Madam, - I was delighted to visit Ireland this week in my capacity as the 2007 EU peace prize winner.
Together with Dublin MEP Eoin Ryan I met President Mary McAleese, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, key Ministers and leading Irish NGO groupings for discussions about the future of the Darfur region of Sudan.
I urged the Taoiseach to raise the plight of the people of Darfur when he gives his address to the US Houses of Congress in the coming months. I hope that Irish NGO groupings will lobby the Taoiseach on this very point in the coming weeks too.
I support the EU peacekeeping mission that is going to Chad.
This mission is a politically neutral one and the key objective of this mission will be to help in the humanitarian situation in eastern Chad. I estimate that there are as many as 500,000 people in refugee camps in Chad, many of whom have fled there from the barbarity that is taking place in Darfur.
People should not underestimate the importance of this peacekeeping mission to the people of Chad. I am delighted that this mission is being headed by an Irishman, Gen Pat Nash. Ireland has a proud record of service on United Nations missions around the world in many African countries, including in the Congo, Liberia and Angola.
African people admire the record of Irish peacekeepers who have served on UN peacekeeping missions for the past 50 years.
The EU peacekeeping mission to Chad is not a simple exercise. But the people of Chad in the refugee camps desperately need this EU mission to land.
The protection of the people in these camps in Eastern Chad and guaranteeing food and water supplies for these people must be of paramount importance.The people in the camps in Eastern Chad are there due to no fault of their own.
I welcome too the comments of the former Irish president, Mary Robinson, when she said, after a personal visit to Chad, that this EU peacekeeping mission must go ahead and that she gives this mission her full backing.
On leaving Ireland, I am heartened by the solidarity shown by the people of Ireland for the suffering of the people of Darfur.
I have visited France and Ireland since I was given this peace award by the European Parliament last December.
I intend to meet the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to discuss the plight of the people of Darfur in the coming weeks. - Yours, etc,
SALIH OSMAN, EU peace prize winner 2007, Wadmadmi, Sudan.