Ruben Blades Quotes

There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.

He [Rafael Trujillo] had his torture chambers. He had his political assassinations. But he kept law and order, cleaned the place up, made it sanitary, built public works, and he didn’t bother the United States. So that was fine with us.

Pinochet took power in a 1973 military coup that the United States supported.

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.

When a dictatorship controls the political life of a country, responsible opposition cannot develop, and dissent is driven underground and toward the extreme. And to draw attention away from their social and economic failures, dictators place blame on other countries and other races, and stir the hatred that leads to violence. This status quo of despotism and anger cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or bought off.

The army and the government needs a dictator.

In the Middle East there are two methods of control: mass repression and mass bribery. In Syria they use mass repression; in Saudi Arabia, mass bribery. In Bahrain, a bit of both.

This is a struggle between a struggling democracy and a vicious dictatorship, and I think we should take sides.

I visited Libya in September 1996 for the 27th anniversary of the 'revolution' - a military coup that a 27-year-old Gadhafi led to topple the monarchy and since which he has ruled. Some were optimistic that Gadhafi's 'revolution' could herald a new Libya, but it didn't take long for his brutality to stamp out any such hopes.

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

Bashar al-Assad's henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims' occupations.

I grew up in Taiwan, which was a military dictatorship.

China is a heaven compared to North Korea.

The exercise of politics is criminalized in Venezuela.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator.

The people will demand answers from all the dictators and the people who have not allowed this country to function.

The very act of protest is dangerous in Venezuela.

I suffered during the military intervention of May 27, 1960, and then again on March 12, 1971 and again on September 12, 1980, and I was targeted February 28, 1997. My respect for the military aside, I have always been against interventions.

Doing politics in Venezuela is a risk, and you can pay with your life.

It's important to remember that a dictator will not freely relinquish power after having hijacked the constitution and ruled with threats and promises. Sometimes it is necessary to put enough pressure on him that he leaves.

Revolutions are not exportable: revolutions are created by oppressive conditions which Latin American countries exercise against their peoples.

The world is a better place because Saddam Hussein does not in Iraq.

When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.

Who is against democracy? Is it the one who calls for peaceful resistance, or the one who bombs people, sheds their blood and leads them away from the leaders under feeble and dirty pretexts?