Sir, - How very sad and depressing to read in John O'Shea's World View last Saturday of corruption among Third World leaders.
This prompts the question: why are Western governments still offering them financial support? To my knowledge, Ireland has no colonial or commercial interest in Africa. We have no reason to send these governments vast sums of money.
I go along with Mr O'Shea when he suggests that the Irish Government should instead use our aid agencies and missionaries to help the poor of the developing world. This seems to me a far safer and more transparent way of getting our aid to the poor.
As a nation, we may not give a lot of money, but it makes sense that we should do our best to ensure that what we do give reaches the people who need this support so desperately.
It is also sickening to learn that no efforts are made by the international community to bring to justice the perpetrators of these dreadful crimes against their own people. The bringing before the courts of the former Indonesian President Suharto is really only scratching the surface; most of the Third World's corrupt leaders are never made pay for wholesale theft against their own people. - Yours, etc.,
Shane Dowling, Skerries, Co Dublin.