First Congo War - Banyamulenge Rebellion

Banyamulenge Rebellion

Given the exacerbated ethnic tensions and the lack of government control in the East, Rwanda was to take action against the security threat posed by the génocidaires that had found refuge in eastern Zaire. The government in Kigali had begun forming Tutsi militias for operations in Zaire as early as 1995 and chose to act following an exchange of fire between Rwandan Tutsi and Zairian Green Berets that marked the outbreak of the Banyamulenge Rebellion on August 31, 1996. While there was general unrest in eastern Zaire, the rebellion was unlikely a grassroots movement; Uganda president Yoweri Museveni, who supported and worked closely with Rwanda in the First Congo War, later recalled that the rebellion was incited by Zairian Tutsi who had been recruited by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA).

The initial goal of the Banyamulenge Rebellion was to seize power in Zaire's eastern Kivu provinces and combat the extremist Hutu forces that were attempting to continue the genocide in their new home. However, the rebellion did not remain Tutsi-dominated for long. Mobutu's harsh and selfish rule had created enemies in virtually all sectors of Zairian society. As a result, the new rebellion benefited from massive public support and grew to be a general revolution rather than a mere Banyamulenge uprising.

Banyamulenge elements as well as non-Tutsi militias coalesced into the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) under the leadership of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had been a long-time opponent of the Mobutu government and was a leader of one of the three main rebel groups that founded the AFDL. While the AFDL was an ostensibly Zairian rebel movement, Rwanda had played a key role in its formation. Observers of the war, as well as the Rwandan Defense Minister and Vice President at the time, Paul Kagame, claim that the AFDL was formed in and directed from Kigali and contained not only Rwandan-trained troops but also regulars of the RPA.