Public Servant Quotes

We need better coordination on the international side, just as they need better and more effective efforts on the Somali side. We have too many reconstruction and development assistance plans.

We have received credible reports that show a clear and consistent pattern: entire villages are looted, burned down and sometimes bombed. Large numbers of civilians have been killed and scores of women and children have been abducted, raped and tortured.

We estimate that humanitarian agencies have access to about 350,000 vulnerable people in Darfur - only about one third of the estimated total population in need.

We are also assisting the refugees who have fled across the border to Chad. As many of them have been subject to attacks by militia crossing from Sudan, UNHCR is mounting a major logistical operation to establish camps and transfer refugees away from the border zone.

The most important and urgent appeal we have to make is for an immediate cease-fire. Initial reports from the cease-fire talks being held in N'Djamena in Chad are not very encouraging.

Secondly, the Government of Sudan should commit to the disarmament and control of the Janjaweed militia and ensure that the targeting of civilians ceases immediately.

Our assistance in Somalia has been remarkably effective and successful, and we have helped with very small resources - a large group of people and we can now do even more.

No amount of humanitarian assistance can protect people from being attacked.

It is only the Somalis themselves - and I don't hide that fact when I meet the political leaders here - they themselves have to stop their old practices of fighting each other every time they have a problem. They have to learn how to do peaceful conflict resolution.

In a world full of competing emergencies and disasters, it really helps if there is an international locomotive that can help us bring attention - help us bring resources.

I have been working, as emergency relief coordinator, on an international scale, very hard to build a wider alliance of partners in assistance efforts.

Finally, I am encouraged to note that the Security Council issued a statement today expressing its concern about the massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur and calling on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and reach a ceasefire.

Finally, I also come in recognition of the great work that has been undertaken by the NGOs and UN agencies that have been active for many years here, especially through the local staff and international staff here in Somaliland and in Somalia at large.

Although we have do not have adequate access to all parts of Darfur we do fortunately have humanitarian personnel, including staff from my own office, in each of the three provincial capitals of Darfur.

I think the biggest challenge for Somalia has been the sense that it is a hopeless case of incomprehensible internal conflicts and there is nothing we can do.

I think now, we in the international community are belatedly wanting to show our solidarity with the Somali peoples and also do our best to help them move to better times.

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one.

We need to stop saying we can't rock this boat when it needs to be rocked.

We have to remind the people: Congress has the constitutional obligation and public responsibility to oversee these issues and the Department of Justice's operations.

The only people I have seen who have been truly pushing for the truth are the family members.

The information I requested under the Freedom of Information Act has been blocked for two years.

On the other hand I have seen several, several top targets for these investigations of these terrorist activities that were allowed to leave the country - I'm not talking about weeks, I'm talking about months after 9/11.

I understand the Saudis have been named because fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

I see people detained for simple INS violations.

However, I keep reminding them that this issue is not a new issue that has come out for this election. This issue has been in the courts for two years and two months now.

Could we have prevented in 100% certainty? I don't think anything is that certain. However, we would have had a very, very good chance for preventing it.

But I can tell you that the issue, on one side, boils down to money - a lot of money. And it boils down to people and their connections with this money, and that's the portion that, even with this book, has not been mentioned to this day.

But I can tell that once, and if, and when this issue gets to be, under real terms, investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally.

At that point, which would be around February 2002, they came and they confiscated my computer, because, they said, they were suspecting that I was communicating with certain Senate members and taking this issue outside the Bureau.

And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up.