Fresh off the publication of a damning UN report that implicates the government of Rwanda in assisting M23 rebels in the eastern DRC, Western observers are lining up to rain criticism down on Kigali. But what would motivate this diminutive yet formidable African country to risk its donor lifeline by extending support to a group led by an ICC-indicted war criminal? The answer is as simple as it is predictable: state security.

To understand this latest development in the long-running intrigue that is Rwanda-DRC relations, a short history lesson regarding the eastern DRC border region is in order. After the predominantly-Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) captured Kigali in 1994 and ended the Rwandan Genocide, the Hutu Interhamwe militiamen who had helped organize the killings fled to the DRC, then Zaire. This marked the beginning of an extended period of RPF campaigns to clear out Hutu militias that used the eastern DRC as a base of operations from which to launch attacks forces within Rwanda. In 1996, the RPF-controlled Rwandan government launched an invasion of Zaire via a proxy force controlled by Laurent Kabila, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL). However, the Hutu militants that the RPF sought to rout simply retreated deeper into the heart of Zaire, only to return when Rwandan forces eventually retreated. Once it became clear that a direct military confrontation wouldn’t be enough to stomp out Hutu militias that were increasingly employing guerilla tactics, the Rwandan government switched gears and began to prop up proxy militias in the eastern DRC. These militias were primarily Tutsi and they acted as a security bulwark that stood between the still-simmering racial hatred of Hutu paramilitaries and Rwanda proper.