Madam, - The situation in western Sudan is being called the world's worst humanitarian crisis - which is nothing less than a shameful misrepresentation. Calling it a humanitarian crisis is only making it easier for the perpetrators - the Sudanese regime of President Omar el-Bashir - to complete the task through engineered famine.
Ten years after the genocidal slaughter in Rwanda the people of Darfur are suffering a similar fate. We visited Rwanda just after the genocide and remember very well the international hand-wringing and tearful grand statements of "never again". Well, it is happening again. To our astonishment the Irish EU Presidency has added to the diplomatic fog with a weak statement that, far from intimidating the Sudanese regime, only provides it with useful cover by perpetuating the myth that it is not wholly responsible for this campaign of genocide against the Fur, the Messaleit, the Zaghawa and the other tribal groups in Darfur.
Why are the UN and the international community refusing to say what is really going on there? Hundreds of thousands of people can still be saved if the Sudanese regime is confronted effectively. The parallels with that first hundred days in Rwanda when the slaughter took place and the world stood idly by are chilling. It is estimated that without dramatically improved humanitarian access and security 400,000 to 500,000 will die in the impending famines and epidemics, in addition to the many thousands already slaughtered.
The Janjaweed, the Sudanese government's Arab militia, continues its campaign of mass murder and rape of the black African tribes in Darfur. President el-Bashir's government uses the Janjaweed as its primary instrument in implementing the genocide, providing them with money and guns and carrying out aerial bombardments of villages immediately before militia raids.
The Janjaweed have corralled civilians into camps - what some rightly call "concentration camps" - where many thousands are dying from disease and malnutrition. Those who were not slaughtered outright are clearly being left to starve. Grain stores have been deliberately destroyed and the planting season has been missed.
Silence is complicity in the face of genocide. Because of the EU presidency, Ireland is in a unique position to seek an emergency resolution in the UN Security Council and the effective mobilisation of international pressure to stop the Sudanese regime from completing its own final solution in Darfur. - Yours, etc.,
RONAN TYNAN, ANNE DALY, Esperanza Productions, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - I welcome your recent extensive coverage of the comments of the UN Under-Secretary General, Jan Egeland, on the Darfur region of Sudan, during his visit to Dublin.
Last week's successful donor meeting on Darfur in Geneva allowed the international community a valuable opportunity to engage directly with the government of Sudan and Darfur rebel groups. It highlighted the pattern of gross violations of human rights being practised by government-backed militias, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, rape, forced displacement and disappearances.
In that meeting with the Sudanese Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, I sought immediate and unrestricted access for aid workers and aid supplies to the most needy and vulnerable in Darfur. I am pleased that there has been improvement in access this week for Irish NGOs and others.
The EU development ministers, meeting in Dublin on June 1st, also supported the immediate deployment of the African Union ceasefire monitoring mechanism to oversee the ceasefire on the ground in Darfur. Ireland, for its part, has already allocated €2.5 million for immediate humanitarian assistance in Darfur. The Government will continue to actively engage on this issue for the remainder of Ireland's EU presidency and beyond. - Yours, etc.,
TOM KITT, TD, Minister of State for Development Co-operation and Human Rights, Dublin 2.