I thank the Chair for allowing me to raise this matter and the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs for coming in to reply.
In a world where our sense of outrage has become dulled by the endless cycle of death and destruction portrayed on our television screens: sectarian murders on our own doorstep in Northern Ireland, ethnic cleansing and countless local regional conflicts in Bosnia, the sheer scale and viciousness of the killings in Rwanda still chills the heart. The murder of 21 children and 13 Red Cross volunteers at the weekend is part of the much wider and more horrifying picture.
Since the present phase of violence erupted after the death of the President of Rwanda in a mysterious plane crash on 6 April 1994, some 200,000 people have been killed, many in the most appallingly cruel circumstances. Close to 500,000 have been forced to leave the country and almost two million people have been left homeless. It has been described by the international aid agency OXFAM as the worst humanitarian crisis since the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970s. The people of Cambodia were largely abandoned by the international community and left to their terrible fate and the same cannot be allowed to happen to the people of Rwanda. The international community, through the United Nations, must act to stop further violence and provide aid for those who are suffering.
The roots of the conflict are complex. It is not simply a tribal conflict as suggested in the European media. It has more to do with politics and grinding poverty than with tribal allegiance. There is no doubt, however, that the principal victims on this occasion are the minority Tutsi tribe who have suffered most of the casualties and comprise the majority of the refugees.
There has been an unfortunate history of violent conflict in this central African country of eight million people. When the violence escalated at the beginning of April there was already a small UN force, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, UNAMIR. The UN had 2,000 troops which operated a very limited mandate, but astonishingly in spite of the slaughter in the country the Security Council decided to reduce troop strength to 270. The UN troops had been providing protection for approximately 16,000 people who had taken refuge in special sites and such a drastically reduced force could not continue to provide protection, never mind offer hope to the hundreds of thousands at risk.
I understand that the Secretary General is due to report to the Security Council by tomorrow. It is essential that Ireland exerts all possible pressure on the United Nations to act. The fact that the genocide is thousands of miles away and that the colour of the victims' skin is black does not lessen our moral obligation to act. I know in calling for United Nations intervention we may be asked to back this up by providing Irish troops. Given the scale of the violence we should be prepared to make this commitment although it may be more appropriate to have a peacekeeping force comprising troops from other African countries. Irish troops served with distinction more than 30 years ago in the then Congo and helped to end the violence there. In spite of the clear risks involved I am sure there will be no shortage of volunteers in the Defence Forces who will be prepared to serve with the UN in Rwanda, if this is considered necessary. If we are to halt the violence, the United Nations Security Council under the authority of Chapter 7 of the Charter must immediately increase the mandate and strength of UNAMIR and bring all possible pressure to bear on the combatants to meet to negotiate a ceasefire, to provide for the free passage of relief supplies, to provide safety guarantees for both the international and national humanitarian efforts and provide for the free movement of citizens who seek refuge in neighbouring countries.
There is also an urgent need to provide financial and humanitarian aid to neighbouring countries such as Tanzania and Burundi which have to cope with the huge influx of refugees and are in danger of being overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. The Dáil should be asked, if necessary, to agree to a Supplementary Estimate to increase the allocation for overseas development aid so that we can provide some of the assistance that is badly needed.
There is also an urgent need to address the question of how outbreaks of violence such as this can be prevented. We need to address the policies that are being pursued by international financial agencies and world trading policies which, in many instances, are driving states such as Rwanda into abject poverty which is the breeding ground for this kind of violence.
