Editor,

RE: "Rwanda: Our downfall” (The New Times, November 25).

Their crime is so great that those involved in its perpetration recoil and hit out with exceptional savagery at anyone who dares remind them of it.

But no matter what they do their names are forever and inextricably tied to such infamy that it is akin to having the indelible sign of Cain emblazoned on their foreheads. Not even death – that usually final release from worldly burdens – will erase the self-inflicted dishonor from their blackened names.

Their only path to finding some measure of internal peace and lightening the burden of their dishonor lies down the path they are determined not to embark on: Openly acknowledging the abomination of their acts and asking for forgiveness from those they wronged.

But don’t hold your breath that the demented will be able to recognise that their only path to salvation; they are in too deep, and denial of their crimes – obvious to everybody else but themselves – is by now so ingrained it is hard to break free from its shackles.

Mwene Kalinda