Sir, - It is one thing for Sean Macken (November 29th) to believe that it is not in Ireland's benefit to rejoin the Commonwealth. It is quite another to malign Canada's role in helping to improve human rights and poor economic conditions in some Commonwealth states. Canada's record in this sphere is well known.
In fact, U2's Bono has praised Canada repeatedly for being at the forefront of the movement to forgive Third World debt, much of it in our sister Commonwealth countries.
Moreover, when Nelson Mandela recently visited Canada, he recognised Canada's positive role in Commonwealth affairs, observing that: "As long as any part of our world languishes in conditions of severe poverty, deprivation and suffering, the common security of all of us is compromised and under threat. An awareness of that global interconnectedness and responsibility has always been a feature of Canadian political and public life."
Under the former prime minister John Diefenbaker, Canada was instrumental in having the apartheid government of South Africa removed from the Commonwealth, and prime minister Brian Mulroney worked tirelessly, against the wishes of Britain, to impose economic sanctions against that regime until the racist government there fell.
Perhaps if Ireland rejoined the Commonwealth, she could assist Canada and the United Kingdom to promote basic human rights in our sister countries and the make the Commonwealth an even more relevant organisation in the new millennium. We would welcome Ireland, one of our "mother countries", back with open arms. - Yours, etc.,
Michael Feeheley , DA COSTA, Presentation College, Brebeuf, Toronto, Canada.