins to make progress, Israel attacks it."

"We should not forget that in a world without boundaries, where a digital reality have changed the rules of the game due to the technological advances of our age, resources cannot be seen as of the realm of wealthy countries, as its problems cannot be seen as distinct from those of developing countries. The problems of illegal immigration which Lebanon suffers from and is hence joining the fight against- and what Europe currently faces in currents against this immigration, are evidence of the urgency with which we should tackle the root causes of such a problem."

"Our States, which are trying through this convention to strengthen their cooperation and economic ties, in order to create further chances for their development, and getting out of the circle of negative consumerism, are hence stronger and more able to correct the economic and political imbalances. For the resources of our countries, be they human, industrial, commercial, productive, are manifold and voluminous. And these resources need modern and global plans in order to be implemented, and changed into development and modernity."

"The aim of our mutual economic cooperation is to break the economic and commercial isolation and correct the imbalance in world economies, in order to prevent the problems of poverty and dependence of becoming worldwide crises, feeding the gene pools of fanaticism, isolationism and terrorism."

"Recent days have brought a notably offensive example. In the face of intense opposition across the Lebanese political and religious spectrum, Syria pressured the country's cabinet last weekend into endorsing a constitutional change designed to let President Émile Lahoud extend his expiring six-year term for three more years. Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has for years been a fierce foe of Mr. Lahoud and had strongly opposed amending the Constitution. But he suddenly changed his mind after a Friday night meeting with the Syrian chief of military intelligence. Now, barring a brave last-minute revolt by Lebanon's parliament, Syria will get its way and Mr. Lahoud, who long ago lost his support among the Lebanese but remains a willing tool of Damascus, will stay on. It is not easy for any Lebanese politician to stand up to the ruthless Syrian dictatorship and the 20,000 troops it keeps on hand to enforce its will. This is the third time in a decade that Syria has forced Lebanon to change its Constitution to ensure that there is a pro-Syrian president."