Madam, - The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has likened Sudan's activities in Darfur to ethnic cleansing. The World Food Programme chief, James Morris, has spoken of "one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world". And the acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, has accused the Sudanese Government of "massive human rights violations which may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity".
It beggars belief that, far from being the object of worldwide outrage, Sudan has recently been elected to the UN Commission for Human Rights.
Whilst Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir (or his representative) attends UN Human Rights Commission meetings in New York, his air force is bombing villages in Darfur and the bands of militias which he bankrolls continue to spread terror among the black African population by rape, murder and pillage.
The upshot of this regime's policies is that more than 2 million people have been displaced from their homes and 100,000 are facing famine.
Some day soon the United Nations could well be in the ludicrous situation of having to ask a member of its own Human Rights Commission for permission to offer aid to the victims of his regime's human rights abuses. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN O'SHEA, GOAL, PO Box 19, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.