Madam, - I commend RTÉ's decision to broadcast Jerry O'Callaghan's searing Prime Time report on the disastrous humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In this forgotten country, between 3 million and 5 million people have lost their lives because of violence and disease in recent years. On a visit earlier this year, I was appalled by the savagery of the conflict, but was struck also by the extraordinary resilience and courage shown by the people in the midst of the catastrophe they are living through.
African political leadership, in DRC and its neighbours, the international community through the UN, and major commercial interests involved in the exploitation of the country's natural resources all share major responsibility for this tragedy.
What needs to be done if this tragic country and its people are to have a future? The simple answer, which may sound familiar to Irish ears, is to stop the killing, get politics working and rebuild the economy.
The more complex answer must include the following measures.
The governments of the DRC, and neighbouring countries including Uganda and Rwanda, have made commitments under the Congolese Peace Process. They must be obliged by the international community, through the UN, to live up to them. The UN must also ensure ensuring ongoing support for the proposed regional peace-building process.
The UN force in DRC (MONUC) must be expanded to a wider peacekeeping role in this vast country with very poor infrastructure. The companies and individuals named in the reports of the UN Panel of Experts into Illegal Exploitation of Resources must be held accountable for their actions, by both African and Western governments.
Strategic investment in restoring key infrastructure such as railways, river transport and roads must lay the foundations of economic reconstruction. This should involve the World Bank and major Western donors.
The Irish Government, in its role as a key bilateral donor in the Central African region and as President of the EU for the next six months, has a major responsibility to advance the above agenda. This agenda must receive appropriate priority amid all the other challenges of the EU Presidency.
We owe this to the Congolese people who were so forgotten about in their time of need. - Yours, etc.,
TOM ARNOLD, Chief Executive, Concern Worldwide, Camden Street, Dublin 2.