Republican News · Thursday 28 February 2002

PDs cosy up to war criminal

Sinn Féin Candidate for Cork North Central, Jonathan O'Brien has accused the leader of the PDs of "giving succour to one of the greatest mass murderers of the late 20th century". Tánaiste Mary Harney spoke on Tuesday with Henry Kissinger in UCC.

"How can the leader of the PDs stand over the hysterical comments of her party president at the weekend and yet share a platform with a man responsible for the destruction of civilian populations, the assassinations of politicians, the kidnapping of clerics, soldiers and journalists?" asked O'Brien.

"Henry Kissinger is wanted for questioning on human rights abuses by courts in France, Spain, Belgium, Argentina and Chile. Through his support for genocidal regimes such as those of Pol Pot of Cambodia and General Suharto of Indonesia, he has responsibility for the deaths of millions of people, far more than the regime of Milosevic in Yugoslavia. He is directly responsible for the assassination of General René Shneider, the Commander of the Chilean Army in 1970, and the subsequent torture and death of thousands of civilians in that country. Democracy held little appeal for him if it got in the way of his plans.

"Henry Kissinger once famously remarked that he was touched by 'the aphrodisiac of power'. It would more accurate to describe him as being touched by the pornography of mass murder.

"These are the ethics that Mary Harney is associating with in a major business conference in Cork. We have to ask, are the PDs as choosy in which democracies they accept as is Henry Kissinger? Do they accept the choices of the people or, like Henry, only the choices they agree with?"