There are many challenges facing the Lusaka cease-fire signatories and the wider international community in implementing the Congolese peace agreement, but
perhaps none so complex as the effort to disarm the non-Congolese armed groups destabilising the region from Congolese bases. Besides wreaking havoc themselves, these armed groups provide a rationale for neighbouring governments to conduct
the counterinsurgency operations and continue the occupation of Congolese territory
that have terrible humanitarian and human rights impacts. These armed groups,
the largest of which are the forces associated with the former Rwandan Army (ex-
FAR) and Interahamwe militias that carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide, are
not the root cause of all of the Congo’s problems, but their continued presence in the Congo is the primary cause of the war and much of the worst violence, whether of their own doing or of the neighbouring governments seeking to counter them.
