For Kigali, at a time when the northwest of Rwanda was consumed by the resumption of a bitter civil war, Kabila’s recruitment of its enemy constituted a strategic threat as well as a personal betrayal. Its reaction, however, was a prime example of the hubris that had come to characterize the regime. Instead of creating a buffer zone in the east of the country and using multilateral pressure to deal with Kabila, Kigali decided to single-handedly remove him from power, presumably to install a new, friendlier proxy in his place.
