Editor, RE: “Let’s bring more diversity to Human Rights Watch” (The New Times, March 15). It is telling that Rwanda’s conflict with these organisations, which get most of their financing from people one could hardly say are ever moved by concern for the rights of poor Africans—or any other of the world’s poor anywhere—more than they are by their own economic and financial interests and the acquisition and expansion of their own influence, started from the moment Kigali made it clear it was determined to be its own master and to not be answerable to these would-be masters of the governments of poor or weak countries. As an independent-minded African, that is the way I want it. I view the hatred and relentless attacks against my country from the likes these organisations as nothing less than a badge of honour; it means that my country has stood up to these bullies pretending to care for our human rights more than we ourselves do; underlining my people’s saying that he who pretends to care for a child more than its mother does actually intends nothing other than to eat it. Unlike the writer, I do not believe the flaws in these kinds of organisations can be tinkered away; they are deeply embedded in their very existence, based on the basic premise that non-whites need white saviours to protect them against their own predatory governments. Were even that to be the case, who would protect us against these predatory organizations that are determined to destroy our governments and weaken our states to the level at which vacuums are created and which they themselves need to justify their very existence and to thrive? Mwene Kalinda
