Editor,

HOW CAN you help those who seem determined not to allow you to help them?

As we have seen recently, for instance with the new imposition of very onerous visa fees against Rwandan nationals, the DR Congo is hell-bent on making it difficult, if not impossible, for cross-border travel, and therefore for such assistance to be provided to their citizens who would benefit from growth in such informal trade.

I have no doubt, of course, that such visa decisions from faraway Kinshasa do not necessarily take into account the fundamental interests of border area Congolese who are most affected by such reinforced impediments to informal trade among people from both sides of the border who have engaged in such exchanges since even before the Congo existed as a state.

But then, since it is not people in the east who take such decisions, but rather Kinshasa politicians and bureaucrats, I don’t see how we, as neighbours can help when we will not be allowed to do so.

The only sustainable solution to the Congolese malady is, in my view, a functioning government in Kinshasa that puts the interests of all its citizens—including those in the east—before personal aggrandizement. And that may, unfortunately, not be very soon.

Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda

Reaction to the story, "Informal trade fronted as solution to DRC conflicts” (The New Times, May 29)