JOHN O'SHEA,
Sir, - Recent tragic events in the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have killed around 100 people and left upwards of half-a-million others homeless. By any standards this is a major tragedy, but for the unfortunate people of the area it is just the latest in a long list of disasters to have blighted their lives.
Although it has gone almost unnoticed or unreported by the media in the West, a war in which three million people have lost their lives has been going on in eastern Congo for the past three years
Six national armies and a motley collection of militias are involved. Each gives seemingly plausible reasons for their engagement, but there is a great deal of evidence that the parties to this war are there for the sole reason of plundering the natural resources of the country. Diamonds, gold, timber, coltan - even the wildlife of the region - have all been plundered in vast quantities by combatants and their political paymasters.
A damning UN report in April last year made shocking reading. Some of the main culprits in this stripping of DRC's assets are the political and military leaders of Uganda who are also in receipt of substantial amounts of aid money from the Irish Government.
I implore Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and anyone else who has any international influence to take up this issue, to condemn the recent redeployment of Ugandan troops in north-eastern Congo in violation of the 1999 Lusaka Accord, and to press for Uganda to leave the country altogether.
The longer the rest of the world dithers on this issue, the higher the death toll grows. - Yours etc.,
JOHN O'SHEA, GOAL, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.