Madam, - How ironic that on the day Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday was celebrated the South African administration was working within the United Nations to frustrate efforts there to repudiate the sham election in Zimbabwe. Now, the dictator Robert Mugabe, surrounded by murdering henchmen, has reinstalled himself as "president", and before the week is out many African leaders, including Thabo Imbeki of South Africa, are expected to recognise Mugabe's "re-election".
So this is the South Africa that Irish trade unionists and consumers protested and campaigned to help create. This is the nation that has emerged from the many small protests by freedom-loving people,including the heroic Dunnes Stores workers who showed tremendous self-sacrifice to protest against apartheid.
In the very building where I work, the ATGWU offices in Middle Abbey Street, South Africans resident in Ireland voted in the first free South African elections after the apartheid regime in South Africa was forced to free Mandela and give the people a free vote.
Nobody was rounded up at 6am to vote in these elections under threat of death. No gangs pursued those who did not wish to vote. No ink was used to mark the hands of those who voted in order to eliminate them from the attacks against those who didn't. No opposition was forced to take refuge in foreign embassies. South Africa was freed from tyranny and Mandela became a healing leader and an inspiration.
And now it has come to this. How quickly the oppressed becomes the oppressor. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN OGLE,
Unite the Union,
Merrion Square,
Dublin 2.
Madam, - After the latest pronouncement of UN condemnation of the sham Zimbabwean election, Robert Mugabe must be quaking in his expensive leather loafers.
When is this finger-wagging farce going to stop? How much longer must we endure the spectacle of the most powerful nations on the planet muttering mealy-mouthed words while shrugging their collective shoulders? George Bush cited UN inaction as an excuse for abandoning international law and invading Iraq with little, if any, pretext. It appears that Bush, for once, had a point if this mammoth collection of predominantly democratic nations is unable even to persuade South Africa to take a tougher approach.
Would an EU military coalition fare any better? Could it do any worse? - Yours, etc,
COLETTE BROWNE,
Redmond Cove,
Wexford.
Madam, - The election in Zimbabwe was a disgraceful farce. Even worse, surrounding African nations, in supporting Mugabe's dictatorship, display a disgusting disregard for the millions of people suffering the devastating consequences.
To think that we walked in solidarity with South Africa to rid it of apartheid, only for Imbeki to support the slaughter of Zimbabweans under Mugabe. I find South Africa's attitude nauseating.
If this is what constitutes an "African solution to an African problem", then I for one condemn it outright. Corrupt regimes in Africa are guilty of wrecking large swathes of that continent. They show no human, moral or ethical conscience; and are clearly motivated by the accumulation of personal wealth at the expense of their peoples' wellbeing.
I strongly urge the Irish Government to condemn Zimbabwe in the strongest way possible, and I also call on Irish charities which use Irish money within any nation run by such dubious and corrupt regimes to reconsider their policies; they are in effect supporting and sustaining those regimes. - Yours, etc,
KEVIN NOLAN,
Glendoher Park,
Dublin 16.