A Chara, - John O'Shea of Goal has been writing to you for years criticising African governments and their corrupt rulers, calling on the international community to do something about it and trying to force the Irish Government to stop giving them any assistance.
He always writes in the name of Goal so I can't oppose his arguments lest I be seen to oppose the great work being done by the voluntary workers in Goal. Is he speaking for them or is he expressing his own personal political position? Do John O'Shea and the members of Goal not see that the international community which he refers to is composed of the colonial powers who still control Africa and who decide who will or will not take power?
They also control the funding for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation and decide which crops they will grow, what companies will control the mineral, oil and other wealth, and the whole economy of the country.
In his latest letter John O'Shea again attacks Uganda, about which he seems to be paranoid. He now tells us that the International Court of Justice ordered Uganda to pay reparation to the Congo Republic for the plunder of the Congo's mineral wealth. All I can say to this is that they have necks in this so-called International Court of Justice. They know, and John O'Shea must know, that the whole international community has been plundering the Congo's wealth for the last century - led by "little Belgium", on whose behalf 40,000 Irishmen died in the first World War. Roger Casement had exposed the brutal genocide of King Leopold of Belgium on the Congolese people long before the war started, but his report was suppressed by the British government. Believe it or not, John O'Shea of Goal, little Belgium is still in charge of affairs in the Republic of Congo. They put forward the new constitution and they organised the election of Joseph Kabila as president. They also at least supervised, if not actually carried out, the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila who was a follower of Patrice Lumumba - also assassinated 30 years earlier in 1961. We have all benefited from the plunder of the Congo. Every mobile phone contains a mineral from Coltan which was cheaply dug from the soil and forests of the Congo with no benefits to the Congolese people. We all owe it to the people of the Congo to at least learn the truth of what is going on and not listen to John O'Shea of Goal.
I would finally point out to him that the diamond capital of the world is not in Uganda, nor is it in the Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone or South Africa. No. The diamond capital of the world is in Antwerp, (which is, surprise, surprise, in Belgium), where there are 30,000 people engaged in the job of cutting and polishing diamonds for the international jewellery business and the industrial market. Enough said.
Yours, etc,
TOMÁS Mac GIOLLA, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.