Second Congo War

In August 1998 Rwanda and Uganda, which had helped Laurent-Desire Kabila overthrow the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko only a year earlier, turned against him and backed a new rebellion in eastern Congo (then the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire). Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to defend Kabila, and Chad, Sudan and Burundi became involved as well. At its height the war drew in the armies of nine African states and dozens of armed groups, and the country split into zones held by the government, by rebel movements and by foreign forces.³⁴

The roots lay in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. After it, more than a million Hutu refugees, among them many soldiers and militiamen responsible for the killings, fled into eastern Zaire, where camps became bases for attacks on Rwanda. In 1996 Rwanda and Uganda backed Kabila's march across the country, ending Mobutu's 32-year rule. Mobutu had come to power in the turmoil after independence and Patrice Lumumba's murder, and his corrupt regime left the state hollow, unable to control its vast territory or its wealth of gold, diamonds, copper, timber and coltan (an ore used in electronics).³⁴

Front lines stalled, but armies and militias profited from mining and fought for local control. Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and succeeded by his son Joseph. A ceasefire signed in Lusaka in 1999 failed, but the Sun City talks of 2002 led to a transitional government in 2003. The International Rescue Committee estimated 5.4 million excess deaths from 1998 to 2007, mostly from disease and malnutrition; other researchers argue the true figure is lower, perhaps one to two million. Violence continues in eastern Congo.¹²³