I come from Sierra Leone where nine years of civil war have devastated the country. It has been described by one Irish newspaper as a "forgotten war".

Even though Sierra Leone is rich in gold, diamonds, bauxite, rutile, other mineral resources and produces cocoa and coffee for export, it is one of the poorest and most heavily indebted countries in the world.

Its debt and debt repayment burden have resulted in large-scale unemployment and corruption. These, in addition to the twin colonial heritages of the "survival-of-the-fittest" and "winner/ruler-takes-all" economic systems, are among the major reasons for a war which has been largely about gaining access to the country's wealth by those who felt barred from sharing in it.

Hundreds of children have been abducted by rebels and trained to kill, maim, loot, burn and rape; hundreds of young girls have been taken to satisfy the sexual needs of rebels; tens of thousands have been killed; thousands have been maimed; many towns and villages have been destroyed, including parts of the city of Freetown; tens of thousands have been internally displaced; and over one million have become refugees, mostly in neighbouring West African countries.

By any standards, the international response to all of this has been pathetic. For instance, how many times can you, the reader, recall mention of Sierra Leone's dead, maimed, 1.6 million refugees or its abducted in the Irish or other Western media?

Very few, I suggest, and when there has been mention at all it is usually because some Irish or other Western person's interest is at stake.

Do we ever ask why this is so? Why do we hear so much about Kosovo by comparison? Or why is it that so much media space/time can be devoted to telling us about a beached whale/sick panda while the thousands of men, women and children who are brutalised and being denied basic human rights, including the right to life, in other parts of the world, are ignored?

I am not suggesting it is wrong to give media time to these other matters but if it is right to cover the tragedies of people in parts of the world nearer home, is there not something seriously wrong when we ignore similar or worse human tragedies in other parts of the world?

Is Sierra Leone's war and the suffering of her people - and, indeed, the wars and suffering of other African countries and peoples - "forgotten" and largely ignored by the West because we are "strangers"? By its attitude towards us and our issues, is the West not saying that we do not belong to the same human family?

Against the background of the jubilee and millennium frenzy now under way, it is important that we raise and reflect upon such questions. They will help remind us of the reality which makes many in the non-Western world very cynical about any notions of jubilee or millennium as a source of hope for a freer and better life for all.

At the recent Glenstal conference, Prof Sean Freyne noted the placement of "giving sight to the blind" at the centre of Jesus's jubilee proclamation. Did Jesus perhaps do this because what and how we see informs our attitudes towards the same? The healing story of the blind man in Bethsaida is instructive.

It took place in stages. Jesus asked him: "Can you see anything?" The man looked up and said: "Yes, I can see people, but they look like trees walking." Jesus continued the healing until the man could see clearly and, thus, see people and things as they really were.

Many non-Western people wonder whether Westerners see people like themselves when they see non-Westerners? Do they just see "trees walking" instead of versions of themselves who are poor, economic migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, indebted?

The theme of the Glenstal conference, held from June 29th to July 1st, was "Jubilee - Year of Favour and Forgiveness". That could be taken to mean the wealthy, lending countries of the "North" forgiving the debts of the poor "South", doing those latter countries a favour. Much talk about world debt relief in the North seems to reflect this questionable notion.

It is patronising. It implies, wrongly, that the "other" whose debts are being forgiven is solely to blame. Exercised in such a way, forgiveness ceases to be a gracious act and becomes just another tool of power in the hands of the one who forgives - a tool which can be used to beat the forgiven into compliance with the dictates of the forgiver.

THERE is, therefore, profound scepticism in debtor countries about debt-relief leading to freedom. Anyone with a little imagination can see how debt-relief will lead only to further enslavement for countries of the South to their benefactors in the North.

Suggestions that the North will police and oversee economic and development activities in the South if and when debts are cancelled is merely the writing on the wall for discerning people in the South.

And while the future of Southern economies is being discussed, no serious questions have been raised about Western value systems and development models, or whether these should be applied universally. Instead, benefactors in the North are much more interested in how they can wield their power to ensure their will is done by the "forgiven" South.

If anything this notion of debt-relief smacks more of charity than justice. Were the latter the case, then the unjust socio-economic structures which caused the indebtedness would be given serious thought, and decisions would be made to replace them with just ones while discussion and campaigning for debt-relief went on.

It is not Northern charity that Southern countries need but justice which allows them to take care of themselves.

It is also the case that much of this talk of debt-relief assumes the North is not indebted to the South in any way. But have the people of the South, whose children die daily as a result of Northern/Western-imposed debt repayment burdens and unequal trade relations, nothing to forgive the North for?

A Zambian man, talking of the Northern/Western economic policies imposed on his country, remarked: "It is like a man who comes to your house and says `I will help you, but first I will kill your children'. "

Then there is the colonial exploitation of the non-Western world upon which Western economies are built and continue to be built.

Jubilee 2000 should be a clarion call to see all human beings as people equally in need of the world's resources as are those in the West, and to see none as "trees walking", there only to serve Northern/Western ends.

The Rev Sahr Yambasu is a Methodist minister currently serving in Ireland on the Wicklow, Arklow and Avoca circuit.