No country is ever entirely frank about its foreign policy. Where material interests are pursued, countries tend to obscure this less attractive feature of their external relations, writes Garret FitzGerald.
Thus Irish governments have always been reticent about their beef export dealings with states such as Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq; dealings which at times have been difficult to reconcile with our human rights concerns or, in the case of Libya, with that state's provision of finance and arms to the IRA.
We also hear little about the negative impact on Third World countries of some aspects of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, such as the damage done to the economies of some developing countries whose exports of cheaper cane sugar are restricted for the benefit of European, including Irish, beet sugar producers.
(Incidentally, it is noticeable that these less defensible features of our foreign relations do not attract public protests or demonstrations.)
However, what is often missed is the fact that when states engage in activities designed to advance human rights or to restore peace in troubled parts of the world, they tend to be equally reticent about this positive work, for a quite different reason, viz. because of a fear that to publicise these well-motivated activities might make more difficult the achievement of what is being sought: the quieter the diplomacy, the more effective it is likely to prove.
Irish governments have been particularly slow to advertise the good work that is done by our diplomats at the United Nations and elsewhere, fearing that to say much about these activities would be to compromise the success of what they are attempting.
But it seems to me that, at least after the event, Irish public opinion should be told something about these very constructive aspects of our foreign policy. And this is especially the case after a period when membership of the Security Council has recently enabled us to punch above our weight.
This is all the more important at the present time because the Government's subsequent decision not to exclude from Shannon Airport flights carrying US servicemen to and from Iraq has given some parts of public opinion an impression of Irish subservience to the United States, which is clearly at variance with our actual record on the Security Council. During its recent term on the council, Ireland was active in relation to peace and human rights issues in a score of different parts of the world.
Throughout the period Ireland maintained an independent position, and at different times found itself opposing one or other of all five permanent members, including the United States which it opposed on some aspect of as many as nine different issues.
Because of the principled positions adopted throughout on these issues, and the non-contentious manner in which they were approached by our diplomats and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach (who between them visited the UN seven times during our term of membership of the council), these Irish stances seem to have evoked remarkably little hostility from those whose positions we found ourselves opposing.
A major Irish success during this period, of which little has been said, was the ending of the war in Angola. At the outset of our period on the Security Council the Irish Ambassador to the UN, Mr Richard Ryan, was appointed chairman of the Angola (UNITA) Sanctions Committee which, after the Iraq Sanctions Committee, was perhaps the most important of 10 such UN sanctions bodies.
Visits by Mr Ryan to countries in southern Africa and eastern Europe from which arms had been reaching the rebels, and to southern African countries with citizens who had been dealing in diamonds emanating from the rebels, made the sanctions far more effective. UNITA's propaganda efforts and international business contacts were also blocked by travel restrictions on certain senior officials, and key bank accounts were frozen.
On April 4th last year a ceasefire was signed, with UNITA admitting that it had been defeated by the rigorous implementation of the UN sanctions. During these two years, Ireland also worked hard to protect the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. It did this by inhibiting an attempt to split the Non-Aligned Movement members of the Security Council in a way that would have secured the adoption of a resolution prejudicing self-determination for this former Spanish colony.
That resolution, which had US and French support, would have allowed people with only one year's residence to vote on the future of the territory in five years' time, to the potential benefit of neighbouring Morocco. However, Irish efforts ensured that at least so long as we were on the council, no more than seven states would vote for such a resolution.
On the Middle East, in October 2001 Ireland marked the establishment of the negotiating Quartet (UN, US, EU, Russia) by drafting a Security Council statement endorsing the Quartet's call for an end to violence and a return to negotiations. And two months later Ireland voted for a moderate Arab Group draft resolution, thus encouraging other members to follow suit, despite US and UK opposition and an eventual US veto.
On Afghanistan it was on Irish insistence that on October 8th, 2001, the president of the council issued a statement, drafted by Ireland, stressing the importance of humanitarian considerations. Later, despite Russian opposition, Ireland helped to secure that the Pashtuns, as the majority ethnic group, were included in the process of forming a new government.
Ireland was also one of the few non-permanent members to take an active part in the discussions of the Iraq Sanctions Committee, highlighting consistently the humanitarian needs of the people. We also strongly supported Dr Hans Blix in his efforts to delete from Resolution 1441 unnecessary and counterproductive elements that had been sought by the US.
And the Irish explanation of its vote on that resolution made it clear that in the event of non-compliance by Iraq it would be for the council to decide on what action should be taken; a view which, of course, was subsequently rejected by the US and UK when they decided to invade Iraq without such a further council decision.
Furthermore, despite some French and British reticence, Ireland regularly briefed the EU member-states that were not members of the council, a procedure that has continued since Ireland's departure.
In last week's column I was by implication unfairly critical of The Irish Times's news coverage of the Convention on the Future of Europe in Brussels. On reflection I realise that this was quite unjustified.