Rally for Congolese Democracy
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Rally for Congolese Democracy
Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie |
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| Founded | 2003 (as party) |
| Ideology | Social-liberalism |
Congolese Rally for Democracy, sometimes Rally for Congolese Democracy, is political party and former rebel group operating in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Assisted by the government of Rwanda, it was a major factor in the Second Congo War (1998-2003). It became a political party in 2003. The group is commonly referred to by the initials RCD of its French name, Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, and advocates social liberalism.
In 1997 Laurent-Désiré Kabila was installed as President of the DRC following the victory by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL) in the First Congo War, with heavy support from the governments of Uganda and Rwanda. However, the ethnic tensions in eastern DRC did not disappear. Thousands of Hutu militants who had taken part in the Rwandan genocide and been forced to flee into the DRC maintained a low intensity war with the invading Rwandan army and their Banyamulenge co-ethnics living in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. By February 1998 the Kivus were engulfed in ethnic warfare. Banyamulenge troops based in the town of Bukavu who belonged to the ADFL mutinied as tensions increased. The mutiny caused a souring of the relationship between Kabila and his Rwandan and Ugandan allies.
In early August 1998 the newly formed RCD led by president Ernest Wamba dia Wamba took the town of Goma and began a campaign against Kabila, marking the beginning of the Second Congo War. The RCD was formed by Uganda and Rwanda after they grew dissatisfied with the government. The core of the RCD was composed of former ADFL members, including many Banyamulenge who already tended to ally themselves with Rwanda against the anti-Tutsi forces in the region. Nevertheless, the Kabila forces managed to halt the RCD advance with the assistance of outside states such as Angola and Zimbabwe, marking the onset of a full-scale regional conflict.
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