Political Quotes

“Well, that's exactly the case. And it's not unusual to find wars going on. But as Mike Honda was talking about the President of Peru, who started his climb up the economic and educational ladder as a result of his experience with a Peace Corps teacher in Peru, the same thing happens in the countries in which you and I and other Peace Corps volunteers serve. I recall in 1999-2000, when the war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a group of us became interlocutors trying to figure out how to get these two countries to settle up. And because we were able to stand on the shoulders of so many Peace Corps volunteers that had served in those countries, we were able to meet with the President of Eritrea and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in two separate meetings and just talk to them about peace, about why they were fighting, why this war was going on that killed nearly 100,000 soldiers at that point. And it turned out that they were willing to talk to us. The reason was that in their high schools they were taught by Peace Corps volunteers, and they had this trust. They knew we didn't represent the American Government. They knew that we were there searching for peace as we had when we were volunteers. It turned out that those conversations led to the essence of the settlement of that war, the peace treaty.”