: Deputy De Rossa has eight minutes left.
Private Members' Business . - Central America: Motion (Resumed) .
The following motion was moved by Deputy N. Andrews on 26 April 1983:
Dáil Éireann, recognising the seriousness of political repression and disregard for life which continues to afflict Central America, especially the conflicts within El Salvador and Guatemala and along the Honduran/ Nigaraguan border:
Expresses concern for the two million people and refugees forced to flee from their homes in El Salvador and Guatemala due to the conflict.
Condemns the continuing violation of human rights which has resulted in 46,637 dead in El Salvador since 1979.
Deplores the massacres, abductions, disappearances, tortures, extra-legal executions which are being used in Guatemala particularly against the indigenous population.
Condemns the failure of the Salvadorean Government to implement the recommendations of the 38th session of the Commission of Human Rights of the UN regarding the upholding of the rule of law and the punishment of members of the security forces and para-military organisations responsible for human rights violations.
Calls on all States to respect the right of each country in Central America to conduct its own affairs without outside interference and further calls for the suspension of arms supplied to and military support for the countries of the region.
Urges the Irish Government to continue to play an energetic role at the UN and other appropriate fora to help bring about a peaceful political solution to the problems of Central America and notes the urgency of the situation in the region particularly in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Supports all efforts to achieve a dialogue leading to negotiated political solutions in order to establish, in an atmosphere free from terror and intimidation, democratically-elected governments in the region; and Requests the Irish Government to make available to humanitarian bodies emergency aid to relieve the distress of refugees and the victims of violations.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete sub-paragraphs 5 and 6 and substitute the following:
Calls on all States to abstain from intervening and to suspend all supplies of arms and military support to the Governments of El Salvador and Guatemala.
Urges the Irish Government to play an energetic role at the UN to ease the threat of outside intervention and destabilisation of Nicaragua.
—(Deputy De Rossa).
: I want to emphasise that I have put down these amendments to protest against the manner in which this motion was withdrawn in the first place and subsequently changed without my permission. I have no doubt Deputy N. Andrews was not the person responsible for the unpermitted changes. Deputy Gregory asked me to say that he did not agree to the changes either and that he supports the amendments I put down restoring the motion to its original form.
It is essential that this Dáil carries this motion as amended in order to ensure that peace can be restored to the region so that the people of El Salvador can settle their differences between themselves, that the Irish Government would recognise the forces of the people in El Salvador and that they would insist on the United States ending their intervention in Nicaragua.
I am appalled and shocked at the information that interests alleged to be those of the United States have attempted to influence Deputies to change their position on Central America.
: After the other debates here today it will be difficult for the House and, perhaps, the people in the Gallery, to re-focus on this debate, which began last night and which Deputy De Rossa resumed today. Recently I met the American Ambassador on a courtesy visit and in the pleasantries that were exchanged he said that when he was being briefed for his job in the State Department he was told one of the issues that was of significant importance in the Irish Republic was Central America. He had expressed total amazement about what possible connection there could be between Ireland on this side of the Atlantic and Central America, so far away. They told him in no uncertain terms of the extraordinary connection that has been built up in recent times between the people of Ireland and a number of the States of Central America.
Tragically for the US, that connection frequently has gone sour in a way most people could not possibly have imagined, as recently as the anti-Vietnam demonstrations in 1966, 1967 and 1968. In those far off days, when I used to walk around the US Embassy building, there were very few clerics or members of religious orders in the protests. Now the reverse can be said to be the case. On one extraordinary occasion there was a protest of dramatic impact substantially organised by people in religious orders of one kind or another. They laid out in the forecourt of the US Embassy a white cross for each of the people who had been killed in the tragic civil wars in Central America.
Nobody could accuse those demonstrators of being rash, or irrational, or extremists. They could not be accused of having any party political motivation. Why should they have selected the American Embassy for that extraordinary manifestation of their concern and their anger? The reason why they did it, and the reason why this motion should be passed here tonight, is because for a variety of misguided reasons the United States Government have seen fit to interfere in the internal affairs of Central America, with savage consequences for the peoples of those States.
Deputy Andrews, Deputy De Rossa and the Minister last night recalled that we are talking about the States of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, all of which are now in total turmoil, one effectively destabilising the other, all of them being swamped with military hardware when what they need are food and shelter; all of them being advised by military advisers when what they need are civilian advisers to help them to cope with the process of coming justly into the twentieth century.
