It’s our duty to stand up to evil

Dear Editor,This is in response to Sunny Ntayombya’s article, (The New Times, January 16, 2013), forget the AU, where are the Malians in Mali? I see your point but your logic is flawed.

Thursday, January 17, 2013
One of Maliu2019s Islamist rebels, a member of extremist group Ansar al-Dine, gestures to the camera. Net photo.

Dear Editor,This is in response to Sunny Ntayombya’s article, (The New Times, January 16, 2013), forget the AU, where are the Malians in Mali? I see your point but your logic is flawed. Are you suggesting that the USA shouldn’t have been involved in fighting Nazi Germany to let European citizenry either accept or rise against it? Mali and Central African Republic are two different situations, in one you have Jihadists on a religious/political crusade and the other is a rebellion based on politics. The consequences of their victories are also completely different; Mali would be turned into a Taliban like state while Central African Republic would stay the same just with a different face as president.It’s unfair and way too simplistic to compare Rwanda and the Central African Republic, they have different cultures, conflict backgrounds, history. And make no mistake, the success story in Rwanda is in great part because of its leadership; had the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) been led by different people with a different vision, the term Gacaca might never have entered the legal lexicon.It is our human duty to stand up to evil at every level, be it racism, xenophobia, religious extremists, genocides, Child/women abuses, etc. Observer, Toronto, Canada