ARMED AND DANGEROUS

"Instead of debating if we should change laws to prosecute children for adult actions, maybe we should be prosecuting the parents."
STEVE PASKAY
Los Angeles

Rarely has it been so clearly shown that the perpetrators of an assault were also its victims [April 6]. The attack on schoolmates by two Arkansas youngsters ended the lives of a teacher and six children (the four who were killed and the two who shot them). Whatever factors led Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, to fire on their fellow students in Jonesboro, Ark., they should be sought out and eliminated. The death penalty is not the issue in this case. How do you deter an anomaly?
JULIUS ZIMMERMAN
Richmond Heights, Ohio

The sight on your cover of a toddler with a rifle, real or fake, in his little hands smacks of sensationalism. The little martyrs of Jonesboro would have made a more fitting cover. Unfortunately, seeing a toddler photographed bearing arms will convince many foreigners that the American way of life is depraved.
DIANA REVYN
St.-Martens-Latem, Belgium

I am stunned that experts continue to blame television and the media for playground massacres that involve youths and guns. Is the National Rifle Association so powerful in the U.S. that people are scared to admit that archaic gun laws are causing young children to be killed?
JONATHAN GREEN
Auckland, New Zealand

The N.R.A. is not to blame for the aberration of Jonesboro. Gun ownership in America preceded the N.R.A. In the community where this tragedy happened, hunting has been a part of life for centuries. The N.R.A.'s courses on gun safety, insistence on the presence of adults whenever youngsters are hand-ling firearms, and political activities to preserve responsibly a historical right are worthwhile undertakings.
JAMES J. JENTES, N.R.A. member
Passaic, N.J.

The Jonesboro tragedy represents an urgent call for the people of the U.S. When two little boys are capable of committing such a horrendous act, it is a sign that the roots supporting the whole of American society are rotten.
LUIS GARRIDO
Mexico City

In your story a seventh-grader in Jonesboro said, "Everybody at Westside [school] knows how to shoot a gun." I'm sorry, but someone who doesn't understand the difference between shooting a deer and shooting a human being over a rebuff does not know how to use a gun. Until the N.R.A. is ready to take on the responsibility of making sure every gun user understands the distinction, the gun lobbyists should shut up and let the U.S. have some decent gun laws. It is too easy for irresponsible people to get hold of the means of making a tragically permanent change in the lives of too many people.
STEVEN SCHAUFELE
Taipei

The young murderers were taught to drive a van and shoot a weapon accurately. Their parents and grandparents bear a huge responsibility for this unimaginable, evil killing.
GERARD SHENKO
Laon, France

It is hard to realize that some students thought the shooting was "all fake" or drama students acting out a play. How could such a sudden display of violence seem as fake as a Hollywood production? But because violence and bloodshed are constantly displayed on TV, they have been deprived of their meaning.
OLIVIER BRUAUX
Rochdale, England

It is surprising that despite such incidents as the Jonesboro shootings, the U.S. government refuses to ban weapons. In India our forefathers would not allow a child even to pick up a toy knife or gun in a shop or play cops and robbers. The idea was that seeds of violence should never enter a child's mind.
KRISHNA RAMAN
Chennai, India

We may never know why these young boys shot their classmates, but to suggest that video games had a role is irresponsible. No studies have ever shown a direct connection between violent video games and violent behavior. Given the popularity of video games over the past 25 years, we'd have seen the connection long ago if it existed. Our hearts go out to the victims, and we understand the desire to find a reason for a senseless act, but to blame it on video games is wrong.
CHRIS CHARLA, Editor in Chief
Next Generation
Brisbane, Calif.

America, don't beat up on yourself over the killings in Jonesboro. In Canada we also have violence and murder committed by schoolchildren. The U.S. has almost 50 million school-age youngsters. The acts of two or three should not be used to condemn the entire country.
MICHAEL SILVERBROOKE
North Vancouver, Canada

AFRICA ON THE RISE

Thanks for your interesting article about President Clinton's trip to Africa and conditions there [March 30]. In reading about the positive aspects of Clinton's visit, people should not forget that genocide took place in the heart of Africa, where a million people lost their lives in a civil war. I didn't see Clinton in Africa when that was happening. Now that big industry smells a potential market in the "rising African countries," here is Clinton to pave the way.
VOLKER DOLITZSCH
Steffisburg, Switzerland

