Peter Maurer Quotes

We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And that's not getting better. It's getting worse. The carnage for the people of Syria is horrific, and it's quite frankly too little, too late to reverse a lot of that.

The security agencies are prosecuting the government’s war in Darfur.

I've been calling for the support of the Syrian rebels for years.

It was wrenching to read about the brutality of Assad every morning, to see images of family homes reduced to rubble. I felt we had to do something in Syria.

There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.

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.

I think that's the main threat in Bosnia and Rwanda and Zaire. There doesn't seem to be much willingness to engage these problems unless they directly affect national security interests.

Syria cannot continue this way—killing their people

Syria has become the great tragedy of the century—a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.

Failed states are mainly a threat to their own inhabitants. We should help them anyway.

The migrant question is directly linked to the crisis in Syria and Iraq.

As the crisis in Syria grows and the humanitarian tragedy becomes more clear, I appreciated Prime Minister Netanyahu's perspective on the changes and volatility in the region.

Libya is a huge disaster.

Unlike the Vietnam boat people or Cuban refugees after Castro came to power, the U.S. has no moral responsibility for the chaos in Syria. In fact, just the opposite is the case.

Like a nuclear disaster, the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be.

The Sudanese army has retaken some towns. The people there are all living in caves because the Sudanese army is shelling their villages.

The fact that you had disruptions in the peace process was not only in Rwanda. We had the same problem in Cambodia, we had the same problem in Mozambique, we had the same problem in Salvador.

The Coalition for International Justice estimated that 450,000 people in Darfur have died since the deadly genocide began some three years ago.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

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.

The understanding of Syria's devastating civil war has been distorted by the immense danger and difficulty of covering it.

The first time I visited Afghanistan in May 2000, I was 26 years old, and the country was under Taliban rule. I went there to document Afghan women and landmine victims.

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.

Violence has been Nicaragua's most important export to the world.

What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.