As far as the Labour Party are concerned, the equipment is American, the military advisers are American. Their presence is negative to the lives and the welfare of the peoples who are there. Perhaps it is easy for people like the US Government to know that part of the world better than we can. They can ask how the Irish Labour Party can say these things, what do we possibly know about a place so far away? Some weeks ago, the Leader of my Party, the Tánaiste, met the leader of the Sandinista, the liberation movement in El Salvador, now in exile. That organisation, with others, have an association with the Socialist International to which the Labour Party are affiliated.
Consistently as a political party in the last five or six years we have been receiving details, substantial reports, from people who are on the ground either within those unfortunate countries or now, tragically, in exile. In addition, the chairman of my party, Senator Higgins, with Deputy Andrews and other Members of this House, visited Central America. Senator Higgins met President Ortega in Nicaragua. He spoke to the Council of State of the Government in that country. I say these things to underline the fact that we speak with a degree of informed knowledge of what is happening on the ground and with a degree of recognition of the role people are playing in that area. There is no doubt in the minds of the Labour Party International Affairs Committee that the intervention, successful, sustained and prolonged, of the United States in Latin America, particularly in Central America, is having a disastrous effect on the lives and welfare of all the people there.
We are asking all groups and individuals, but in particular the US, to disengage from the type of military intervention, covert or overt, that has brought so much havoc, death and destruction in that region, because their intervention is resulting in unbelievable denials of human rights, murders, assassinations, so accurately described by Deputies Andrews and De Rossa last night. In case what I have said would be misinterpreted as an attack on the US, per se, or that the United States is fundamentally evil in their intentions in that regard, I would point out that they are fundamentally wrong in their analysis of what is happening in Central America. I will put it in the following way.
In the corridors around this Chamber we have the images of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation and of the participants in that struggle. I put it to the House that if this was Nicaragua in 1982 and those signatories were still alive, they would be in the Sandinista movement, because the struggle that brought that Coalition together in Nicaragua is very similar to the struggle that brought together such diverse personalities as Connolly, the Marxist, and Joseph Mary Plunkett, the Catholic poet-dreamer. That is the span of the spectrum that we recognised in our national liberation coalition in 1916 under the umbrella of Sinn Fein. That is the span of the coalition that is currently the Executive Council of State in Nicaragua.
Therefore, I bitterly regret that it may be interpreted from Deputy Barry's statement yesterday, that somehow or other the people of Nicaragua, who had so successfully overthrown the US-supported Somoza regime, having gone through that agony would take on a dictatorship in a new form. I do not share the American analysis of that revolutionary development in Nicaragua. My party do not share it nor do many of the people who are intimately involved in Central America in one form or other.
I should like to acknowledge publicly the level of awareness which exists among a number of Irish organisations who have played an important part in maintaining links across the Atlantic between political forces here and in Central America. The tragedy of the American involvement is that arms are being used to kill innocent people, arms which could be turned into very necessary ploughshares, should the American President choose to do so. If he persists and if the American Government persist in the kind of action in which they have been engaging so far, out of desperation and out of the economic and military counter-insurgency or counter-revolutionary forces they are supporting positively at the moment, they may create the kinds of Governments in those areas to which they are so opposed.
Our analysis of what is happening in Central America is that it is the natural process for social development which has taken place in this State and in many other States throughout the world. The struggle for land, which is at the core of much of the civil war within Central America, is identical in many respects to the struggle for land in this State in the past century. If James Fintan Lawlor and Michael Davitt were alive today, they would be described in Time Magazine, or in Newsweek, or in statements on US policy, as somehow being tools of Moscow.
Down through the centuries it has been a great tradition for super powers to confuse the legitimate aspirations of the people to better their social conditions with taking sides with another super power to which they are opposed. On the east coast of this country we have testaments to that analysis, the Martello Towers which appeared to suggest that Ireland would enter into the super-power race with France against England at that time. That is a false analysis. America, tragically for itself and for the democratic world, is confusing the two things. Speaking here tonight officially on behalf of the Labour Party, I should like to request the Americans to take note of what we are saying, the way in which we are saying it, and why we are saying it and not, as happened in the past, to construe our arguments tonight as some form of puerile anti-Americanism. That is not the case and our arguments cannot be dismissed in that way.
