Why Irish troops are in the wrong part of Africa

EU commissioner Charlie McCreevey has said the Irish public will be “defying their commonsense” if they vote against the EU treaty, which is a constitution in all but name.

What he, and the host of other EU leaders being rallied to the cause, really mean is that the Irish will be defying their local and European masters if they — as they should — reject this treaty in the referendum next year.

Credibility is becoming a critically import issue in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Mr McCreevy talks of “a strong and efficient Europe interacting with the rest of the world from a position of strength”.

This is EU lingo for neocolonial economic exploitation of the weaker “bottom billion” of the world’s population, using EU battle groups to project and protect European influence and unfair trade.

The proposed EU military mission to Chad, with 450 Irish soldiers, is one such example. It is portrayed as a humanitarian mission, yet inexplicably has a UN charter, chapter VII mandate giving it powers to make war in the name of making peace. The hidden French intentions for this mission are to support the military dictatorship of Lt Gen Idris Deby against insurgents who are seeking to overthrow him because of widespread human rights abuses.

Chad, like Rwanda, is a border state dividing Anglophone Africa from Francophone Africa. Cultural imperialism is alive and well in Africa, and this EU treaty, by intensifying the militarisation of Europe, will deepen this problem.

The EU and Ireland should be working instead with the UN and with impoverished developing world states to create peace, justice and sustainable development for the benefit of all humankind, not just working for what Mr McCreevy calls “the only kind of Europe in which Ireland and its citizens can prosper” — that is a Europe of exploitation.

The rogue elephant in the African room is the genocide in Darfur, and that is where Irish and UN soldiers should be. Given the European colonial abuses of Africa, no EU force should be allowed into Africa. By ostensibly ‘protecting’ the refugee camps in Chad, the EU military mission is helping to perpetuate the genocide in Darfur.

This is only one complex example of reasons why the Irish people should reject the proposed EU treaty. This time, let’s not obey our overpaid masters.

Edward Horgan

International Secretary

Irish Peace and Neutrality

Alliance (PANA)

Newtown

Castletroy

Co Limerick