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THE IRISH TIMES
Peter Gleeson
Saturday April 17
The Government should have the moral courage to use the remainder
of its term of the EU presidency to highlight the mass murder and
destruction taking place in the Congo, the founder of GOAL, Mr John
O'Shea, said last night.
Mr O'Shea was addressing the Peace Forum at the 21st annual Tipperary
International Festival of Peace in Tipperary town, where he was
presented with the Tipperary International Peace Award in recognition
of his humanitarian work in the Third World since he founded GOAL
27 years ago.
He called on the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and Foreign Affairs Minister,
Mr Cowen, to show moral courage by using Ireland's presidency to
bring the tragedy of the Congo to the top of the agenda on world
political stage.
He said the Government should use its current major influence
to promote a worldwide political effort to address a tragedy of
gigantic proportions in the Congo, where five million people had
been murdered in the last six years and the country's rich resources
of diamonds and coltan plundered.
Mr O'Shea said the countries most responsible for the carnage
were Rwanda and Uganda, which were friends of the Irish and other
Western governments, but which had shown the "two fingers"
to the UN when it attempted to address the killing, robbing, and
stealing that was widespread in the country.
"Five million people have died in the Congo and the world is
ignoring it," he said.
Mr O'Shea dedicated his award to the thousands of Third World missionaries
and volunteers who, he said, did not get the recognition they deserved
for their great work in Irish society. "These people frequently
coped with extraordinary dangers in their work to lessen the suffering
of people, but their huge contribution to alleviating Third World
suffering was generally overlooked in Ireland.
"It only all comes into focus at times like last December
when Archbishop Michael Courtney from Nenagh was savagely murdered
in Burundi.
"These people have made a prodigious contribution to alleviate
suffering in the face of indifference by governments in the West."
The Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, said
the EU and the UN had undertaken a humanitarian relief mission last
year aimed at stabilising the situation in the Congo. Both bodies
had worked in harmony and helped to alleviate a situation of humanitarian
distress. An EU force was able to carry out its UN mandate of stabilising
the area sufficiently to allow a reconstituted UN force to be redeployed
there.
Munster MEP Mr Brian Crowley said the strength of the EU was in
acting as honest broker to bring warring parties in various parts
of the world together to engage in conflict resolution.
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