How ironic for peacemaking efforts to discover that hatred is stronger for many than love; that the longing to achieve power through military victories makes so many men lose their reason, forget all shame, and betray history.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.