You provided a well-needed dose of good news about a region ignored by a self-absorbed world. I hope it won't take another presidential trip to provoke a similar, positive focus on other revived regions. If your story inspired one African youth to run for elected office or encouraged one foreign investor to consider Africa, then it did a great service to an almost forgotten continent.
DYLAN BORG
Melbourne

The forces of change have been at work in Africa. The years of war, hunger and poverty have, at least, left Africans with survival skills. There is hope.
TAWAT MAHAMA
Yaounde, Cameroon

Clinton need not apologize for the existence of slavery [April 6] because he cannot be held responsible for that terrible page in history. What he should apologize for is the inequality between blacks and whites that still exists in America, something he is responsible for.
BERNARD ANDRIOLI
The Hague

It is ironic that African Americans who come to Africa seeking their roots thank their lucky stars that their ancestors were traded as slaves. If their forebears had remained, those same African Americans could be residing in a shack eking out a subsistence living. Better to ask the ancestors who engaged in the slave trade to apologize, but, of course, they do not have the means to compensate for the pain and suffering.
KEVIN SMITH
Northcliff, South Africa

MALI'S STRONG SOCIAL CAPITAL

In the segment of your article on Africa that focused on Mali [March 30], you quoted me as saying the government here "understands human capital." To be precise, I was referring to Mali's strong social capital: "something" that makes some societies function or heal themselves better than others. Harvard professor Robert Putnam first developed the idea in the late 1980s, when comparing northern and southern Italy. Social capital is rather like the dark (missing) matter of the universe: we know it's there because we can see its consequences, but it is hard to get hold of and examine. The U.N. Development Program in Mali is researching this question with the government's encouragement.
TORE ROSE, Resident Representative
U.N. Development Program
Bamako, Mali

MINDS THAT ARE TOO OPEN

I'm shocked by the response of Americans to President Clinton's numerous alleged affairs [March 30]. His popularity ratings have risen, even with the publicity and scandal. What have we come to when we applaud an immoral life-style? Are our minds so open that we no longer have any morals? As a 16-year-old U.S. citizen, I am scared by what lies ahead of me. Whom do I have to look up to now?
CHRISTINA BARANY
Mombasa, Kenya

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Re your article "A Repentance, sort of," on the Vatican's statement on the Holocaust [March 30]: no one knows better than the present Pope that Pope Pius XII failed to act positively during the period of the Holocaust. This is just one of many papal failures through the ages. If the Vatican had gone public with this sort of statement in the 1950s, there would have been condemnation of the church. To come out with this document 55 years after the event is smart. Not many living persons can rebut it.
GIOVANNI B. PIAZZA
Griffith, Australia

WHO IS TURNING A BLIND EYE?

Although the Kurds have illegally entered Italy and Greece [March 30], they have the status of refugees. The vast majority are helpless victims of an unfair war. They cannot be considered "terrorists" just because the U.S. and Turkey call them so. People have ended up accusing Greece for its efforts to give shelter to suffering refugees instead of condemning Turkey for yet another act of "ethnic cleansing" and genocide during this century. It's not Greece that is "turning a blind eye" to terrorism but the global community that is ignoring a very serious humanitarian issue.
SPYROS MICHAS
Athens

CORRECTION

Our story "Romancing the Widow?" [March 30] inaccurately stated that on the television show 60 Minutes Kathleen Willey accused Maryland real estate developer Nathan Landow of trying to get her to deny an alleged sexual advance by President Clinton. CBS correspondent Ed Bradley asked Willey about an FBI investigation into charges that Landow had pressured her to keep quiet. Willey said only that she and Landow had "extensively" discussed her encounter with Clinton. She declined to elaborate, citing ongoing investigations.

TIME regrets the error.

WHY DID IT HAPPEN?

Many young people wrote trying to answer the question of why kids would kill [April 6]. Daisy B., an 18-year-old from New Jersey, pointed to the problems for young people in a stressful world. "Folks don't understand the problem of teenage angst," she said. "Violent television programs do not make teenagers go out and shoot classmates. Stress and self-hate in high schools push already delicate teens to act out." Some students looked at other factors. Marisa Jaffe, 15, from Massachusetts felt that "adults seem to think children are impetuous, irresponsible and uncaring. I wonder how they think we got that way?" 15-year-old Canadian Michael Kennedy of British Columbia analyzed: "These boys killed because of a mixture of poor guidance, poor parenting and bad judgment." But, he added, "the parents are at fault for not realizing that kids and guns don't mix."