The inability of Kinshasa to pacify eastern DRC provides Rwandan rebels with sanctuary and presumably routes for arms and ammunition supplies. The transnational nature of the politics of group identity in the Great Lakes is also apparent in the collaboration between Burundi and Rwandan Hutu rebel groups. Among the rebel dead in a New Year's eve attack on an army base near Bujumbura airport were ex-FAR identified, according to the authorities, by their regimental insignia and army passbooks. And, in the current balance sheet of terror, when the genocide is acknowledged, it is equated with Tutsi-led ADFL massacres in the Zairean refugee camps. According to Seth Sendashonga, Rwanda's Hutu former interior minister, every family in Rwanda has suffered a personal loss in the country's recent bloody history.
Fear is a subjective emotion, but it is on such perceived threats that conflict feeds.
Despite Kigali's avowed determination to stamp out human rights abuses by the army, Sendashonga claims it is mere window dressing and in reality there is no accountability for the army's actions in the field. Political power is concentrated within the army, and more especially among the officers that led the RPA from Uganda, he claims. Kimonyo dismisses that assessment. He argues the RPF is part of a broadbased government and the focus on Hutu personalities such as Twagiramungu and Sendashonga obscures the fact that their parties still participate in the transitional parliament. Since 1994, Hutu militia raids have targetted civilians and local officials, sowing terror.