First Congo War
Rebel Offensive Map
| date | November 1996 to May 1997 |
|---|---|
| place | Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Casus Belli | Genocide in Rwanda , collapse of the Mobutu government |
| output | Mobutu Sese Seko is overthrown and Laurent-Désiré Kabila comes to power |
| consequences | Second Congo War |
| Peace treaty | no formal peace agreement |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Supported by: Burundi Angola United States SPLA 1st Battalion Eritreans. Local May-May militias of the Bahunde and Nande |
Supported by:
UNITA Ex-FAR / Interahamwe France |
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| according to their own information, 57,000 Congolese, plus 3,500 Rwandans |
 Zaire : 50,000–60,000 members of the FAZ
|
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
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The First Congo War (Congolese term: guerre de libération "Liberation War") was a civil war that took place from autumn 1996 to May 1997 on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) . The dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was overthrown by the rebel coalition of the AFDL , which is supported by several countries .
The first Congo War marked the beginning of an intermittent series of wars in Central Africa that has continued to this day .
prehistory
The main trigger of the war were the refugee camps in the east of what was then known as Zaire after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 . After the conquest of Rwanda by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), according to a count by the UNHCR , 1.25 million Hutu had fled to the Kivu provinces of Zaire, which then had 6.3 million inhabitants. 40,000–100,000 of the Génocidaires responsible for the genocide are said to have been among the refugees . Because the perpetrators of the genocide mainly consisted of members of the two Hutu fighting organizations Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi as well as the former Rwandan army, the Forces armées rwandaises (FAR), these militias were henceforth called Ex-FAR / Interahamwe .
The ex-FAR / Interahamwe, which were still militarily armed, began attacks on Rwanda soon after their flight in order to overthrow the new government that had meanwhile been formed. At the same time, the refugees allied themselves with the Hutu living in Zaire and there were attacks on the Tutsi who also lived there, with the long-term goal of a Tutsi-free "Hutu country". This development drove more than 500,000 Zairean Tutsi and Bahunds to refugee camps or to Rwanda by 1996 .
The power of the Zairean central government in Kinshasa had already been so weakened in the east of the country that a fight against the experienced and well-equipped Hutu would have been hopeless and any attempt by the government to repatriate the refugees was doomed to failure. The UNHCR also rejected the forced return of the refugees.
This situation led to the formation of local Tutsi militias, especially in South Kivu, which initially served to protect themselves. The rebels received logistical support from Rwanda because Rwanda saw these rebels as allies. There were also direct, albeit minor, military operations by the new Rwandan army in eastern Congo. At the same time, the Zairean authorities started a campaign against the "Rwandans".
Course of war
Outbreak of war
In the late summer of 1996 the situation in South Kivu began to escalate. From August, Rwandan troops moved into the settlement area of the Banjamulenge and allied themselves with local militias. These began with the conquest of areas outside their home area, on October 4th they conquered Lemera . On October 7, 1996, the lieutenant governor of South Kivu Province ordered all Tutsi and Banyamulenge, both locals and immigrants from Rwanda, to leave Zaire within a week. As a result, both Rwanda and the rebels began to step up their activities.
On October 18, representatives of several Congolese rebel groups signed the “Lemera Agreement” in Kigali with the support of Uganda and Rwanda, thereby founding the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Liberation du Congo (AFDL). Shortly thereafter, the AFDL began attacks on Hutu refugee camps, and on October 25, 1996, Uvira, the first larger town, was conquered. The provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu were already under the control of the rebels at the beginning of November, but they were mainly conquered by the armies of Uganda and Rwanda. Both cities had fallen to the rebels largely without a fight, and the inferior and poorly paid government troops had fled after brief skirmishes and sacking of the cities.
After conquering the border area, the AFDL announced a ceasefire in order to enable the Hutu refugees to be repatriated during this period. On November 15, the last large refugee camp, Mugunga, was captured from the west in order to force the refugees back to Rwanda. According to the UNHCR, around 700,000 Hutu had returned to Rwanda by the end of the year, the remaining 300,000 to 400,000 refugees, about a third of them ex-FAR / Interahamwe, were before the AFDL but also across the forest to the west to the Congo Fled river.
