Editor,

Allow me to respond to the story, "Senators upbeat on Rwanda, DRC parliamentary diplomacy”, (The New Times, October 18).

All people of goodwill could have no quarrel with these efforts. After all, as Churchill so famously said on diplomacy, "Jaw jaw is always better than war war”. But the DRC’s infinite capacity to confound the optimists with how easy it is to plumb further depths than the seeming bottom will always triumph.

Remember how Congolese President Joseph Kabila was writing to the UN to accuse Rwanda of aggression even as he was receiving a high-level Rwandan goodwill mission led by Foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo sometime last year? Let’s keep the cheer a little while longer on the ice.

Mwene Kalinda, Kigali