It is essential that all the military aid going into these countries should be terminated, all the military aid which is going to repressive Governments. It is essential that the region is given an opportunity to stabilise itself. Time does not permit a full exposition of all the factors and various forces involved. I will not take up much more time. I understand that other speakers on this side of the House wish to get in. It is essential that the provision of military aid for the continuation of civil war should be terminated, and that countries which have evolved a popularly supported Government should be allowed a chance to develop and prosper.
To that extent I support very much the comments made yesterday by the Minister in relation to the Contadora group of Central American countries who have the knowledge and the expertise to try to achieve some kind of cohesion and consensus in that region between the various forces involved. They can do that only if the spectre of the super-power confrontation is removed from this natural historical and social struggle. To refuse to do so, and to insist that somehow or other the prelude to the next world war or the ongoing cold war is currently being played in the jungles and the swamps and the favelas of Central America is to condemn those people to a continuation of the extraordinary repression and horror which have been consistently documented.
They have been documented in a frightening manner on our television screens and in books like "Political Killings by Governments" published by Amnesty International and in a most graphic manner by Bishop Casey on his return from El Salvador for the funeral of Archbishop Romero. This is no figment of our imagination. This is no science fiction horror picture which we are describing from afar. It is happening now. It can stop, provided a collective international effort is made.
It is our aspiration and our hope that as a Government, as a Parliament and as a people, with whatever leverage we have with a country for whose people we have the utmost regard and affection, and with whom over many years of history the people of Ireland have had an extraordinary link to the extent that 40 million people in the United States now claim some Irish connection or descent, we can persuade them to see that this is a valid criticism we are making of their super-power actions in Central America. Such criticism is not in any way to be confused with antagonism or a negativism which might be attributed to States in other parts of the world.
It would be a great tragedy for Central America, for the prospects of peace and for the relationship between us and the United States if the current President, who has not been shy about referring to his Irish antecedents and ancestors, would not recognise that the horrible poverty from which his ancestors fled this island over 100 years ago is the same horrible poverty which the Sandanistas and the FDR in El Salvador and elsewhere are trying to eliminate today. That is the connection. That is the historical continuum in which this struggle is being carried on. For that reason the Labour Party support the motion.
I want to refer briefly to what appears to have happened, or what is reported in today's papers regarding the alteration of the motion. We had no involvement in that. The party Whip, Deputy Taylor, who agreed to the original motion was away when alterations were made. I would be worried if the amendment in the name of Deputy De Rossa were to be accepted, particularly where it refers to "all States". It calls on all States to abstain from intervening and to suspend all supplies of arms and military support to the Governments of El Salvador and Guatemala. That amendment does not include Honduras. I am worried about the words "all States". They could be used by the United States to suggest they are not the only people involved in this exercise, and that other States are directly involved and giving direct assistance in the manner described. That would be a mistake and, for that reason, we are not prepared to accept that amendment.
Somewhere in the demarche the Oireachtas should request the Government to take at the appropriate venue—obviously the United Nations and the human rights forum within that organisation is the area where it could be done — we would like to see the following included: that there would be a call for the involvement of the FDR-FMLN as a representative voice of the Opposition in tandem with the Government of El Salvador. Both should be involved in any discussions that would lead towards a political solution to the problem.
This is something we can influence directly by our political involvement in the United Nations and by our special relationship with the people of the United States. We are speaking from the point of view of our own people who have direct knowledge of the situation, to whom I referred at the outset of my contribution. These people were here in Ireland and returned to those countries. They know that what is going on is wrong and they know that a motion like this and decisive Government action can make a positive contribution towards a peaceful solution.
: I will be very brief in my contribution as I understand Deputy Owen wishes to speak also. My main reason for intervening in the debate is to pay tribute to the memory of a great lady whom I had the honour of meeting with a number of my colleagues in Setanta Building some time ago. I refer to Maria Elena Garcia. If nothing else, my intervention should be seen as a tribute to a brave woman who died in the cause of freedom and for the beliefs she held very dear. I understand her message was one of peace and was a call for a peaceful solution to the dreadful tragedy now afflicting her people. If for no other reason than that I consider it a privilege to contribute to this debate.
