Sir, - While there is nothing exceptional, or indeed new, in John O'Shea's quick trawl through Congolese history (Opinion, December 28th), his conclusions are at best novel, and at worst truly terrifying in their implications, if they were ever to be implemented.
Calling for a withdrawal of Irish aid from Uganda and Rwanda - and one must assume that Mr O'Shea believes other states should follow suit - would risk destabilising governments which are providing a modicum of stability in an imploding region. What must be encouraged is a unified action by those states in a place that is culturally, linguistically, and in terms of trade orientation closer to East Africa than it is to the Congo basin, not least in terms of building protection for the land rights of indigenous Tutsi in East Congo.
Further to that, there has to be some recognition that the Congo no longer functions as a state in any conventional sense of the word, nor has it done so for quite some time. Any settlement in East Congo will have to be both acceptable to, and almost certainly in part policed by, the governments in Kampala and Kigali. Certainly, there must be pressure on them not simply to repeat the plundering activities which have been the hallmark of both African and European interests in the Congo. Cutting aid, bestowing pariah status, attempting to enforce some kind of international isolation, will do nothing to achieve those ends, but rather would contribute, however marginally, to a further opening of African territory to the rapine lawlessness Mr O'Shea purports to condemn.
If Mr O'Shea really wants to ponder where the increased danger to the Congo comes from in recent times, he might consider the implications of the accession to the US presidency of George W. Bush, whose father used have the murdering ex-president Mobuto as a personal house guest. Maybe we should be looking for sanctions to contain Texan oil interests and their intentions in Western Congo, rather than undermining some of the poorest governments on earth. - Yours, etc.,
Eoin Dillon, Ceannt Fort, Mount Brown, Dublin 8.