At that time the war had already claimed 9,000 lives, mostly civilians.
Advance west
In the meantime, other local militias joined the AFDL. In December 1996, the entire border area with Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda was under the control of the AFDL. The Rwandan troops received reinforcements in the form of a battalion of infantry from the Eritrean Army. At that time, other rebel groups opposed the AFDL - the main reason why the region did not calm down even after the end of the war. The Zairean army began to withdraw to Kisangani , from where a counter-attack against the rebels was planned.
In Kisangani, the Zairean army was supported by around 30 white mercenaries , mostly Serbs . France had hurriedly recruited them in Yugoslavia and South Africa to prevent Mobutu from being overthrown. The Zairean army in Kisangani was commanded by the Belgian Christian Tavernier, parts of the ex-FAR / Interahamwe also fought on Mobutu's side. In January a counter-offensive began, in which the army's few heavy military equipment were also used. The offensive failed and the army evacuated the area northeast of Kisangani. The white mercenaries no longer intervened in the fight, they were no longer paid and had also recognized that the war was lost and that they risked their lives in vain.
The AFDL reached Kisangani around March 13 and took the city largely without a fight within two days. Regular Angolan troops are also said to have participated in the fight . From now on the war seemed decided in favor of the AFDL. Foreigners and the elites in Kinshasa prepared to flee.
End of war
After the conquest of Kisangani, the rebels turned their attention to the economically important mining areas of Kasai and Katanga in the south of the country. The advance of the rebels now accelerated enormously, the resistance of the old government seemed almost completely collapsed, at the same time the rebels were welcomed as liberators by the population in this region. On March 31, the city of Kamina in Katanga was conquered, and on April 9, the provincial capital of Lubumbashi in the extreme south of the country. Further north, East Kasai's capital Mbuji-Mayi was conquered on April 5, and West Kasai's capital Kananga followed on April 12 .
The AFDL had not achieved the great military successes towards the end of the war itself. In addition to the few Rwandan troops, the rebel alliance mainly consisted of militias and child soldiers , the kadogos ( swahili the little ones ), who were recruited during the advance . Especially in the final phase of the war, during and after the conquest of Kasai and Katanga, Angolan government troops are said to have intervened in the fighting on a large scale. Angola mainly fought against the UNITA rebels, allied with Mobutu , who had previously used the Congo as a retreat. Allegedly, African American US soldiers are also said to have intervened directly in the fighting.
From then on, the rebels moved towards Kinshasa: Kikwit was captured on April 30, 1997, and a week later the rebels reached Kenge . There they encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance from the Forces Armées Zaïroises (FAZ) and above all UNITA, and it came to one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war with more than 100 government soldiers killed and over 20 rebels killed. About 200 civilians were also killed.
The way to Kinshasa was now clear, even if there were numerous skirmishes with UNITA and Mobutu's Presidential Guard, the elite unit of the FAZ, on the way. Further north, in the province of Equateur , the provincial capital of Mbandaka was conquered on May 13, 1997 .
On the night of May 16-17, the first of 10,000 rebels who participated in the attack on Kinshasa entered the suburbs of Kinshasa. The day before, Mobutu flew into exile in Morocco via Gbadolite . General Mahele , the last Zairean army chief, had previously ordered his troops not to offer any resistance, so that the city ultimately fell without a fight. Mahele was later shot dead by a government soldier because of this order. On the morning of May 18, a white flag was hoisted at the last FAZ base . The rebels were greeted with enthusiasm by the population across Kinshasa.
The war did not end with the conquest of Kinshasa. The last important city in the west, the port city of Matadi on the Atlantic , was conquered on May 22nd. Furthermore , fighting took place in the north of the province of Equateur, in the border area with the Central African Republic and the Republic of the Congo . Parts of the FAZ and FAR withdrew here, to the stronghold of Mobutu, and continued to resist the rebels. In the following months, these troops intervened on Denis Sassou Nguesso's side in the civil war in the Republic of the Congo, as a result of which Nguesso came back to power there.
War victims
Little is known about the number of war dead. The figure “200,000 dead” was widely used, and most of them were supposed to be Hutu refugees who were massacred in their camps by AFDL and Rwandan Tutsi soldiers. Subsequent verifications of these figures by the UNHCR came to the conclusion that this information was incorrect, because the number of refugees had only declined insignificantly during this time, despite high death rates in some camps. Only a few, minor massacres have been proven.