I am concerned that this should not be seen as a United States-bashing session. I have the deepest respect for the people of the United States and I have the greatest respect for their democracy and their institutions. I have been in their country on a number of occasions and have accepted their hospitality. There is no doubt they are a great people and the world owes them much. Having got that out of the way, I think it important to condemn without reservation the involvement of the American administration in El Salvador. There is no doubt that they are propping up a military regime which is intellectually and morally corrupt and which is corrupting the whole body politic in the El Salvador area with a ripple effect into other countries in Central America. That unfortunate involvement by the American Government in Central America, and in El Salvador in particular, is a tragedy for the American people. I understood yesterday that the American Congress had refused arms and military aid to El Salvador. That reflects a changing opinion among American people because public representatives take note of what their constituents are saying. That is a good development.
I should like to congratulate Deputy Niall Andrews and Deputy De Rossa for putting down this motion. Sometimes people think the Dáil has no relevance but this kind of motion expressing concern for our fellow human beings in other parts of the world is obviously relevant. This debate is relevant, meaningful and concerned and for this I am grateful. I consider it a privilege to have participated in the debate and, as a matter of courtesy to Deputy Owen, I will conclude my contribution.
: I should like to thank Deputy David Andrews for allowing me these few minutes to speak. I should like to put on record for the benefit of those people who are taking an interest in this debate in the public gallery or who may read the debate afterwards, that many Deputies on this side of the House, and I am sure this applies also on the Fianna Fáil side, would like to have taken part in the debate. This country has taken a vital interest in the troubles in Central America, in Third World countries and in many other victimised countries. It is important to state that Deputies such as Deputy Molony, Deputy Barnes, Deputy Manning and Deputy Shatter came to me today to inquire if there would be time for them to participate in the debate. They knew I was involved in the debate and I said I would indicate to the House that they were interested in speaking but were not able to do so.
We tend to get wrapped up in our own problems. In the past few weeks politics has been a live issue. Matters such as PRSI and PAYE marches, social welfare payments and so on have taken our attention in recent times. At times we may question matters such as the freedom of the press, freedom to appeal cases to the courts and freedom of many of our systems but I say many millions of people would dearly love to experience the freedoms we enjoy. All of these freedoms and rights are an indication that a democratic process is in operation in a country. A courts system and media that are workable and that are seen to be honest and incorruptible are rights that many of our fellow human beings do not enjoy.
This country has a long historic connection with Central and South America through our missionaries. For most of us as we grew up, Central America was a rather romantic sounding place, enjoying fine weather and holding Mardi Gras processions. However, the Central America of today is not a happy or joyful place in which to live. Being a refugee is not a joy. There are in excess of 500,000 refugees from Guatemala and close to one million refugees living outside El Salvador who cannot return to their country because of the regime and the fear and danger to their lives. Life for refugees is far from pleasant. Recently I visited the Philippines and I saw how millions of human beings live in dire poverty that we will never experience. That is the kind of life experienced by these refugees. Even worse is the lack of freedom to return to live in one's own country. As long as regimes exist as they do in some of the countries in Central America people will be displaced. They will not have the freedom to work in their own country.
Geographically Ireland is very small but in direct proportion to its size it has got far more power than larger countries. That is because we are a neutral country, we have a history that links us to Central America and a history of living for 800 years under the domination of another power. That creates a bond with some of those countries. That is why people who have worked in Central America and who have returned here have found a willing people throughout Ireland who will listen, try to aid their fellow human beings and highlight the lack of human rights, injustices, killings, detentions without trial, imprisonments of union leaders and others — the list is endless. It is because of our bond with these countries that our power and the role which we must play are heightened and enlarged. I should like to see us continuing to play that role. It would be wrong to say that we have not taken a forward-looking stand and an interest in what is going on. I urge the Minister and all Members of this House in whatever way they can to continue to take that interest and highlight the problems of these countries.
Other speakers have referred to the role of the United States in Central America and I must agree with much of what was said. However, it would be naive to think that if the United States were to withdraw all their military power and support from these countries the problems would go away. None of us thinks that would happen. We talk about meaningful dialogue, but the parties participating in that dialogue should be able to sit down safely at the negotiating table without fear of their lives and, equally, if one section has might far beyond the other sections it is unrealistic for the United States or any other Government to believe that they can, as the American Secretary of State has said, face two related challenges, to alleviate longstanding political, economic and social problems in Central America and to have a meaningful dialogue in the hope of bringing about political solutions. That cannot be done unless all the parties making up the country take part in that political dialogue. One may not always like what they are doing, or always agree with it, but if they are part and parcel of what makes up that country and are fighting for a section of that population, those people must take part in the dialogue, if it is to have any meaning.
