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First Congo War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Rwanda and Uganda marched an army across Zaire in seven months, ended Mobutu's 32-year kleptocracy and installed Laurent Kabila, and the killing followed the refugees.

Fought
1996 to 1997
Duration
1 year
Dates
24 October 1996 to 17 May 1997
Deaths
Perhaps 200,000 to 250,000, most of them Hutu refugees killed or dead of disease and starvation in the forest
AFDL side
AFDL under Kabila; Rwanda (Kagame, James Kabarebe), Uganda, Angola, Burundi, Eritrea; Katangese Tigers
Zaire
Mobutu's FAZ; ex-FAR and Interahamwe Hutu forces; Serbian mercenaries; UNITA
Result
Mobutu overthrown; Kabila president; Rwandan and Ugandan influence in the east

The First Congo War (1996-1997) began when Rwanda's Tutsi-led government, threatened by Hutu genocidaires operating from refugee camps in eastern Zaire, invaded with Uganda in October 1996 behind a Congolese rebel front, the AFDL, led by the veteran Marxist Laurent-Desire Kabila. The camps were broken up; hundreds of thousands of refugees went home to Rwanda and others were hunted west through the forest, where tens of thousands were massacred. Mobutu Sese Seko's unpaid army fled; Angola joined the invaders; Kinshasa fell on 17 May 1997 and Mobutu died in exile months later. Kabila renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo, then quarrelled with his sponsors, and the Second Congo War began within 15 months.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is First Congo War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

15501600165017001750180018501900195020002050First Congo War (1996 to 1997)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: Italian EmpireItalian Empire (1882 to 1947)Open: Belgian colonial empireBelgian colonial empire (1885 to 1962)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)Open: Angolan Civil WarAngolan Civil War (1975 to 2002)Open: Uganda-Tanzania War and Ugandan Bush WarUganda-Tanzania War and Ugandan Bush War (1978 to 1986)Open: Somali Civil WarSomali Civil War (1991 to present)Open: Burundian Civil WarBurundian Civil War (1993 to 2005)Open: Second Congo WarSecond Congo War (1998 to 2003)

Hutu refugees in eastern Zaire, 1996-1997

037575011251500In camps, October 1996: 12001200In camps, October 1996Returned to Rwanda, November 1996: 600600Returned to Rwanda, November 1996Fled west into the forest: 400400Fled west into the forestMissing or dead by end 1997: 200200Missing or dead by end 1997thousands (approximate)

Timeline of the First Congo War

  1. 1994
    Rwandan genocide; Hutu flight to Zaire
  2. 1996
    AFDL formed; Rwanda attacks the campsOctober.
  3. 1996
    Goma and Bukavu fall; refugees return or flee westNovember.
  4. 1997
    Kisangani falls; Tingi-Tingi killingsMarch.
  5. 1997
    Mobutu leaves; Kinshasa falls16 to 17 May.
  6. 1997
    Mobutu dies in MoroccoSeptember.
  7. 1998
    Second Congo War begins

The camps

After the 1994 genocide, some 1.2 million Hutu fled to camps around Goma and Bukavu, run in effect by the ex-army and Interahamwe militia who had carried out the killing, and armed with international aid money. Rwanda demanded they be disarmed; nobody did it. When Zairean authorities in South Kivu tried to expel the Banyamulenge Congolese Tutsi in 1996, Rwanda armed them and struck the camps in October, dispersing them; 600,000 refugees walked home, and the rest fled west with the militia.

The march on Kinshasa

Rwandan officers under Kabarebe commanded the AFDL, whose child soldiers (kadogos) and Katangese exiles advanced along the roads while Mobutu's army looted and ran; Kisangani fell in March 1997, Mbuji-Mayi and Lubumbashi in April, and Angola sent troops from the west. Refugees who reached Tingi-Tingi and Mbandaka were massacred by AFDL and Rwandan forces; the UN's later mapping report said the killings could constitute genocide if a court found intent. Mobutu, dying of cancer, met Kabila on a South African warship and left Kinshasa on 16 May.

Kabila and the second war

Kabila proclaimed himself president on 17 May 1997, banned parties and blocked UN investigators. His Rwandan and Ugandan patrons ran his army and the eastern trade until he expelled them in July 1998, whereupon they invaded again and Africa's world war began. Mobutu died in Morocco in September 1997; his fortune, estimated at billions, was mostly never found.

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Empires of the same era and region

Wars of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the First Congo War

  1. Kabila had led a Marxist rebellion in the 1960s that Che Guevara joined for seven months; Che thought him lazy and left.
  2. The AFDL advance covered some 1,500 km in seven months, mostly on foot and in commandeered trucks.
  3. Mobutu, who had renamed himself 'the all-powerful warrior who goes from conquest to conquest', fled with a leopard-skin hat and a Concorde-flying reputation.
  4. The UN's 2010 mapping report documented over 600 incidents of mass killing between 1993 and 2003, including the hunt for Hutu refugees.
  5. Rwanda's army chief James Kabarebe served as Congo's army chief of staff after the war until Kabila sacked him.
  6. Zaire's soldiers were so unpaid that many sold their weapons to the rebels advancing on them.
  7. The war's child soldiers, the kadogos, later formed Kabila's presidential guard; one of them shot him in 2001.
  8. The country's name changed from Zaire back to Congo on the day Kinshasa fell.

Sources

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