Madam, - Everyone agrees that the only possible response to the Nazi Holocaust, which systematically killed over 10 million Jews, Poles, Slavs, Gypsies, and homosexuals, as well as mentally and physically handicapped Germans, is to say, "It must never happen again".
How ironic, then, that so many of the politicians who gathered last week to affirm this pledge are rushing to do business - even in weapons - with a regime that has 10 times as much blood on its hands.
Discounting for now the incomprehensible statistics of death under Chairman Mao's demented leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, estimated at over 100 million, the Beijing authorities still maintain that the Tiananmen massacre was limited to a few casualties, and that it was a justified response.
According to the China Support Network, over 900 suspected dissidents were rounded up in Beijing last week to prevent any public demonstrations around the death of Zhao Zhiyang.
Meanwhile the prison death-count for Falun Gong members continues to rise. Maintaining their monolithic grip on power, the same party authorities continue to imprison and torture people for their beliefs, be the victims Tibetans, Uighyur Muslims, Vatican-allied Catholics, aspiring trades unionists, dissident environmentalists, or even people investigating AIDS in China.
How can we make sure that flagrant abuses of human rights do not occur if we continue to support the regimes that do the abusing? Never again? So long as it doesn't interfere with trade. - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY O'BRIEN, Tibet Support Group Ireland, Ailesbury Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.