I welcome, as the Minister and other speakers do, the role of the Contadora peace initiatives in Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela, which respects the right of individual countries to manage their own affairs without external pressure or external influences which add to their problems and do not help the people to face their problems, accept what they are and try to solve them.
My appeal tonight is, first, to remind the United States Government that might is not always right, and that the bigger the power the bigger the responsibility to use that power properly. The United States, which is acknowledged to be a great country — and I would join with other speakers in saying that this is not a bashing of the United States — has not used power properly in many areas. It is up to countries like ours not to be afraid to tell President Reagan and the United States that they have a responsibility, that they are using their power and might in a way which is making human beings suffer. Until they accept that that is the net result of pouring many millions of dollars of military aid into Central America, they are not facing up to their responsibilities. They must face their own people with the knowledge that they have power without responsibility.
It is regrettable that any group, whether religious or ordinary peasants trying to fight for a bit of land, are automatically branded, as the norm, as communist, Marxist and so forth. That is not the case. I have visited groups in the Philippines who are being called communists and Marxists. They are ordinary human beings belonging to a community who are trying to live their lives better and get some semblance of human rights. There are not reds under every bed of every group that try to make their lives a little better. They are not communists. If this blindness is eradicated from the treatment of these people, we may begin to see some semblance of humanity in the policies coming from the United States. This humanity is lacking at the moment.
Finally, I thank those speakers who made it possible for me to contribute to this debate. I urge our Minister and our country to continue to use their influence and power to ensure that when we are all dead and gone no historian will write about us — as was done about another leader many centuries ago — that we fiddled while Rome burned.
: First, I want to thank all those who participated in the debate and those who gave me moral support within my own and the other political parties — the Labour Party, the Workers' Party and Fine Gael. We had some difficulty in getting this motion on to the floor of the House. I have been told by the US Embassy only an hour ago that they did not in any way bring pressure to bear. I want to put that on the record of the House, for a change. Pressure certainly was brought to bear to try to ensure that this motion would not be debated here and the mystery still remains.
We live on an island and sometimes we are so concerned about our own problems that we cannot grasp the reality of the world today, which is that 800 million people go to bed hungry, without shelter, without any form of relief, without any hope for the future. This is an enormous and appalling statistic. The chances of these people ever obtaining a decent life are further diminished by the history of the development of the regions in Central America, with the exploitation of these people by the multinationals and transnationals.
We have a proud record on humanitarian aid and on human rights. Members of this House from all political parties have taken a very strong interest in other countries, beginning with the League of Nations where De Valera made a very great impact for this country and — while some may be a little cynical about it — Frank Aiken, who took a great interest in the development of the United Nations. We had Garret Fitzgerald and Michael O'Kennedy and, as recently as the last Coalition Government, Senator Jim Dooge who took an enlightened approach to Central America, to overseas development aid, human rights and humanitarian aid.
We had here from the Minister for Foreign Affairs last evening a speech that sets this country back 20 or 30 years in those developments in international affairs. The Minister made an enormous error in the type of speech he presented to this House yesterday. So backward-thinking was the speech made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday that I am concerned about the future of Irish neutrality with this Minister as Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am concerned about how he will be influenced in international fora he will be attending on behalf of the Government and our people. As a member of the Council of Europe I have been put under considerable pressure by various groups, committees and lobbies to discuss questions of NATO, military alliances, and that as an individual. What then will happen to the Minister when matters of this kind arise at international fora?
I might quote from the Minister's speech where he said:
The overthrow of the Somoza regime and the victory of the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua in 1979 marks, perhaps, the most significant political event in that country's history. Once in power, the Sandinista movement promised that free elections would be held and that Nicaragua would be a pluralist society. Events in and around Nicaragua have since led to the declaration of a state of emergency there with adverse effects on political freedom such as the imposition of censorship.
That comes from a Minister for Foreign Affairs whom I would assume is informed. He is talking about political censorship in a country that has suffered for 45 years under the most appalling dictator, a man called Somoza, whose murder, rape and robbery of the people of that country was an appalling performance — the robbery of a whole nation — I cannot speak about the atrocities that man perpetrated. Then, the Sandinistas come up, they overthrow Somoza. Sixty thousand people died in the battle to overthrow Somoza and he fled. What do we have now? We have censorship. We have on the Honduras/Nicaragua border the CIA supplying money to Somoza followers who are destabilising the country with the hope of starving the Sandinistas into surrender. But they are not being offered any alternative. There is no other structure there to take the place of the Sandinistas, who have participated in the literacy scheme, who have built schools, provided education and health aids for these people. How can a Minister in a democratic free state, make such a statement? The Minister for Foreign Affairs went on to say that the elections there had been postponed. Britain did not have elections during the Second World War; they were under attack. Does the Minister know that? Does he know the history of war? It was an appalling speech, sir, and one with which I hope this House will never again be confronted.
