Sir, - With regards to the content of the article "The next one's for real", (The Irish Times, June 1st), I would like to make the following remarks:
One can easily understand the usefulness of a training exercise regarding an hypothetical emergency situation, involving the arrival of a large number of refugees in Ireland and the possible reaction of the various state institutions, specialised organizations or the media, in such exceptional circumstances.
Nevertheless, the actual hypothesis put forward by the organisers of this exercise - a situation that presupposes the so-called outbreak of "fighting between hardline Communists and state authorities in Romania" - transgresses even the purely imaginary and the "game theory" assumption, normally associated with framing scenarios for such enterprises.
It is now clearly understood by everyone with a minimal knowledge of Romania that this country is not only a modern and consolidated democracy in Central Europe but also a state that makes tremendous efforts to "export" stability to some of the troubled neighbouring areas in the Balkans. An hypothesis advancing conflict on the lines suggested here is thus totally out of touch with the political realities of contemporary Romania.
The fact that it was just an hypothesis or a scenario doesn't account for the responsibility of engaging in such concrete examples, by naming countries and relating them to particular situations, when dealing with these issues. Furthermore, it creates confusion in the public opinion and ultimately puts into question the very purpose of this exercise.
But if the mentioned "hypothesis" is based upon a certain phenomenon, related to those few hundred Romanian economic migrants living now in Ireland, then this entire issue becomes also a serious misrepresentation of the facts underlying this concrete situation.
When a dramatic situation, involving almost one million Kosovar refugees, is unfolding just before our very eyes in the Balkans, I wonder why this "imaginative" effort for creating scenarios that could never occur and have no correspondence in reality. - Yours, etc., Dr George Maior,
Charge d'Affaires, Embassy of Romania, Ailesbury Road, Dublin 4.