Madam, - The Sudanese government is still failing to honour its promises to stop its armed forces and Janjaweed militias from killing, raping and destroying villages as even the poorly endowed African Union monitoring operation makes obvious with every passing day.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are now effectively imprisoned in camps, facing death from disease and living in constant fear, surrounded by the very forces from which they fled.
One of the most frightening developments recently has been the number of attacks by the Sudanese regime's forces on aid agency personnel. The principal weapons in the execution of genocide in Darfur are starvation and disease and by undermining the humanitarian effort the process will be accelerated as aid agencies are intimidated to the point where they feel compelled to leave the country. This also reflects the belief of General El Bashir's regime that the international community will do nothing to stop the genocide and that it can act with impunity.
The African Union, if properly resourced, could play a decisive role. However, without resources and real political support that is not going to happen.
Ireland should single-handedly offer to fund that operation as a political initiative to deliver a wake-up call to the world. Rwanda is happening all over again in Darfur and Ireland is inert.
This makes a complete mockery out of our alleged commitment to the majority world. However, it is not only the government that is culpable. The silence of those of us who found the voice to shout so loudly about our failure to meet the UN aid target must realise that Darfur underlines the fact that without respect for human rights on the ground aid is useless.
In short, better to spend our entire aid budget today on an African Union peace enforcement operation than to perpetuate the myth that aid makes any real difference unless the people it is meant to assist have the rights and personal security to avail of it.
The most effective way to force the world to act would have been for the UN Security Council to invoke the Genocide Convention - which is precisely why some countries, including Russia and China with their "interests" in Sudan, have resisted such a move. The United States has already accused the Sudanese government of perpetrating genocide in Darfur but stopped short of actually doing anything meaningful about it. The EU, and Ireland in particular, have not even done that preferring instead to hide behind diplomatic fog to avoid having to take action that could still save many hundreds of thousands of lives.
What is the point in having an Aid Budget unless it is used to help the most vulnerable in the most effective way? - Yours, etc.,
RONAN TYNAN, ANNE DALY, Esperanza Productions, Blackrock, Co Dublin.