Editor,This is with reference to Pan Butamire’s article "Why this bad blood between Rwanda and the West?” (The New Times, August 2). The answer to this question should really be self-evident. Insufficiently subservient, today’s Rwanda is thus a subversive influence vis-a-vis the established international order in which the US is the undisputed Lord of All and the other major Western states are its loyal lieutenants.Rwanda’s prickly insistence on respect for its sovereignty is considered an unacceptable danger as other "minor” countries might take a leaf out of its book so that before long the global hierarchy among nations might then become disrupted.

And the fact that one of theirs has a lot of Rwandan blood on its hands and Rwandans remain combative against the wicked efforts of that important member of the Western club to punish it for the unforgiveable fact of having overthrown its clients means friction with that club will not end.We will just have to accept that the bad blood with the West that insists on servility from poorer countries rather than partnerships is the inevitable price of our determination to be our own masters. I wouldn’t want it in any other way, especially as I have yet to see any country that developed because its people accepted servitude to another.Mwene Kalinda, Kigali