Fearing reprisal, thousands of Congolese Tutsis have fled across the nearby border into Tutsi-run Rwanda.
In the new Rwanda you will have Tutsis voting for Hutus and vice versa.
In Rwanda in 1994, the world watched while the Hutu majority slaughtered some 700, 000 Tutsis.
To stop them, Rwandan Tutsis recruited Kabila, an ageing revolutionary, and engineered his rise.
Soon hundreds of fellow Tutsis in the Congolese army were deserting and joining him.
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Its cocktail of Congolese Tutsis, exiled academics and old-style Mobutu supporters became increasingly fractious.
Nkunda says his forces are fighting to defend Congolese Tutsis from Hutu militants who escaped to Congo.
However, Burundi's Tutsis would fear for their own safety if the nation's army was commanded by Hutus.
The soldiers, mostly Tutsis, became part of the national army through that accord.
Mr Kagame says he has no ties except that they are both Tutsis.
Tutsis ruled the country from independence in 1962 until they unexpectedly lost political power in a 1993 multi-party election.
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At the time, Nkunda said his forces were fighting to defend Congolese Tutsis from Hutu militants who escaped to Congo.
Despite its past as a Hutu rebel group, the movement claims to have rapidly recruited Tutsis since becoming a political party.
Though Tutsis account for only a small proportion of Rwanda's population, the most powerful people in the government are all Tutsi.
But the Hutus' three-month slaughter of Tutsis left more than 800, 000 dead.
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Some moderates from the Hutu majority who supported Tutsis were also killed.
Rwandan Tutsis take Congolese charcoal, timber and minerals for sale in Rwanda.
Nkunda, a Tutsi and former Congolese army general, has repeatedly blamed the Congolese government for not protecting Tutsis from Rwandan Hutus in Congo.
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The warfare between Congolese government forces and rebels under the command of Laurent Nkunda represents the lingering tensions between Hutus and Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda.
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In the late 1950s and early '60s, Kagame's family and other Tutsis were under siege as Hutu gangs went from village to village, pillaging and killing.
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The M23 rebels, comprising mainly former army mutineers, say they are fighting for the protection of rights for minority ethnic Tutsis in Eastern Congo, among others.
Tutsis, who make up 14% of the population but have traditionally dominated power, will have 40% of seats in the national assembly, compared to 60% for Hutus.
"All along we thought that's why they were here, " Kagame said, referring to the U.N. troops sent to monitor a peace agreement between the minority Tutsis and ruling Hutus.
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Mr Museveni's critics accuse him at best of overreaching himself, at worst of being a military adventurer, bent on establishing an empire of ethnic Tutsis in the Great Lakes region.
With Angola's war looking to start again, conflict bubbling in Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, and with Tutsis and Hutus still at each other's throats, there could be a conflagration that would engulf the whole of Central Africa.
They suspect that it was responsible for the sudden spread of the Indo-European group of humanity about 4, 000 years ago, and also for the more recent spread of the Tutsis in Africa, whose ancestors independently evolved a tolerant version of the gene.
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