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First war in DR Congo

The first DR Congo war began in 1996 as Rwanda grew increasingly concerned that members of Rassemblement Démocratique pour le Rwanda militias, who were carrying out cross-border raids from Zaire (currently known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) were planning an invasion. The militias, mostly Hutu, were entrenched in refugee camps in eastern Zaire, where many had fled to escape the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide. The new Tutsi-dominated government of Rwanda protested this violation of their territorial integrity and began to give arms to the ethnically Tutsi Banyamulenge of eastern Zaire. The Mobutu government of Zaire vigorously denounced this intervention but possessed neither the military capability to halt it nor the political capital to attract international assistance.

Many lives has been lost, vulnerable women and children are killed their belongings are destroyed, they have left homeless, some are becoming refugees because of war, education has interfered by war therefore many people are alliterated, economic development has been affecited,eccosystem has destructed. Experts declare that the first war in DR Congo was the heaviest and tough in Africa With active support from Rwanda, Uganda and Angola, Laurent Desire Kabila's rebel forces moved methodically down the Congo River, encountering only light resistance from the poorly trained, ill-disciplined forces of Mobutu's crumbling regime. The bulk of Kabila's fighters were Tutsis, and many were veterans of various conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Kabila himself had credibility because he had been a longtime political opponent of Mobutu, and had been a follower of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the independent Congo who was murdered by a combination of internal and external forces, to be replaced by the then Lt Gen Mobutu in 1965. Kabila had declared himself a Marxist and an admirer of Moa Zedong. He had been waging armed rebellion in eastern Zaire for more than three decades. Kabila's army began a slow movement westward in December 1996 near the end of the Great Lakes refugee crisis, taking control of border towns and mines and solidifying control. However, there were reports of massacres and brutal repression by the rebel army. A UN human rights investigator published statements from witnesses claiming that Kabila's ADFLC engaged in massacres, and that as many as 60,000 civilians were killed by the advancing army (a claim strenuously denied by the ADFLC). Roberto Garreton stated that his investigation in Goma turned up allegations of disappearances, torture and killings. He quoted Moese Nyarugabo, an aide to Mobutu, as saying that killings and disappearances should be expected in wartime. truly it was not easy to overcome this situation and the African nation will never forget such a big loss of lives. In march 2002 all different forces supporters from different countries has called for withdrawer as the situation moves to normal.