Editor,

RE: "Nations should draw lessons from Genocide, says top UK diplomat” (The New Times, November 2).

Without being dismissive of his genuine and heartfelt sentiments, the diplomat should and needs to redirect his sanctimonious energy towards rallying Western powers, especially his country, into pressuring France to allow a thorough and independent investigation into what actually transpired before, during and after the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.

Africans are sick and tired of self-righteous Western diplomats incessantly lecturing us on morals. They need to look themselves in a mirror and start there. All else is futile and arrogant and we’ve had enough.

Ali Rukariza

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In fact, he could start much closer at home with the safe haven provided by his own country to such fugitives from justice for their key roles in the very genocide the diplomat was asking other nations to learn lessons from as Vincent Bajinya, Celestin Mutabaruka, Celestin Ugirashebuja, Charles Munyaneza and Emmanuel Nteziryayo.

He might also enjoin his government to prevent their public broadcaster, the BBC, from continuing its scandalous revisionism regarding that same genocide and turning its "Africa Service” in general and its Kinyarwanda language programme in particular into an abode for Genocide deniers and revisionists.

Otherwise, for most of us, all these high-sounding exhortations continue to appear like so many hollow incantations. Deeds speak much louder than declarations that fall far short of the speaker’s actual actions.