Sir, - Vincent Browne is to be congratulated for his excellent article on Africa (Opinion, January 6th). Since it was published, news has come out of the massacre of 500 people in the eastern part of the Congo. Rebel forces in Sierra Leone have entered Freetown and heavy fighting has broken out in Somalia. In Southern Sudan the Dinka warlord Kerbubno Bol has defected to Khartoum from the SPLA, signalling the potential breakdown of the fragile ceasefire essential to the delivery of aid. In just a few days the situation so graphically described in the article has deteriorated further.
Mr Browne rightly calls attention to the apathy and indifference of the media and the international community in the face of such horror. I would put forward one additional point for consideration. How is it that just a couple of months ago the ECOMOG force (mainly Nigerian) was reported to have comprehensively defeated the rebel forces in Sierra Leone, yet today it is fighting for control of the capital city? How is it that UNITA forces of Jonas Sauimbi in Angola were also considered to have been marginalised, yet they have re-launched the civil war in that country? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that both Angola and Sierra Leone are rich in diamonds and these can be traded internationally to buy arms. The international community allows this trade to take place.
It is an abomination that the citizens of two countries rich in natural resources are not alone deprived of these resources but are having them turned into weapons to terrorise the population with the connivance of the international diamond markets.
There is a great temptation for the West to throw up its hands in despair at the situation. All the ingredients for a continental war in Africa, are present, as Mr Browne pointed out.
Morally we cannot abandon such a large section of humanity. The reality is that ordinary men, women and children, just like us only a different colour, have no control over the circumstances in which they live and die. We, on the other hand, have some influence and we should try to use it on their behalf. - Yours, etc., David Begg,
Chief Executive, Concern, Camden Street, Dublin 2.