When the civilian governor of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province needed to travel north recently, he donned a military uniform and went in a dozen-car convoy brimming with soldiers and escorted by a tank.
The main road winding north from Goma through the east of the D R Congo twists through a spectacular terrain of yellow maize fields, velvety green hills, dense forests and towering volcanoes. But the beauty surrounding the road belies its danger.
Residents say Rwandan Hutu rebels, known as the Interahamwe militia, who this week hacked to death eight foreign tourists across the border in Uganda, have survived for years hidden in the hills and thick forests of Virunga National Park.
The Interahamwe militia, which played a key role in the massacre of an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, has been wreaking havoc across the area for months, burning cars and homes and pillaging peasant farmers at whim.
Last week alone, up to 30 people were killed when seven vehicles travelling in an 18-car convoy were ambushed in the park at Mayamoto, 110km north of Goma. A government delegation that went to inspect the carnage found another three charred lorries near Lilimbi to the east, not far from the Ugandan border.
The steady flow of horror stories - including beheadings, looting sprees and transport lorries hit by rocket-propelled grenades - has overwhelmed local authorities. Congolese soldiers, many wearing tennis shoes, Tshirts and ragged uniforms, have not been paid in months and have little incentive to risk their lives against the Rwandan Interahmwe.
To make matters more complicated, the current Tutsi-led government of Rwanda is supporting a rebellion against the President of D R Congo, Laurent Kabila, and has sent its army across the border into D R Congo. The rebellion is also supported by Uganda, but is opposed by Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Chad, who have sent troops to fight for the Kabila government.
Rwandan army troops loyal to the government, which ended the Interahamwe genocide, are well trained, better paid and better equipped than their Congolese counterparts. Many units have been sent across the border, and can now be found throughout eastern D R Congo, patrolling dirt roads in four-wheel-drive vehicles and conducting operations against the Interhamwe militia, often in areas where D R Congo government troops are also operating.
The violence has displaced tens of thousands of civilians who say they are trapped between the Interahamwe and the Rwandan soldiers.
"We don't want them [Rwandan soldiers] here because they are foreigners," said one displaced farmer living with relatives in Rutshuru. "But we accept their presence because security has improved since they came."
Rwandan and Congolese troops guard the roads, hopping up from makeshift camps with hand grenades to flag down cars at impromptu roadblocks and ask for cigarettes and spare change. On both sides of the Goma-Rutshuru road, remains of camps that once housed a million Rwandan refugees have been swallowed by the bush and look like ancient ruins.
"The refugees went back home but we've inherited a war," said one Rutshuru resident.
Ugandan troops have killed 10 more Rwandan Hutu extremists suspected of having taken part in the massacre of eight foreign tourists in Uganda, a military source said yesterday. The Hutus were killed in D R Congo on Thursday evening, he added.
Meanwhile, both the government in D R Congo and a Ugandan opposition leader accused the Kampala regime of responsibility for the killings by virtue of its politics.
Uganda's Democratic Party leader, Mr Paul Ssemogerere, said Kampala's "military adventurism" in D R Congo was to blame for the killings, which he described as "acts of revenge."