Dec 20, 1999
*** "IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to understand why the people
of East Timor are granted the right to hold a referendum and why UN troops defend that
right, while Kosovars, under NATO’s protection against the threat of genocide, are
not given that right . . . Why has Russia been allowed to wage . . . a genocidal war
against the Chechens."
(Elena Bonner, widow of 1975 Nobel Peace Prize Soviet laureate Andrei
Sakharov, accusing the West of hypocrisy and double standards)
*** "THINGS ARE going better for us because we have
focused on what we can do and what we must do . . . Please do not once again ruin
things."
(German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s appeal to leftist critics
in his Social Democrat party not to ‘ruin things’ by pushing for a tax on the
rich that could sideline his business-friendly reform programme)
*** "DOES THIS help the peace process? Does this help
to build trust? Does this help to deliver the type of Good Friday Agreement that the
British government signed up to?"
(Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein’s leader, on the bugging of his car used
by him and other leaders of his Northern Irish Republican Party by British security
forces. Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern has said to raise the issue with his British
counterpart, Tony Blair)
*** "I WAS in their reformatory schools and
penitentiary, but they created monsters in there. That’s it, I have nothing else to
say."
(David Long, a condemned killer minutes before his execution by lethal
injection in Hunstville, Texas. Long was treated after he took an overdose of
anti-depressant pills and was later put to death)
*** "A MAN dressed as Santa Claus and speaking Urdu
robbed a McDonald’s in Oslo."
(A news report about a man and his accomplice who robbed at least
20,000 kroner [$ 2,500] in Oslo, Norway)
*** "WE ARE not opposed to shipscrapping, but we are
demanding shipowners and ship-exporting nations to decontaminate their ships before they
are sent to countries like India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines in
Asia."
(Marcelo Futardo, a member of the worldwide environmental group,
backing the protest staged by three Greenpeace activists, two Indians and a Dutch, to stop
the beaching of a ‘toxic ship’ of the Gujrat coast in India)
*** "I HAVE shot dead 28 poachers in more than 100
encounters during my 15 years of service at the park."
(Sanatan Barkachari, a former poacher-turned-guard at the Manas tiger
reserve in Assam, after receiving a bravery cash award of Rs 10,000)
*** "AND WHAT if during the trip they start to bomb
the area?"
(Iraqi patriarch Raphael Bidawid favouring the Pope John Paul II plans
to cancel his visit to Iraq due to lack of safety particularly a complete dominance of the
country’s air space by the US and UK)
*** "‘THERE’S ONE thing you can always
depend on with the French . . . You can’t depend on them.’ ‘Blair’s
Francophilia has led him into a trap’ ‘We’ve had enough.’"
(British Press’ anti-French outpourings over France’s
decision to maintain its embargo on British beef imports)
*** "ANYONE WHO thought that the Russians had left the
espionage business at the end of the Cold War is badly mistaken. Clearly they have not
given up dirty tricks and spying."
(Republican Representative Porter Goss, chairman of the House permanent
select committee on intelligence, expressing concerns about a highly sophisticated Russian
spy network that targets the US government)
*** "THE CIVIL rights leader was the victim of a
murder conspiracy, not a lone gunman."
(Coretta Scott King and Dexter King, widow and son of slain US civil
rights leader Dr Martin Luther King addressing a press conference in Atlanta)
Edited by Syed M. Aslam
