The Third World campaigner Mr John O'Shea yesterday urged the Government to stop giving developmental aid to the Ugandan government.
At a meeting of the Joint Oireacthas Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr O'Shea said the Ugandan government was sponsoring armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where serious ethnic fighting has escalated despite a peace agreement last year. He said that five million people in the Congo had died in its civil war.
The Congolese people were enduring "the worst tragedy on on earth since the second World War", he said. "Rape, torture, slavery, theft and even cannibalism are all regular features." Founder of the Goal charity, Mr O'Shea said some of the €30 million in Irish aid can be used by the Uganda to fund it activities in Congo.
The international community had ignored this because it did not care about the Ugandans because they were black or because it was desperate to demonstrate a successful aid project in Africa, he said. The Ugandans were among those pillaging the Congo of its natural resources.
The Department of Foreign Affairs knew of Uganda's culpability and had accepted it. For this reason, the Government should withdraw its financial support of the Ugandan government.
However, the former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said the Government had vigorous mechanisms to ensure that the money was not used by the Ugandan government to buy weapons or fund its activities in the Congo.
Senator David Norris said he supported Mr O'Shea's demand for a withdrawal of funding from Uganda.
The chief executive of Concern Worldwide, Mr Tom Arnold, said Irish aid to Uganda should be linked to internal governance issues, its termination of support for warring factions in the Congo and the termination of illegal exploitation of its resources.