Prisoners

"As the leader of this nation, I want to make Taiwan into a normal country. Even though Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country, it is not yet a normal and complete country. Why do I say that Taiwan is not yet a normal country? Because if it were, it would be a member of the UN family and also be the member of the World Health Organization. Why do I say that Taiwan is not yet a complete country? Because our current Constitution has never been approved by our people. The 23 million people of Taiwan really need a new Taiwan constitution that is timely, relevant, and viable."

"It is our solemn duty and obligation to defend the peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait. It is China that is attempting to use military force to invade Taiwan and to change the peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait."

"After I finish my term as president, I want to be a happy volunteer. As I have said before, our democratic reform is still ongoing and it must continue to be consolidated and deepened. But there is still a lot we could do regarding strengthening Taiwan-centric consciousness as well as realizing social equity and justice. I think I could be of assistance in this regard. Apart from being a happy volunteer, I also wish to make some contribution as a pusher and a cultivator and a gardener on Taiwan's road to democracy."

"As long as we are united as one, stand firmly in our stride, and master our own direction, I believe we will again open up our own road and carve out the future of Taiwan"

"This [Taiwanese] government, therefore, has always striven to maintain an ever-forbearing attitude with respect to the freedoms of speech, the press, publication and assembly in hopes of liberating Taiwan's people from the spiritual shackles that have bound them. The government has done so not only to enable the people to dare to speak, but to ensure the protection of every person's right to truly speak his or her mind and express views different from those of others."

"In the past, there was no freedom, so we struggled to get freedom. In the past, we were oppressed by the political system, so we opposed the system. But today's Taiwan is a democratic nation. Besides seeking freedom, we must also consolidate the rule of law, accept the responsibilities associated with that, and work together to sustain our system of democratic, constitutional government."

"We will tell the people that our aim is to uplift the Tamil community. Leave ... Can the tiger's cave be gifted to the cats ... Is it tolerable?."

"We need to rehabilitate the humanity within the torturer. If we make him into a special monster, we are unable to recognize ourselves as a human being. The horror of his action seems to escape us."

"Tell that to the BTK killer, I said. He was a churchgoer, raised two kids, married, and resisted the urge to kill for decades. He was a person, but he was a monster, too"

"The name “Ukrainian nationalist” is consonant with “Ukrainian patriot” who is ready to fight for freedom of his people, to sacrifice for his people everything he has, even his life."

"In the hearts of the Ukrainians, there is no feeling of hate toward the allied nations. On the contrary, they wish all the people to unite in their common fight against the enslaver, Russian Bolshevism."

"The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists with organizes and leads the fight of the Ukrainian people develops its activity in Ukraine as well as abroad, primarily in those western countries where the Ukrainian emigration has settled."

"Faith strengthens the forces of the soul the most. Through true and deep faith in God, the Savior, each person and the entire nation is able to continually draw from the eternally living source as much strength as their souls can perceive."

"The Ukrainian people takes up an extremely hostile attitude towards Bolshevism, communism, communist system and regime. It also takes a hostile attitude towards all the kinds of enslavement and exploitation of Ukraine by Russian imperialists. There is only a small number of Ukrainian fellow travelers of the Bolshevik regime who take up another attitude towards it. The revolutionary anti-Bolshevik fight of the Ukrainian liberation movement is the true spokesman of the attitude and aspiration of the Ukrainian people."

"The ultimate end of the Bolshevik policy is to destroy the peculiar substance of the Ukrainian people in every respect, and to drown the Ukrainian people in the sea of the so-called Soviet people or, rather, in the modern form of the Russian imperialism devouring other people. In this way, the Ukraine would allegedly turn into one of the Russian provinces. However, the Bolsheviks dare not speak openly of that end and pursue it in a straight way. On the contrary, they are compelled to apply very complicated means, and even to retreat in some fields."

"The ideological and political work of each political factor must be direct and immediate. In national life, each environment must perform its inherent function within such limits, forms and means that it can achieve on its own and which correspond to its real influences in Ukrainian society. Every serious environment must operate under all internal and external conditions, regardless of other factors."

"The Ukrainian liberation fight is a component of the general liberation fight of all peoples enslaved by Russian imperialism. In our opinion, Bolshevism is only one of the forms of the traditional Russian imperialism. In our fight against the Russian-Bolshevik imperialism, we consider ourselves an ally of all the freedom-loving nations. We offered resistance to the Russian-Bolshevik imperialism in the past, we are opposing it now and we shall oppose it in the future."

"When the people choose bread between bread and freedom, they eventually lose everything, including bread. If the people choose freedom, they will have bread grown by themselves and not taken away by anyone."

