Sir, - I watched on television the enthusiastic welcome given to Bill Clinton in Ireland. Three years ago, during his last visit to Ireland, I was working as a human rights worker in Colombia. Together with colleagues, I visited a small hamlet where a former town councillor had been executed by government troops.
After that visit we sat and watched Bill Clinton in Ireland and wondered why the Irish people had seen fit to welcome the man whose government supplied the weapons that had been used in the execution we had investigated. Little did I know then that the Colombian colleagues watching television with me would be dead before Clinton's next visit. They too were executed for defending human rights and for standing up to an army backed and armed to the teeth by the US.
I wish they could come out and protest against the US backing such murderers, but they cannot. The Colombian army, which is the single largest recipient of US military aid in Latin America, put paid to that. Those who feel we should not have protested against Clinton should remember that there are others who dare to protest against the corrupt regimes of Latin America and pay for it with their lives. Upsetting potential "investors" seems a small price to pay. - Yours, etc., Gearoid O Loingsigh,
Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1.