Addressing mutineers’ grievances could bring peace

Editor,I can understand the concern about allowing a legitimate government of President Joseph Kabila be overthrown by mutineers. Presidents Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda have asked the M23 rebels to avoid making a bad situation worse by attempting to walk to Kinshasa.However, without expeditiously addressing the fundamental causes that pushed a substantial part of the DRC military to mutiny and ask them to unilaterally retreat without looking into the root cause of the matter is just postponing the problem.And as we have seen with previous agreements, President Kabila is either unable or unwilling to honor his side of the bargain. I therefore do not believe that the rebels’ retreat from the territory they have captured will lead to any gains on the negotiating table.Until we see concrete signs that Kabila and those who are pulling his strings accept the reality of what is happening, I will remain skeptical that Kinshasa is prepared to address the mutineers legitimate grievances.Mwene Kalinda(Response to the story ‘Rwanda, Uganda, DRC demand M23 withdraw,’ published yesterday)

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Addressing mutineers’ grievances could bring peace