"The OUN values ​​the cost of living of its members, very much; but our idea in our notion is so majestic that when it comes to its realization, not one, not hundreds, but millions of victims must be dedicated in order to realize it."

"Even the best opportunities and readiness to help will not give up if the nation itself does not fight and forge its own destiny by its own struggle."

"In every ideological or political movement, the two most important components play an important role: the idea and the person. Leading ideas and worldviews in the ideological movement and guiding program decisions in the political - create the "soul", the essence, the inner meaning of the movement. People who recognize, disseminate and implement ideas and programs and for that purpose take an active part in the movement - create its living, active organism."

"Stepan Bandera once put forward three attitudes towards non-Ukrainians. It is very simple. There is a fraternal one - for those who are fighting with us for Ukraine, regardless of nationality. There is a tolerance - to those people who live on that land, do not oppose our struggle, so we treat them normally, there is enough space for everyone in Ukraine. The third is hostile to those who oppose the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people, and this is in any state, any nation has such positions."

"Creation, formation of personnel for the liberation struggle - this is the most important, the main task of the whole revolutionary process."

"We, Poles, have no reason to have warm feelings for the Ukrainian nationalist leader. On the contrary, although he was born, raised and educated in Poland, many consider him one of the greatest enemies of our nation (it is enough to mention, for example, the massacre in Volhynia). It is viewed in a similar way in Russia - it became a synonym of nationalist orthodoxy and fascist tendencies already in the times of the USSR."

"Bandera died as he lived - violently. Hated by the rulers of the Kremlin (Stalin and Khrushchev), he became a target for the Soviet secret services. When Bandera started to implement his plan for a great Ukraine, he must have been aware that he was playing a risky game, especially since it was based on an alliance with Hitler. Was he aware of how this might end? We will not find out, but he probably had to ask himself when he was in exile in Munich: will they come or not? They came. They always come."

"Of course, Poles have the right to their opinion on Ukrainian history. Just like us on the subject of Polish history. But the Ukrainian side has never had any comments to commemorate the Polish heroes whose role in the history of Ukraine is absolutely negative. Besides, Stepan Bandera has nothing to do with the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. At that time, he was in a concentration camp."

"We are all UPA soldiers and all underground fighters in particular, and I am aware that sooner or later we will have to die in the fight against brutal force. But I assure you, we will not be afraid to die, because when we die, we will be aware that we will become a fertilizer of the Ukrainian land. This is our native land that needs a lot of fertilizer so that in the future a new Ukrainian generation will grow up on it, which will complete what we were not destined to complete."

"Guys were doing everything in order to get on the flight schedule, in order to be on a combat mission. It wasn't the type of thing that people were pretending to be sick or something. It was just the other way, people would fly while they were sick, or anyway, just to get on the schedule, to go up and participate in something that we believed in very strongly. The freedom of a nation that were our friends, the freedom of a nation that couldn't determine that freedom by themselves. And so, I believed very strongly in what I was doing over there, it was simply to protect an emerging nation from the clutches of militant Communism."

"I felt the South Vietnamese had a right to their own self-determination. And I was over there to help them to maintain that self-determination."

"So, to my astonishment, we lived, or I lived, and many of the senior officers shared my plight, for the most time...there was no one in my cell. I was alone. And I prayed silently. But I put it up to God in such a way there could be no mistake, couldn't have been a coincidence, not even one in a billion. You see: I did this on more than one occasion."

"During the whole period of time we were in prison we heard of protests. Of course, the Vietnamese exposed us to four hours minimum of propaganda a day because we had slave speakers in every cell. There was no way to get away from that. So, they dreamed up all kinds of wild tales. If 200 people marched on Washington, they made it 200,000. We learned how to deal with the numbers. Of course, every protest, every anti-war speech made by a person such as McGovern, Jane Fonda, Galbraith, all of those only encouraged the Vietnamese, prolonged the war, worsened our condition and cost the lives of more Americans on the battlefield."

"I lived in abject misery for the rest of the time I was a prisoner, knowing that I had not upheld the standards that I expected of everyone else. Certainly it did one thing. It made me a lot more compassionate to other PW's who might be called upon or forced to give more than name, rank, serial number and date of birth."

"Korea was probably the high point of my whole career as far as real gratification is concerned."

"Of all the indignities we were forced to undergo, I guess I resented meeting the foreign delegations more than any other. There was something so basically inhuman about appearing before the delegations and being asked how your food was and having to say it was excellent when it was not. Or to questions of your treatment, to lie in front of the cameras and say it was great, when they had literally tortured the stuffings out of you to make you appear."

"We were highly combat ready. We believed that the North Vietnamese, who were Communists led by the old atheist dictator, Ho Chi Minh, wanted to take over the rest of Southeast Asia. In other words, his doctrine was the same as Mao Tse Tung's and all of the rest of the militant Communists. We didn't want this to happen."

