There is a greater fatigue concerning the African problem today than five or 10 years ago. The situation now in Africa is worse today than it was 10 years ago.

The failure of the United Nations - My failure is maybe, in retrospective, that I was not enough aggressive with the members of the Security Council.

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

Rwanda was considered a second-class operation; because it was a small country, we had been able to maintain a kind of status quo. They were negotiating, they'd accepted the new peace project, so we were under the impression that everything would be solved easily.

So this is why I'm always say happy that somebody mentions Rwanda, because behind Rwanda, we have Africa.

For President Clinton, according to this discussion I had with him, Rwanda was a marginal problem.

The fact that you had disruptions in the peace process was not only in Rwanda. We had the same problem in Cambodia, we had the same problem in Mozambique, we had the same problem in Salvador.

I used to say I never talk about my successor, neither about my predecessor.

But at the beginning, our definition of the genocide was what happened to Armenia in 1917 or 1919, it's happened to the Jew in Europe, and we were not realizing - In our point of view, they have not the tools to do a genocide.

When you have an accident, they will save their own people, and those who have worked with you or with the NGOs are left. Unfortunately, this happens always. It is not an excuse at all.

But definitely, when a decision is taken, or when you are trying to oppose a decision, you are in a weaker position than the member states, because they know more about the situation than you. We gave information, but they never gave us any information.

There is a greater fatigue concerning the African problem today than five or 10 years ago. The situation now in Africa is worse today than it was 10 years ago.

The problem is when you are writing something in retrospective, it needs a lot of courage not to change, or you will forget a certain reality, and you will just take in consideration your view today.

The change began in Somalia, where we discovered that we were involved in an operation where there was no peace, so there was no more a peacekeeping operation because there was no peace.

The real problem was not the troops; the real problem was that only the United States had the infrastructure to do the transport of troops with big planes, and then who will pay?

For us, genocide was the gas chamber - what happened in Germany. We were not able to realize that with the machete you can create a genocide.

In Yugoslavia, I'd asked for additional forces too. I even went to meet the French prime minister, and I proposed additional forces... Nobody wanted to send troops.

We were not realizing that, with just a machete, you can do a genocide.

We got involved in the Rwanda peace process for the simple reason that there was a decision which was taken by the Security Council, because the troops were in Uganda, and we decided to have a military presence.

It was a mistake. I was wrong, but I discovered this many years later. I was acting on the basis of this mandate given me by the most important leaders of the world: President Bush's father, prime minister of France, President Mitterand, the Chinese, everybody.

But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is.

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

It is up to African leaders to show their will and political courage in order to assure that this new pan-African institution becomes an efficient instrument and not a place for endless discussions.

Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.

I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.

I have a very personal interest. I am a Miami-Dade voter. One of the issues is that my vote and so many other votes of women and African Americans in Florida are being discounted or discarded. I want my vote to count.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, have played an important role in enriching the lives of not just African Americans, but our entire country.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

I think one of the political problems we have in this country is the perspective that all soccer moms think alike, all African-Americans think alike.

The adoring crowds and overwhelming Democratic support in the 2008 election was based largely on joy at jettisoning Bush and the appeal of electing a superbly qualified charismatic African American leader.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

Eight generations of African-Americans are still waiting to achieve their rights - compensation and restitution for the hundreds of years during which they were bought and sold on the market.

An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.

I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.

In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.

What we call soul has been around a long time. It comes out of a particular culture that is African in origin, but influenced by 250 years of slavery, as well as other forms of racial oppression.

From the time of independences until the end of the Cold War, in spite of the participation of a considerable number of African states in the non-aligned movement, everyone in fact chose to align with one or another of the two major blocks.

Sports and entertainment have always been windows of opportunity for African Americans, when other doors were closed.

Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl.

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion.

At the same, we need to remain sensitive to the reality that we are still an African society in which the majority of the people and communities live under severe deprivations and afflictions that are no fault of theirs.

I concentrate on the southern African subcontinent.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.