Loose cannons

Sounds good

"People are coming from all over the place, and when there is a mass of people gathered, anything can happen." — An Indonesian National Police spokesperson on anti-Suharto demonstrations.

The things that matter

"Political reform is very important, because otherwise people just won't accept the sacrifices that need to be made." — Indonesian businessman Jusuf Wanandi, a convert to reform after years in a Suharto government think-tank.

Message

"We are sending the message out to those people contemplating voting for One Nation to give their second preference to the Coalition ..." — Greg Goebel, Queensland Liberal Party director, announcing that the party would put One Nation ahead of Labor on its state and federal how-to-vote tickets.

Especially I

"Most of the people who are attracted to Pauline Hanson are no more racist than you and I." — Prime Menzies John Howard.

Huge office

"We must and we do acknowledge that the world failed Rwanda at that time of evil." — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, responding to disclosures that his office in 1994 ordered UN peacekeepers not to intervene against the Rwandan government's planned genocide.

Inconsistent

"For 30 years they tried to kill Castro, and now they say others can't do the very same thing they were doing." Ricardo Pesquera, lawyer for a Cuban exile arrested by the US Coast Guard with a boat load of weapons intended for an assassination attempt on Cuban President Fidel Castro.

From GLW issue 317