REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE ON VISIT TO CAMP CLARA, UNMIL, LIBERIA
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE ON VISIT TO CAMP CLARA, UNMIL, LIBERIA, 14 DECEMBER, 2004
Tá áthas orm agus ar mo fhear chéile, Maírtin, bheith anseo sa Libéir inniu.
I am enormously happy and proud to be here today, standing among the 92nd Infantry Battalion.
I have to say that if you had said to me a couple of years ago, that I would have been visiting four hundred and thirty Irish citizens in Liberia, I would have been perplexed.
You probably feel the same way!
But, today, far from being a surprise, this is one of the most important visits an Irish President can make. Because it is right here in Liberia that Ireland is showcasing its global conscience and its heart for world peace. This is where the words of our commitment to Africa, to peacekeeping and to progress are turned into a lived reality day by day through your work and your actions. What you are doing here fills me and fills every Irish person with pride and with hope. Liberia has known great suffering and so many wasted years, wasted lives. Now with your help there is a chance for the people of Liberia to put that suffering behind them and build a just future, one to look forward to. As always, wherever our troops are deployed it is never enough just to do the job asked of them and to do it well. There is that generous spirit which always finds ways of helping, befriending, supporting and encouraging the local community and here in a short time you have helped to create a very special relationship between Ireland and Liberia.
Chairman Bryant, whom I met earlier today, and who visited me in Ireland recently, has spoken of his deep appreciation of Ireland’s role in Liberia and of this blossoming relationship. He has told of the very important contribution you have made in providing security and enforcing the peace, but, more particularly, of the manner in which this has been done, with an exceptional respect and humanity. He has also told me of the wonderful humanitarian work you undertake voluntarily, including the support for St. Michael’s Hospice which I visited earlier today.
This small beautiful but troubled corner of West Africa was little known to us a few short years ago. But now we touch each other’s lives in a very special way. We have an Ambassador to Liberia; we have a solid, established aid relationship and, critically, we have you – the largest western European peacekeeping deployment in Africa and unique ambassadors for all that is good in our country.
I know from my conversations earlier today with Chairman Bryant and Special Representative Klein, that this peace which you protect, is still fragile and vulnerable. That is why it needs champions like you as it struggles to grow and to flourish. Your role here is nothing short of critical. It is a task for the ultimate professionals, for that rare mix of expertise and interpersonal skills that Ireland’s soldiers are renowned for.
That is why it was no surprise that when the United Nations was putting this operation together last year, it came to Ireland for help. Ireland has a proud history of serving the cause of peace in Africa, going back to our earliest involvement in the Congo. For some of you that story is more than history - it is family tradition, for your fathers and grandfathers served in the Congo. We now have the largest overseas deployment of our forces since we completed our mission to Lebanon with operations not just here in Liberia but in Kosovo with KFOR and in Bosnia and Herzegovina with EUFOR. And of course it is important to remember the vital role played by the men and women of our Defence Forces acting as observers and monitors in many war-torn countries - in very difficult circumstances like Darfur and Côte D’Ivoire to name but two. In and through your lives and your dedication, new and better chapters are written in the lives of suffering men, women and children and in world history. You are the buffer against corruption, oppression, the degradation of the human person and despair. Through you, a space opens up that allows the future in and with it, hope, justice, freedom and peace.
There is a price paid for all of this. We approach Christmas when families in Ireland gather around their own fires, safe and secure in each other’s company in a peaceful and prosperous country. You are far from home, in a strange place, a poor and wounded place, missing your children, your partners, your families and friends. Yes, you are paid soldiers but there is a remarkable human cost that in itself is indicative of the generosity of heart you bring to this work - where your care for one another matters so deeply, where the spirit of camaraderie you work hard to create, compensates the best it can for home and hearth, for the loved and the familiar. And then there is another price that has been paid and is a never-ending threat in your world - the ultimate sacrifice of life itself. So many of our peacekeepers have paid for the safety and peace of strangers with their own lives. Here in Liberia our mission had scarcely begun when Derek Mooney was killed - Martin’s dear friend and colleague from their shared mission in Honduras. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis. God be with those who love and miss him especially at Christmas.
In Ireland we know a thing or two about complex histories and about conflict but few countries can compare with Liberia’s dreadful story. The first settlers came to this country under the motto “The love of liberty brought us here”. What an irony when we see the legacy of wilful neglect, forced displacement and administrative corruption resulting in the terrible poverty, the evil scandal of child soldiers, all so unnecessary, all so utterly wasteful of Liberia’s bountiful natural resources and of life itself. Ireland wants to see Liberia’s suffering end and so we are committed to assisting the recovery process and the longer-term development of Liberia.
The people of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Cote D’Ivoire, with so much shared ethnicity and culture between them, but also so much shared anguish and suffering, deserve a chance for lasting peace. They have been the victims of evil and greed but now voices of hope are clamouring to be heard. From civil society, from the Churches, from ordinary people who insist on the dignity, the respect for human rights of each man, woman and child and their right to freedom from oppression and from hunger. Thank God for fearless champions like Archbishop Michael Francis and organisations like the Mano River Women’s Peace Network. Their courage has galvanised a different kind of fighting spirit in the region, a fight for a decent, tolerant, equal society, a stable region of peaceful neighbours, a chance to put the huge natural resources of this region at the service of all and not just the selfish, bullying few.
Your presence is their assurance that this is a noble fight they can win.
It is a difficult and a dangerous task you face and only the naïve would see a straight road ahead. You know those dangers only to well but you also know too of the hunger to see progress which I have also felt even in this short visit.
Chairman Bryant has told me of the huge desire to see the terms of last year’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement implemented and a successful transition to elections. The United Nations is central to creating the conditions which will allow that ambition to be realised. You are the hands of its work, a clear example of its transforming power. It is a global organisation which carries on its shoulders the burden of care for the world’s defeated and demoralised peoples, its hungry and enslaved, its brutalised and overlooked children. Under the steady guidance of Secretary-General Annan, the U.N is itself undergoing a period of critical self-examination destined to make it even stronger, even more effective in its work of care for the world. Ireland has actively supported this process for we believe the world’s problems are best solved by a thoroughly effective and efficient United Nations backed by the robust support of the nations of the world. Here in Liberia you reveal the power of international cooperation at its best. I pay tribute to our Swedish colleagues in the Quick Reaction Force. Sweden is of course a trusted ally and friend, a European partner with whom you have long collegial experience. I was privileged to benefit from Swedish hospitality on a visit to our troops in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, some time ago. Your work as colleagues brings benefits not just to those countries in which you serve but you also build up great bonds of trust and friendship between the nations who wear the blue beret.
Back home there were more than a few tears and sad faces at Áras an Uachtaráin last week when we turned on the Christmas lights in the company of some of your families. They have turned me into a postmistress for today - a job I am delighted to do. It is hard for you to be away from them and it is very hard for them to be without you, especially in this Christmas season. We thank them too for all they do to enable you to commit to this great work. They are so proud of you and so am I. God Bless and keep you safe this Christmas tide. May you create enough joy here to transcend the loneliness and may your sacrifice become the seed of a new future for Liberia.
So let me, on behalf of the people at home in Ireland, say to all of you: lean leis an sár obair atá á dheánamh agaibh anseo sa Libéir. Beannachtaí na Nollag oraibh uilig agus go raibh míle maith agaibh.