Lest the House think I am overstating the case or that I am becoming a little emotional about this, let me say that the American Congress has come from passive acceptance of the American Administration's aid to El Salvador, to Nicaragua, to Guatemala, to defeat Presidential certification for more military aid to El Salvador and actually stopped the CIA from providing more funds for them. Are we suddenly to be confronted with a situation in which the American Congress are to be described now as Marxist-Leninists? As Deputy Owen has said, are these people supposed to be destabilising the situation in Washington? The conclusion is self-evident. The Minister for Foreign Affairs either does not care or is simply not sufficiently interested to read some of the reports available to United States Congressmen. I want to read two extracts from evidence given before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives by a former Ambassador to El Salvador, Mr. White. This evidence appears under the heading of "Exchange of Military Assistance for Economic" and reads:
Mr. White. It is absolutely true. Take the money that we are putting into the training of Salvadoreans, the whole military sphere, you know, have a new policy and put that money into economic and social assistance, into elected governments, and we would be out of this mess in a matter of a few years.
But if you are intent on proving how macho you are in Central America and can, you know, kill just one hell of a lot of people then of course you are gradually and very rapidly going to lose not only El Salvador, but Guatemala and probably Honduras too.
The other quote from these hearings — and I know my time is rapidly running out—appears under the heading "Leftist Victory in El Salvador" and reads:
Mr. White: I do not believe that the security of the United States is so finely balanced, as opposed to, you know, that with the Soviet Union, whether El Salvador goes one way or another temporarily is of that great consequence. I think that whatever combination of forces of the left take over in El Salvador, it will be possible for this Government to work with them.
It would be better for the United States if those leftists did not take over. But it would be an error of the first magnitude to put US troops into El Salvador.
Subsequently, of course, they did. As Minister of State, Deputy Quinn, mentioned earlier, a parliamentary delegation went to El Salvador in January of last year. We met some of the finest people, by the way not in El Salvador because there we were not given the opportunity — we were locked up in armed jeep and driven around to various places to be given the line from Duarte to General Garcia. But in Nicaragua we met some of the finest people I have ever had the honour and privilege of meeting. I would suggest to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and to anybody else who doubts me to take the opportunity to go out and see the magnificent work they have done for those people.
Despite the fact that we experienced some difficulty in getting this motion before the House I am glad it has and once again has afforded us an opportunity of speaking our minds on what is the situation in Central America, to try and appeal to our American friends, to appeal to Mr. Schultz, Mr. Enders and Mr. Reagan, and all those who care to listen, that there is an opportunity here for the American Government to bring about a negotiated solution. Everybody who has any knowledge of the area realises that that is the only answer to it, a negotiated solution with all the forces there. Do not let anybody say to me that the left—as we might interpret it sometimes in a rather conservative society — is something of a Marxist-Leninist communist plot. It is not; it is not in El Salvador and it is not in Guatemala. Ten thousand Indians murdered since Rios Montt came in as President and suspended all civil rights in Guatemala; 46,000 people murdered in three years in El Salvador. We are talking here about human rights.
I want to say finally: please, America, leave Nicaragua alone, leave El Salvador alone, leave Guatemala alone. Instead of sending guns and arms of destruction to lunatic dictators, send aid, send food, send books.
Finally I want to thank those groups outside this House throughout this country who have contacted me, the El Salvador Human Rights Group and the other people who have shown a specific interest. All of these magnificent people are making a contribution in many ways to bringing about a resolution of the problem. I trust we can now circulate the information and the record to those Governments who are interested, but particularly to the Americans. Perhaps the Minister would take note of what is happening in these regions.
: Is amendment No. 1 being pressed?
: I am not withdrawing the amendments but I do not wish to put them to vote. They would not be passed in any case in the light of what the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment has said. I am satisfied, though, that the contributions have indicated the strong feelings of this House on the matter.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Motion put and agreed to.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 28 April 1983.