Madam, - Dermot Meleady (January 14th) claims that a previous correspondent "grossly exaggerates the figure of about 3,000 civilians massacred in the Sabra and Chatila camps" in September 1982.
Indeed the precise number of victims will probably never be ascertained, but estimates range from 800 (the official Israeli line) to 3,000. In addition, the Israeli air force had bombarded the camps steadily since the previous June 4th, killing untold civilians and driving thousands from their miserable homes.
Mr Meleady describes the massacre as "Muslim Arabs murdered by Christian Arabs" without mentioning that the latter, the infamous neo-Nazi Phalange, were Ariel Sharon's chosen allies in Lebanon.
He then quotes selectively from the Israeli Kahan Commission in order to prove that the commission's findings were "hardly an indictment of authorship of a massacre." Let me offer a few more quotations from the Commission:
". . .It is impossible to justify the Minister of Defence's [ Sharon's] disregard of the danger of a massacre...it was the duty of the Defence Minister ... not to disregard entirely the serious consideration. . .that the Phalangists were liable to commit atrocities. . .From the Defence Minister himself we know that this consideration did not concern him in the least. . .
". . .responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defence for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps. . .responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defence for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfilment of a duty with which the Defence Minister was charged.
"We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defence bears personal responsibility." - Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Dame Street, Dublin 2.