Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire

Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo
Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre Participant in the First Congo War
Active	October 1996 – 17 May 1997
Leaders	Laurent-Désiré Kabila André Kissasse Ngandu Anselme Masusu Nindaga Déogratias Bugera
Became	the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Allies	Uganda  Rwanda
Opponents	Zaire UNITA ALiR

The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL or ADFLC) was a coalition of Rwandan, Ugandan, Burundan and selected some Congolese dissidents, disgruntled minority groups and nations that toppled President Mobutu Sese Seko and brought Laurent Kabila to power in the First Congo War (1996-1997). While the group was successful in overthrowing the Mobutu dictatorship, the alliance fell apart after Laurant D. Kabila did not agreed to be dictated by his aliases which was Ugandan and Rwandan backers turned Against him, marking the beginning of the Second Congo War on August 2, 1998.

The alliance is also frequently called by its original French name, Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL).

By the middle of 1996, the situation in eastern Zaire was simmering with tension. Following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hutus had fled across the border into Zaire where they settled in large refugee camps. Many of those responsible for the genocide, the former Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and interahamwe militia, used the anonymity offered by the camps to reorganize into the rebel Rassemblement pour le Retour et la Démocratie au Rwanda (RDR). The RDR began to use the camps as bases to infiltrate back across the border and conduct an insurgency. Despite protests by the Rwandan government, the Zairean government and international organizations providing humanitarian aid to the camps were unwilling to remove the militants from the refugee population.

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