"Fear is a luxury one can’t afford."

"Resist until you are tortured, but do not take torture to the point where you lose the permanent use of your limbs."

"I never lost hope, and never did I despair of coming back alive."

"General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Minister of Defence since 1968 and thus a major Warsaw Pact figure, became Prime Minister in February 1981 and First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party in October 1981. Jaruzelski had taken part in operations against anti-Communist resistance fighters in the late 1940s, had led Poland’s contribution to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and had been in command when Polish troops shot striking shipyard workers in 1970. Jaruzelski claimed he had opposed the last operation and he sought a peaceful settlement with Solidarity, but serious economic problems continued to create discontent in Poland and to lead to criticism of the government. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union pressed Jaruzelski to come out in defence of Communism. This pressure indicated that any meaningful change in the Soviet bloc would have to come from Moscow, and thus underlined the subsequent importance of Gorbachev’s stance."

"I think, however, that it is better when we solve the Polish matters realistically, with prudence, when we discuss them calmly, normally."

"In 1996, Jaruzelski was to comment ‘I always considered myself a Polish soldier and a Polish patriot first’. He possibly thought of himself as another Józef Piłsudski, who had taken over the Polish government in 1926 and instituted a benign, quasi-military dictatorship. As Prime Minister, Jaruzelski downgraded the role of the highly unpopular Polish Communist Party and sought to play off Solidarity against the Soviet Union in order to gain concessions from each – stability and aid respectively. However, temperamentally, Jaruzelski found uncertainty difficult. In an effort to end political unrest and strikes, he declared martial law on 13 December 1981, arresting Solidarity’s leaders and thousands of others without trial (scores were killed), and appointing a military council to govern Poland. On that day, with American attention riveted on Poland, Menachem Begin, the Israeli Prime Minister, annexed the occupied Golan Heights. Martial law remained in place in Poland until July 1983 and indicated the strength and weakness of the Communist system: it could maintain order, but could not provide the economic growth or popular support that made order much more than a matter of coercion and indoctrination. Opposition in Poland remained at a far greater scale and was far more popular than the left-wing terrorist movements in the West such as November 17 in Greece, FP-25 in Portugal, and the Cellules Communistes Combattantes in Belgium."

"I do not make any promises. But I do promise one thing - anarchy will not be allowed into Poland. Let no one in Poland or outside cherish any illusions that the present decisions will allow for another round."

"The suspension of martial law means that its basic rigors will cease to function before the end of this year. Only such regulations should be binding either in full or limited dimension, which directly protect the basic interests of the state, create the shield for the economy and strengthen the personal security of citizens."

"We have survived the boycott, restrictions and the barrage of instigatory propaganda. The Government of the United States and some of its customers can see for themselves the bankruptcy of attempts to interfere in Polish internal affairs."

"Brezhnev and the Politburo demanded a change in personnel in the Polish United Workers’ Party and the stabilisation of the communist order. They turned to a military man, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who became Prime Minister in February 1981 and then Party First Secretary in October. Jaruzelski introduced martial law in December 1981. He did this as much to pre-empt a Warsaw Pact invasion as to reimpose order in Poland. In fact the Soviet Politburo had decided not to intervene militarily even if Solidarity were to edge its way to power; but Jaruzelski was not privy to this information. Solidarity was outlawed and more of its militants were taken into custody. Yet the strikes and demonstrations were not abated. The network of Solidarity groups and agencies survived the police onslaught; its presses produced pamphlets, postcards and audiocassettes. Graffiti-artists sprayed slogans on walls such as ‘The winter is yours but the spring will be ours’. The Catholic priesthood gave uncompromising sermons on the need for religious faith and patriotism."

"The steps taken today serve to preserve the basic features of socialist renewal. All the reforms will be continued in an atmosphere of order, businesslike discussion and discipline, also economic reform."

"We wish a great Poland, great with its achievements, culture, forms of social life, its position in Europe. The only way to gain this is by socialism accepted by society, constantly enriched by the everyday life experience."

"To make tomorrow better we must realize tough realities today, to understand the necessity for renunciation."

"Citizens of Poland, very heavy is the burden of responsibility which lies upon me at the very dramatic moment in Polish history. But it is my duty to take it, accept it, because it concerns the future of Poland, for which we of my generation fought on all the fronts of World War II and gave the best years of our lives. I declare that today, the army council of national salvation, has been constituted. The council of state, obeying the constitution, declared a state of war (at midnight) on the territory of Poland."

"Our soldier's hands are clean; he knows his hard service ... and has no other aim but the good of the nation."