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Lakhdar Brahimi Quotes


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Lakhdar Brahimi
January 1, 1934 -
Category: Public Servant

At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.

   

It also seems that the Afghans themselves want to avail themselves of this opportunity and all recognize that the UN is uniquely qualified to help bring them together.

   

When you go from one place to another, you go with experience, you don't go with prescriptions.

   

In Rwanda that genocide happened because the international community and the Security Council refused to give, again, another 5000 troops which would have cost, I don't know, maybe fifty, a hundred, million dollars.

   

Iraq is a country that has been invaded. It's not a failing state that you want to help. It's a country that was functioning good or bad, with a horrible dictator, but you have invaded.

   

Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.

   

A fly cannot go in unless it stops somewhere; therefore weapons, fuel, food, money will not go to Afghanistan unless the neighbors of Afghanistan are working, are cooperating, either being themselves the origin or the transit.

   

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

   

Somebody was asking me the other day - President Bush is now talking about freedom for the Arab world. I say, well, that's great. I was talking about that fifty years ago.

   

So, the international community are all the countries that are important: the United States definitely everywhere; the European Union because it is very important, and also, they do show a great deal of international responsibility; and then the local players.

   

There is an element of luck, there is an element of trial and error, sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. It's not as beautifully simple as it may seem when we are talking about it.

   

But you've got to understand what the other guy is about, even if at the end of the process you decide that there is no ground with this man or woman except to fight them.

   

The third point is that for some time the UN has been talking about helping Afghanistan in the reconstruction of the country but there has never been any real commitment by the international community to provide resources for that.

   

People now realize that globalization is not only for the multi-nationals and the circulation of money.

   

Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand.

   

What again I tell my people is that no matter how much you know, it's never enough. You will always discover, after the fact, that you've missed something.

   

You are dealing with people who have taken the responsibility of killing their own because they think that they are right, they think that they are serving the interests of their people. They not going to give that up easily, just because you've shown up.

   

The events of September 11 and what has happened since have made people understand that even a small, distant and far away country like Afghanistan cannot be left to break up into anarchy and chaos without consequences for the whole world.

   

I think a failed state is the responsibility of the people who have made that state fail, and those are generally the people of that country.

   

Afghanistan is a land-locked country.

   

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