Among the most effective in Africa, Rwanda s army has exported the conflict to eastern Congo-Kinshasa, reshaping national politics en route, The genocide of Tutsi and massacre of Hutu moderates launched on 7 April 1994 and perpetrated by the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR), and the Interahamwe Hutu militia it worked with, lasted 100 days and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Though never fully investigated, the Rwandan Patriotic Front s (RPF) march on Kigali from its bases in northern Rwanda involved the slaughter of tens of thousands more.
Pierre-Henri Damiba s military regime is managing the politics better than its war against the insurgents, Of the three military regimes in West Africa under pressure to hand over to civilians, Burkina Faso s junta led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba is proving the most adept at navigating national and regional politics.