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The men who bludgeoned to death two Americans and six other tourists
visiting a game park in Uganda say they wanted to warn Washington off
supporting the governments of Rwanda and Uganda. They are believed to be
members of the Interahamwe, a Rwandan Hutu militia that has been at the
center of five years of bloodletting in Central Africa.
Who are the Interahamwe?
They are the remnants of the Rwandan Hutu army that massacred half a
million of their Tutsi compatriots in 1994. After they were routed by Tutsi
guerrillas, they fled across the border into the Congo (then Zaire) and hid
among an estimated 1 million Rwandan Hutu refugees who had fled Tutsi
reprisals. The Interahamwe continued attacks on both Rwanda and Uganda from
bases in the Congo, which led those countries to launch the 1996 rebellion
that eventually overthrew President Mobutu Sese Seko and replaced him with
President Laurent Kabila. Even then, the Interahamwe attacks continued from
inside the Congo and from the mountains along the Congo-Uganda border.
Frustrated by Kabila's failure to control the Interahamwe, Rwanda and Uganda
backed the current rebellion against him, which began in 1998.
Little is known of the Interahamwe's fighting strength, and it has no
identifiable political leadership or ideology. They are veterans of
Rwanda's ethnic genocide who appear to believe they have nothing to gain by
abandoning their fight. Some reports allege that President Kabila -- once
their sworn enemy -- may actually be giving them military support in the hope of enlisting them in the
fight against the Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed rebels.
DIGITAL MAP BY MAGELLAN GEOGRAPHIX
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