Letter by Maggie Ronayne from the Strike and 4 other staff members at the university where she teaches protesting the US ambassador's visit and supporting their students.  Published in local newspapers Galway First and The Galway Independent.  The Irish Times, a national newspaper, published a slightly edited version.  Below is the students' letter. 

 

Dear editor,

 

We, the undersigned staff at NUI Galway, wish to express our support for the students who have written a public letter in opposition to the visit of the US ambassador to the university.  Ambassador Thomas C. Foley was invited by the student Law Society.  In a previous post, the ambassador was sent as a representative of George Bush and Dick Cheney to implement privatisation in Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority.  This makes him an accessory to war crimes in the occupation of Iraq and responsible for the theft of the oil and other resources of the Iraqi people for the profit of private corporations.  He has assisted in a war in which it is now estimated that over one million Iraqis have been killed, the majority women and children.  Of course many more have died as a result of the occupation, from food shortages, pollution from uranium and other toxic weapons, lack of clean drinking water and medicines.  The culture, heritage and environment of Iraq have been devastated.

 

Many have also been raped and tortured by US forces while others have fallen victim to the US ‘rendition’ policy, in which Shannon airport plays a role.  It has led former US President Jimmy Carter to comment recently that the US is now a torturing state.  The majority of people in Ireland have been with the peoples of the Middle East against the occupation – we have been through this ourselves in past centuries.

 

The ambassador has spoken of how Ireland and the US share the same foreign policy goals.  What are these goals?  Bombing people into democracy?  Forced privatisation? The imposition of market values in our universities? 

 

We always welcome visiting students from the US.  But we are shocked that the student Law Society would invite Ambassador Foley, as we were when they invited the Israeli ambassador last year, and we are glad to add our names in support of those students who have opposed the ambassador’s visit.

 

Yours etc,

 

Maggie Ronayne

Tadhg Foley

Sinead Ní Fhaoláin

Kieran O’Conor

John Waddell

 

 

Student Letter

 

Dear editor, 

 

Regarding the invitation by the student Law Society to the US ambassador, Mr Thomas C. Foley .

 

We, the concerned students of NUI Galway feel that it is a grave mistake to give someone like this a chance to speak on our campus.  Mr Foley’s previous post was Director of Private Sector Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq; his mission was to oversee the privatisation of the Iraqi people’s resources.  When the historians of the future look back on our time, this man will be counted among the war criminals of the present US regime.  He has been a party to the deaths of over one million innocent civilians, and the misery and hardship of countless others.  He has been part of the destruction of the culture and heritage of the people of Iraq, which has been nothing short of an act of ethnic cleansing.  His invitation is an attempt to give legitimacy to the genocidal and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.  It discredits the student body and the university.  It will give him a chance to further spread the skewed worldview of the present US regime, with no one being given the chance to put forward any opposing view.  It also means that the students of the college are to be treated as security risks by their not being allowed to have their backpacks in the theatre.

 

We want to ask our fellow students who have invited this man to speak - is this justice for the Iraqi people?  Is this the justice we can expect from the lawyers of the future?

Ireland

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