Zitat des Tages von Óscar Arias:
Peace is a never ending process... It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.
Peace is not a matter of prizes or trophies. It is not the product of a victory or command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement.
A nation that mistreats its own citizens is more likely to mistreat its neighbours.
Costa Rica believes in building bridges, in looking for solutions to problems, and not clinging to positions.
Latin Americans glorify their past so ceaselessly that they make it almost impossible to advocate change.
To demilitarize the country means to make a profound decision. It is not enough to change the name of the armed forces. It is necessary to change the minds of those people who only yesterday wore a military uniform.
We may believe in the state's responsibility to alleviate the crushing poverty that afflicts 40 percent of Latin America's population, but most of us also affirm that there is no better cure for that poverty than a stronger, more globally integrated economy.
I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering.
There is a difference between the typical politician and the statesman. A typical politician is that person who tells people what people want to hear, while the statesman tells people what people need to know.
In 1995, world military spending totaled nearly $800 billion. If we redirected just $40 billion of those resources over the next 10 years to fighting poverty, all of the world's population would enjoy basic social services, such as education, health care, nutrition, reproductive health, clean water and sanitation.
I saw no reason why other nations should tell Central Americans how to solve their problems.
The Central American isthmus is a region of great contrasts, but also of heartening unison. Millions of men and women share dreams of freedom and progress.
I think it's in the hands of each head of state: the future of peace in his own country.
An overall trend of political moderation in Latin America makes for far less interesting headlines, but it also makes for far better lives for our people.
At one time in the history of the Americas, weapons and armies were associated with liberty and independence, and with new opportunities for our peoples. At one time in the history of the Americas, there were liberating armies.
Free trade will go a long way toward alleviating poverty in Central America. Yet trade alone is not enough.
It often seems... the human race has twittered away its existence singing an endless song - a song of waste and hatred, where there should be progress and love.
Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship.
Many developing countries continue to be burdened by high percentages of their population living in poverty. Yet, instead of addressing this root cause of conflict, many states, ironically, increase their military might in order to control increasingly desperate populations.
Nuclear arms kill many people all at once, but other weapons kill many people, little by little, every day, everywhere in the world.
In the United States, resources exist to retrain displaced workers and promote the development of technologies that create new job opportunities for American workers.
It's not fair for the U.S. to spend, on arms and weapons, so much money and then not spend on health care the money that is needed.