Editor,

RE: "Mugabe is right about UN, unfortunately, he’s Mugabe” (The New Times, February 7).

It is as if the writer has given us too much food for thought that we might bloat.

As for old Mugabe, he should first put his Zimbabwe house in order before thinking about the larger homestead that is Africa.

I keep hearing about urgent need for UN reforms, and the ICC targeting of African heads of state and I get shocked. We should make no mistake, African problems are deeply entrenched such that rumblings of the Mugabe kind are only diversionary and a lack of focus on real issues impacting Africa.

If Africa, and in this respect, African leaders sought to solve the underlying issues on the continent, dealing with UN or ICC issues would be simpler.

In my view, conflicts, poverty, lack of rule of law, and resource misappropriation have adversely impacted Africa than any foreign factors put together.

Therefore, well orchestrated attacks on the international system by African leaders at AU and sub-regional gatherings are only a wastage of time and misuse of resources.

Rugema Ngarambe

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Sorry my friend, too many African rulers are so far under the thumb of their masters that—for instance—Paris has a bigger say in African Union decision-making than any single or a few African countries can ever do.

And as long as that lack of real independence exists, forget about an African veto power (or any real influence) in international affairs. We will continue to be subjects for whom others decide, very rarely the decisive actors in our own affairs, let alone those of the world at large.

That, unfortunately, is the sad fact, if we continue to be led (for lack of a more appropriate term) by people without vision and gargantuan personal appetites who remain in hock to foreign interests; people whom a good friend calls "tubes digestifs”!

Mwene Kalinda