Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie
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Rally for Congolese Democracy
Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie |
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| Founded | 2003 (as party) |
| Ideology | Social-liberalism |
The Congolese Rally for Democracy (French: Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie; abbreviated RCD), also known as the Rally for Congolese Democracy, is a political party and a former rebel group that operated in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was supported by the government of Rwanda, and was a major armed faction in the Second Congo War (1998-2003). It became a social liberal political party in 2003.
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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