East Timor Quotes

Religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians versus Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians versus Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last 10 years.

Henry Kissinger is the greatest living war criminal in the world today, with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars.

We are calling for a ban on weapons deliveries to countries listed as human rights violators, to governments that are engaged in wars of aggression, military occupation, and annexation and spend more money on weapons than on education and health care.

Revenge is easy, but forgiveness requires courage.

After so much suffering, after enduring so much sacrifice, sanctioned and embraced by our people, what is it that the people of East Timor expect as a result of independence?

I think Australia is an extremely relevant partner and a key instrument for the stability, the progress, and the support of the East Timorese.

The East Timorese government does not believe that we should consider compensation for the victims because there are tens of thousands of people who were, in one way or another, affected by the violence either directly or indirectly.

I've been quite involved in a lot of U.N. operations over the years. I was a U.N. observer at the East Timor referendum in 2000. I've been very involved in that for a long time.

These people are not kindly people.

The United States Government has blood on its hands.

We send them the instruments [arms] and they pull the trigger.

When the East Timor conflict broke out, when they gained independence, the militia killed a lot of East Timorese people. And their sacred totem is the crocodile. They believe that their island is actually a solidified crocodile, so it has sacred status.

When governments state that certain events have not happened, and yet we have the victims before us to testify that they did, government loses its credibility, and it loses its authority. We see before us today governments that lack natural authority and have to make up for that by the use of force. They do not have the support of the people because they are not trusted by the people. We hear many fine words seeking national unity, cooperation and harmony, yet, almost in the same breath orders are given to military units to shoot civilians, protesters are rounded up, many disappear, many are tortured. No government which governs by the use of force can survive except by force. There is no going back because force begets force and the perpetrators of crimes live in fear that they might become victims in their turn.