Paddy Ashdown
Paddy Ashdown
Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, GCMG, CH, KBE, PC, usually known as Paddy Ashdown, is a British politician and former diplomat who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 until August 1999...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth27 February 1941
home knew liberal shall time
I shall go home now. You have to know when your time is up. I knew that with the Liberal Democrats, and I know that now, in Bosnia.
achievement alone bosnia country gates impossible mandate remarkable stands start truly year
Bosnia and Herzegovina has done what many said was impossible even a year ago, let alone at the start of my mandate in May 2002. For the country now stands at the gates of Europe, ... This is a truly remarkable achievement for a country as war-torn as Bosnia and Herzegovina was just 10 years ago.
appalling architects crimes failure free primary ten
Ten years after Dayton, that these two primary architects of these appalling crimes should still be free is a failure on all sides.
came far future moral saw terrible war
We who came here saw what was happening. This was far more than a war in a faraway place. This was a moral imperative, a terrible vision of the future.
allow terrible war
I am here because I think it was a terrible sin of the west to allow those years of war.
love nicer people though
I love this country, I love these people, though I can't say I love their politicians. People are always nicer than politicians, but here, you can mark that difference up a hundredfold.
I was told there would be riots in the streets, but there were no riots.
agreement bad build democratic lay tried war
It was a superb agreement to end a war, but a very bad agreement to make a state. From now on, we have to part company with Dayton and try to build a modern democratic state, for which I have tried to lay the foundations.
both cannot change committed crimes followed fools magnitude mentality victims works
It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them.
movement time towards truth
We are not there yet, but I'd be disappointed if in two years' time there was not some movement towards truth as a precursor to reconciliation.
balkans business europe present unfinished unless
The present Europe is unfinished business unless the Balkans are a part of it,
believe change government next perhaps system
I believe that there will be a very substantial, perhaps even a two-thirds majority, for constitutional change and the modernization of our system of government in the next Parliament,
best bosnian job people
My first job has been to do the best thing for the Bosnian people. Not for the Serbs, the Bosniaks or Croats, but the people as a whole.
leave might suppose
It might be done I suppose before I leave but I think that a little unlikely.