Political Quotes

“Yesterday a United Nations war crimes tribunal headed by an American in Sierra Leone indicted seven people, including rebel leaders and a powerful figure in that country's decade-long civil conflict. The indictment is for crimes of murder, rape, extermination, acts of terror, enslavement, and attacks on humanitarian workers; and all, if not most of these crimes, are directly related to atrocities committed to gain control of and profit from conflict diamonds. These indictments are an important and necessary milestone in the long road to securing justice and restoring the human rights of the people in that part of Africa. Mr. Speaker, 75,000 people died in Sierra Leone. But not until one actually sees someone, this young girl that Congressman Tony Hall and I visited when we were in a refugee camp in Sierra Leone, when you see someone who had their arms and legs and hands cut off by rebels to scare and intimidate the local population to gain control, do these numbers mean something. My colleagues might also know, as reported in the press, that the rebels, these people that have been indicted, have been selling conflict diamonds to al Qaeda that have been funding the al Qaeda efforts. So we want to salute the men and women that are working for us in Sierra Leone to bring about these indictments.”