Sir, - I do not wish to engage in an endless debate with John O'Shea, but a short response is required to his letter (May 13th).
I did not argue in my original letter (May 7th) that the lives of Rwandan refugees in eastern Zaire should have been abandoned in 1994. My point was that GOAL's work, despite the good results it was also achieving, could not but lend assistance to the genocidal forces in control of the refugee camps. This must have posed a particularly acute dilemma for GOAL and others as, over time, those forces reorganised - and stepped up terrorist attacks against both Rwandan and Zairean civilians. If John O Shea now thinks it is wrong for the Irish Government to give aid to the Rwandan government, on the grounds that such aid may indirectly support attacks against civilians in Zaire, then why did this argument not apply to GOAL's work in the camps in, for example, 1995?
John O'Shea says that "all aid going to Rwanda should be channelled through international aid agencies". As the experience of GOAL and many others in Zaire demonstrates, aid agencies do not occupy some mysterious high ground of pure, unadulterated neutrality - all aid plays some part in the conflict. That is as true of GOAL as it is of the Irish Government. -Yours, etc.,
Ravensdale Park,
Dublin 12.