Editor,

RE: "Burundi crisis: Is the UN really powerless?” (The New Times, January 14).

It isn’t because, in the past, Herve Ladsous acted to enable the Rwandan genocidaires in their project to exterminate the country’s Tutsi in tandem with the elimination of those non-Tutsi Rwandans who were opposed to or insufficiently enthusiastic for that genocidal project.

He knew perfectly well, and was on mission to facilitate that mass murder project.

Given his past record, why would anyone think that even now he isn’t acting as a perfect agent of his government on the Burundi case or any other that passes through his hands?

Do leopards ever change their spots? And why does anyone think his government has done everything to ensure that it has a de facto monopoly in placing its own officials to head of the UN’s powerful peacekeeping department, as has been the case for the last four departmental heads?

The UN isn’t powerless to act to prevent Burundi from sinking further into mass murder and spinning out of control.

It is obvious some very powerful interests would prefer that nothing is done to interfere in President Pierre Nkurunziza’s project to let loose his killers, including the Imbonerakure and their FDLR auxiliaries, on those who oppose his anti-constitutional power grab.

MK