After the war
After the invasion of the rebels declared Kabila by decree itself the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo and established a new government in front on 22 May. On May 29, he was sworn in at a public ceremony in Kinshasa's stadium .
The new government did not bring stability to the country: Kabila had promised national unity and reconstruction, but already on May 23, banned all parties and banned demonstrations. The political opposition Zaire, the z. T., who had been working towards the overthrow of Mobutu for decades, was not involved in the newly formed government.Instead, Rwandans and Ugandans received posts in the government.For example, the former Rwandan secret service chief James Kabarebe , one of the commanders of the Rwandan troops within the AFDL, became new Chief of Staff of the country.
In the population of Kinshasa quickly made the fact of irritation that most AFDL rebels no Lingala , the lingua franca in western Congo, some do not even also French, the official language spoke. The soldiers were then perceived as foreigners.
A misguided economic policy led to a further loss of confidence in the new government: Although the new government paid salaries in the public service for the first time in several years, the corruption remained. Neither foreign investors, who were supposed to get the lucrative mining going again, nor international financial aid could be brought ashore by the government because of the ongoing corruption and legal uncertainty as well as reports of possible massacres of Hutu refugees during the war. At the same time, war debts, especially to Zimbabwe Defense Industries (ZDI), weighed on the budget.
In the months after the change of government, new, initially smaller, rebellions broke out in the east of the country, which in 1998 led to the second Congo War.
literature
- Dominic Johnson : Congo - Wars, Corruption and the Art of Survival, Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edition 2009 ISBN 978-3-860-99743-7
- Michael Nest with François Grignon and Emizet F. Kisangani: The Democratic Republic of Congo: Economic Dimensions of War and Peace , Lynne Rienner 2006 ISBN 1-588262332
- Peter Scholl-Latour : African death suit - The sell-out of the black continent, Goldmann, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-442-15219-3
- Stearns; Jason; Dancing in the Glory of Monsters; New York 2012 (Public Affairs), ch. 7-12
- William G. Thom: Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence , Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol.XIX No. 2, Fall 1999
supporting documents
- ↑ Johnson, p. 76
- ↑ Washington Post : Passive Protest Stops Zaire's Capital Cold
- ↑ Johnson, p. 78
- ↑ Scholl-Latour, p. 109
- ↑ Johnson, p. 76
- ↑ a b Plaut, Martin; Understanding Eritrea; Oxford 2016, pp. 54-6. (Refutes the representation in Reyntjens, Filip; Great African War; New York 2009, it was Eritrean and Ethiopian mercenaries.)
- ↑ Johnson, p. 76
- ↑ Washington Post : Congo Begins Process of Rebuilding Nation
- ↑ Scholl-Latour, p. 105
- ↑ Johnson, p. 78
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j William G. Thom: The Journal of Conflict Studies: Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence ( Memento des Originals dated August 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Scholl-Latour, p. 105
- ^ Johnson, p. 86
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 70f
- ↑ Johnson, p. 72
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 71f
- ↑ Johnson, p. 72
- ↑ Johnson, p. 73
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 75f, 78
- ↑ Scholl-Latour, p. 104
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 79f
- ↑ Johnson, p. 80
- ↑ Scholl-Latour, p. 105
- ↑ Johnson, p. 80
- ↑ Johnson, p. 81
- ^ Johnson, p. 82
- ↑ This number can be found e.g. B. in Bernhard Chiari, Dieter H. Kollmer (Ed.): Democratic Republic of the Congo. Guide to history. Schöningh, 3rd revised. Edition May 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-75745-6 , p. 62 or Peter Scholl-Latour: The curse of the new millennium: A balance sheet by C. Bertelsmann. Munich, 12th edition 2002 ISBN 978-3-570-00537-8 , p. 51
- ↑ Johnson, p. 79
- ↑ Johnson, p. 79
- ↑ Johnson, p. 81
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 77, 81
- ↑ Johnson, p. 84
- ↑ Johnson, p. 81
- ↑ Johnson, pp. 83, 125
