Lakhdar Brahimi Quotes
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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.
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But you are absolutely right that when the international community decides to help in a meaningful manner a country like Afghanistan, then coordination between the various actors that are involved in these processes is very, very difficult indeed.
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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.
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Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.
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The mandate you go with is intimidating and also is a source of respect that you gain, because you have come with this mandate from the United Nations.
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To leave Afghanistan as a playground for terrorists and adventurers was simply not possible anymore.
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There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them.
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People now realize that globalization is not only for the multi-nationals and the circulation of money.
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But I knew that what had happened was an eye-opener not only to the United States but also to Pakistan, who realized that after what has happened on the 11th of September, it was simply impossible to continue to play those games in Afghanistan.
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There is an expression now that is commonly used about these so-called internal conflicts which are not really internal, because they have connections to the outside world.
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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.
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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.
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There is a firm, clear commitment to provide resources and ideas to enable us to organize the Afghans towards starting the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction.
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When you go from one place to another, you go with experience, you don't go with prescriptions.
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Afghanistan is a land-locked country.
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In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan's neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.
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If you are talking about terrorism, you need to sit down and understand what is making these people put dynamite around their waists and blow themselves up.
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There again, that is a fundamental principle: no two situations are alike.
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Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority.
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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.