Letter to the Editor, Irish Independent, 24 July 2008

WITH his latest article (Irish Independent, July 22), Kevin Myers has softened some of his stronger positions from last week and started to make some very good points. While it's true that Mr Myers still doesn't grasp the humanitarian imperative that obliges us to feed a starving baby if we have the power to do so, regardless of its broader social conditions, Mr Myers has it right on several scores.

He has shifted the emphasis from the people of Africa to their corrupt leaders. There is, as he states, a "Lynch Mob Central on PC issues" in this country that is trigger happy when it comes to levelling accusations of racism and neo-colonialism. This bunch directly aids dictators in the developing world by deflecting criticism from them.

Mr Myers has also frankly confessed his own part in covering up the true story of the Ethiopian famine of the mid-80s, a guilt he shares with the vast majority of the NGOs and media operating in the country at the time.

That was a story of corruption and neglect, of a government that cared so little for its own people that it would let them die in their hundreds of thousands, and could wage war in Eritrea and Tigrai but not feed its people.

I was one of the few people pointing the finger at the Mengistu regime at the time, but nobody was listening.

The Irish Government, in particular, was much more concerned with being seen to pump money into famine relief, regardless of where that money might end up, or whether it might in fact make the situation worse.

I feel very little has changed. The Irish – Government continues to pump money into corrupt regimes, in Ethiopia and elsewhere, who have little or no interest in the lives and well being of the ordinary people they purport to represent. As before, the truth is being ignored while we sign cheques that assuage our guilt but might actually sustain the system that has allowed crisis to occur.

Last week, Mr Myers wrote an incendiary piece which stimulated much debate. This week, he has rightly shifted the emphasis of blame from the people of Africa to the corrupt leaders who are happy to watch their people die.