Editor,Relationship should be based around a set of mutually beneficial goals and respect. The problem with the world since human beings began interacting and worsened by the introduction of progressively deadly weaponry is the base instinct for domination and excessive greed.

They cannot be done away with overnight, but to avoid the cyclical murderous rages that engulf the world such as the two world wars the UN must stop being a tool, simply for propagating the interests of powerful western nations and do its job of ensuring there is a system of taming the excesses of the bullying block of ‘the international community’.Bernard Urayeneza,Kigali.

-----------------------------------------------------

Editor,The UN is, unfortunately, a human construct that reflects the world’s power relations. As such, it cannot be other than a tool of the most powerful of its membership, who determine its leadership from the Secretary-General to his most senior deputies who control the bureaucracy that sets its agenda and oversees how its decisions are implemented. These powers would never have accepted that the world body be structured in any other way that could have diminished their privileges and prerogatives. Even today, the UN body’s power structure that ensures the undemocratic control of the few over the rest of the world endures, and any attempt to change this iniquitous structure will be resisted ferociously.(Response to the story titled, "President Kagame addresses students at Chinese varsity”, The Sunday Times, September 16).Mwene Kalinda