Oscar Arias: I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that...

The best way to perpetuate poverty is spending on arms, and poverty itself is a form of violence. The wealthy industrialized countries have been too slow to recognize this. I hope that in this new century and new millennium, the world will learn that if you want peace, you must prepare for peace, plan for peace, work for it, and comply with its dictates. Lasting peace will never be achieved with the instruments of war.

Oscar Arias

war country world

The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.

Oscar Arias

freedom responsibility peace

The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth.

Oscar Arias

nuclear-disarmament weapons earth

The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth. Nuclear arms cannot bolster the security of any nation because they represent a threat to the security of the human race. These incredibly destructive weapons are an affront to our common humanity, and the tens of billions of dollars that are dedicated to their development and maintenance should be used instead to alleviate human need and suffering

Oscar Arias

common-humanity nuclear-disarmament race

War, and the preparation for war, are the two greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence and poverty.

Oscar Arias

preparation war two

Peace is not a dream; it is hard work, and there is nothing naive, glamorous or simplistic about it.

Oscar Arias

hard-work dream peace

I am not a pacifist, however I do believe that the U.S. tends to resort to force too quickly. I am not referring only to the current administration; the same thing happened in the Balkans, and on other occasions.

Oscar Arias

pacifist things-happen believe

My country is a country of teachers. It is therefore a country of peace. We discuss our successes and failures in complete freedom. Because our country is a country of teachers, we closed the army camps, and our children go about with books under their arms, not with rifles on their shoulders. We believe in dialogue, in agreement, in reaching a consensus.

Oscar Arias

teacher country children

Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries. It is an attitude, a way of life, a way of solving problems and resolving conflicts. It cannot be forced on the smallest nation or enforced by the largest. It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.

Oscar Arias

attitude peace country

I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone.

Oscar Arias

hate mean believe

Action had to be taken in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, but I am very concerned about the current administration's rhetoric and apparent zeal to expand military action to other places. I'm afraid that terrorism is being used as an excuse, not only for possible military action in such places as Iraq, Iran, and the Philippines, but also for exorbitant increases in defense spending that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Oscar Arias

september-11 taken military

The effect of one good-hearted person is incalculable.

Oscar Arias

good-hearted persons kindness

We are calling on countries that supply weapons to comply with certain restrictions: not to sell weapons to human rights abusers, not to sell them to governments or groups carrying out aggression against states, not to make weapons sales that could disrupt security or development in the receiving region. These are in many ways common sense principles, but sadly, there seems to be very little common sense in the international arms trade.

Oscar Arias

common-sense human-rights country

Peace is a never ending process... It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.

Oscar Arias

differences together peace

I would like to see the U.S. fighting another war, perhaps in addition to that against terror: a war on poverty, illiteracy, disease and environmental degradation. It is certainly within the power of your country to act on all of these fronts, but, unfortunately, your leaders have become obsessed with a single issue.

Oscar Arias

fighting war country

Hope is the strongest driving force for a people. Hope which brings about change, which produces new realities, is what opens man's road to freedom.

Oscar Arias

freedom men reality

Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul. The inhabitants of my small country, Costa Rica, have realized those words by Erasmus. Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship.

Oscar Arias

peace country children

It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different.

Oscar Arias

confused revenge two

For ages the world has been living by the stupidity of an old Roman adage that says if you want peace, prepare for war. As if anything said in ancient times must be wise, people have used this phrase to justify some of the most unjustifiable arms build-ups, which, far from creating peace, has only become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oscar Arias

wise war people

Hope is the strongest driving force for a people. Hope which brings about change, which produces new realities, is what opens man's road to freedom. Once hope has taken hold, courage must unite with wisdom. That is the only way of avoiding violence, the only way of maintaining the calm one needs to respond peacefully to offenses.

Oscar Arias

freedom wisdom courage

I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that military solutions are the only way to go. This was true in the 1980s, and it is true today. You should know that I do not consider myself a pacifist; there are times, in my view, when military action may be necessary.