Starvation is the distilled essence of brutality and violence. When you consider hungry people and especially little children slowly wasting to death for want of food you get feelings of near despair. It is enough to cloud the mind with pessimism and to wring the heart of humanity. It is in the consideration of common humanity that I raise this urgent question here this evening. I have before me a report which appeared in The Observer on Sunday last, 23rd June, which is datelined “Biafra.” It says:
Many missionaries here in Biafra believe that 3,000,000 people are doomed to die from malnutrition.
It goes on to quote a doctor who has a clinic six miles east of Owerri in western Biafra. The report states:
He saw 120 children there on Friday last, of whom 10 had conditions other than severe malnutrition. The children's ward at the clinic had 150 children in 35 cots, five to a cot. These children are lucky—most of them will survive because of the special treatment, although an average of three die every day. They are swollen with body sores and reddish-yellow hair. The disease is known by the Ghanaian word "kwashiorkor", meaning "red man" or "deprived one". Its medical term is protein-calorie malnutrition, or starvation as we know it. In a refugee camp there are 1,200 Okrika people from just below Port Harcourt. They fled from the approach of Nigerian troops two months ago. They are a fishing people. This afternoon the food had run out again, so there would be no dinner. Half the 1,200 are children, and one out of three has kwashiorkor. Unless a nun or nurse comes within two or three days, picks out the kwashiorkor children, and gets them to a unit where they can receive a powdered milk and egg mixture, they will be dead within two weeks. Ogwa is likely to lose half its children within the next month. Father Frederick Fullen, 60, says: "Every day some children die in every village compound. You hear about it afterwards." There are 330 parish priests and nuns in Biafra, about half Irish of the Holy Ghost Congregation and half Biafran. They are the best source of intelligence on the total need. Father Devine says: "We calculate, working on a `per person' basis, that Biafra must get in 200 tons of protein food a day from now until six months after the end of the war. This is minimal, 300 to 400 tons a day is really needed. The Red Cross agrees. Otherwise, up to 4,500,000 people are just going to die in the next few months."
It is obvious that this is an event happening at the moment in Africa which appals the mind to think about. Starvation on this scale is hard to equal in any instance that one can readily call to mind. We have heard of famine in other countries but here we have starvation with such obvious effects that huge masses of people are apparently condemned to slow, agonising death. We as a nation have had historical experience ourselves of this cruelty, and while this may not seem a relevant observation, let me say that I, who am a middle aged man, spoke to people who remembered the Irish famine and who lived through it and this is as near as that to our national conscience. It is because of that particularly emotional interest and concern which an Irish person might be said to have, added to the very strong feeling for suffering humanity, which is shared by all human beings everywhere throughout the world, regardless of their race, that I feel it is necessary that some immediate and urgent steps be taken by our representative, who is present here tonight, in the United Nations, and which only he is in a position to take.
In the course of replies to supplementaries today when it was suggested to him that food supplies should be brought to those starving millions, or some of them at least, immediately, in order to give relief, he stated that the eastern region authorities will not accept food through the Federal held territory. That is something concerning which we need some explanation. I do not know what that means. In the time he has to reply tonight I would be glad to have some enlightenment as to what is meant by that.
Similarly, in the course of replies to supplementaries the Minister for External Affairs made it clear that he has not made any offer of mediation in this dreadful civil war. I want to ask why. Why not make an offer of mediation? Would it not come well from this country because of our unique position? I would hope because of our unique position in relation to the African people, and certainly in relation to world politics generally, that an effort by us is not alone called for but might very well be welcome. I want to avail of this opportunity to ask the Minister to make such an effort now.
Similarly, we in the Labour Party were anxious to know if it is not possible to have supplies dropped by air to help those misery-ridden people. The Minister stated that there are no air fields where planes can land and that even if there were such planes might be under fire. Surely we have all heard of air drops and some effort is better than nothing at all. The Red Cross is mentioned and we must all do our best to help the Red Cross to get together the maximum amount of funds it can to help in the relief of those people, but I suggest also that Dáil Éireann, in the light of the extraordinarily tragic circumstances which obtain here, should make funds available, as only it can do sufficiently quickly, to bring food to the starving in Biafra. I should like to emphasise that the rights and wrongs of the Biafran situation do not concern me at this moment in time because I have not sufficient parliamentary time to talk about it in any event. We hear all kinds of versions of what the reasons are for the continuation of this conflict. Oil politics are mentioned. Oil is mentioned and whenever there is oil there is blood. We have seen it elsewhere throughout the Middle East and Africa, but these things mean very little to the poor children who are dying of starvation and the millions of families who are suffering so gravely. It is, as I say, for the purpose of endeavouring to get some relief for these people that I have raised the issue.
The Minister may consider that he has done enough. It is not for me to suggest that he would not feel—and I do not suggest that any person does not feel at all—as strongly on this matter as I do. I am sure every person reading about it feels cold in his heart at the thought of what is going on, but I do not think enough is being done.
The Minister mentioned that the only possible solution he sees is a cease fire. It would appear from the latest intelligence reaching us from Africa that at least one side, the dominant side in the conflict, is insisting on conditions which would make a cease fire there unlikely. I am in no position to judge in that regard but that seems to be the situation as we read the newspapers. While all this is going on, all these considerations, the people are suffering and it would become us very ill—it would be a very wrong thing—if this Parliament of the Irish nation did not seize any opportunity it could to endeavour to reduce even in some degree the terrible anguish the African people are undergoing. It is not as if it were a remote country. We have, in fact, an Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. We have an Embassy and we have always had an interest in the African Continent, perhaps more than most other countries. It has been a benevolent interest. We have never been their exploiters. We have never taken out of Africa more than we have put into it—quite the contrary—and, therefore, never have been in the imperialist camp in the life of the Africans. We surely should command confidence from them and surely they will be looking to us for some degree of help and aid.
Therefore, I want to ask the Minister to consider these points: that he should offer himself personally to mediate in this terrible struggle, that he should make use of whichever resources are available to him in the UN possibly to secure the separation of the warring forces by means of a UN force which could go there and keep the peace, at least keep the rule of law as it were, but at least keep the peace to enable the ordinary people to live, to save the millions from cruel death by slow starvation, that the Dáil should vote funds to help these starving people and that whatever organisation is necessary to help the Red Cross here at home to collect voluntary contributions should be harnessed and made available so that the maximum amount of practical goodwill which is among our people in abundance, because I feel there is a great and deep and heartfelt sympathy for the suffering in this situation, should be translated into practical aid by means of the Red Cross.
These are the points I wanted to make. The Minister did say it was impossible that food could be dropped in reply to Deputy Corish who asked: "Is it impossible to drop food supplies from the air?" The Minister replied: "Of course it is."
