Editor,

RE: "Latest Human Rights Watch report slammed for 'irresponsible activism'” (The New Times, July 22).

"Economically disadvantaged Rwandans being hidden from public view?”

If New York, Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Munich, Madrid, Rome and name it, do not hide their economically disadvantaged people, why do these so-called human rights activists think that they will be able to convince anyone that Rwanda is doing so? And why do they think anyone would believe claims that Rwanda would try to hide poor people from public view?

After all, Rwanda has never claimed it is a rich developing country and is now trying to hide poor people from public view so that no one discovers it lied.

If these people are really interested in human rights, wouldn't they now be talking about Turkey where the current government is rounding up everyone who ‘belongs’ to the opposition under the pretext that they participated in a failed coup?

How would more than 20,000 people get involved in planning a coup?

Those who lived in Uganda in the eighties probably still remember the word, ekikwekweto.

And, shouldn't Human Rights Watch instead be talking about unarmed black men being murdered in America even after showing the police that they are not resisting arrest?

Why don't we hear them reporting anything about Qatar where the opposition is being brutally muzzled and tortured?

The answer to the above is: our "geographically” small size and the fact that we do not have lost of natural resources will always attract undue criticism from people who are driven by the desire to show the world that they still exist and are seriously doing their job to the extent of even telling lies.

They will, of course, not do so by jeopardising huge business interests their countries have in some countries that are committing serious human rights abuses.

Mind you, some of those people would be jobless back home if they were not stationed in Kigali, Harare, Kinshasa, and Nairobi...masquerading as NGOs.

Seth

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I wouldn't worry too much about these so-called "human rights" groups. They're directly funded by western corporations and trained by the same governments that constantly commit heinous crimes against indigenous people all over the world for self-empowerment and monetary gain, while treating their own citizens like disposable items, so naturally they'll go to great lengths to divert attention away from what's happening in their own backyards.

Pay them no mind Rwanda, keep doing what you're doing because it's working and they're not quite happy about it!

Ali Baba