We will not tolerate racist partners in development

Editor, Refer to the article, “Bank employee suspended over leaked monkey e-mail” (The New Times, June 17). Whoever leaked those e-mail correspondences should be considered a hero. I call him/her a hero because he/she could not stand that kind of abusive and racist language—no matter the person it was directed at—and fully aware that the action could put him or her in trouble. This is a good example of why Rwandans and Africans, in general, need to be aware of whom they are dealing with when it comes to development practitioners from abroad. In this particular case, these people came from Europe, making us, Rwandans, believe that this AB Bank-Rwanda, a micro-finance, was there to contribute, generally speaking, to the socio-economic development of Rwanda. Unfortunately, they simply remind us of other Europeans who came to Africa, including Rwanda, starting from the late 1800s and continuing during the early 1900s. For them, at that time, Africa was just a dark continent, and people who were living there were perceived as being close to monkeys, genetically speaking. Here we go again, with Anne Gossner, still believing the same, I should say. I am even appalled to read that Rwandan employees of the bank had been enduring racist remarks from their European bosses, but did not report them to the local authorities. I hope the authorities will learn from this situation and come up with appropriate measures to prevent this kind of situations from happening again. Rwanda, as a country, still needs contribution to its socio-economic development from Rwandans, for sure, and friends of Rwanda from abroad, as well, but not from people like Anne Gossner and Marijana Grujic with their nasty and racist attitude. Here is a good reason why we should support initiatives such as the Agaciro Development Fund. Dev **************************** Rwandans take heart; we need to understand that people with racist attitudes have personal inefficiencies so they hide behind their race to attack the other races like they are responsible for their shortfall. What I have failed to comprehend though is: must they come all the way to Africa to tell it to the Africans in their faces that they hate them, detest them, loath them or envy them? Surely people with such attitudes can stay back home and enjoy their winters there are those who are happy to be in Rwanda and are true friends of Rwandans. The truth though is, those people hiding behind their race to hurt our feeling, have many of their own folk who cant stand the garbage espoused and share ubuntu (humanity) just as we do. Joe

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We will not tolerate racist partners in development