Rassemblement Démocratique pour le Rwanda

The Rassemblement Démocratique pour le Rwanda (RDR) was an insurgent group operating in the eastern region of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) against the government of Rwanda from 1995 to 1996. It was composed almost entirely of members of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) and Interahamwe responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide who had been forced to flee after the mainly-Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) invaded. The RDR's increasingly organized attacks into Rwanda led the RPA to invade eastern Zaire in October 1996 to end the threat, destroying the RDR and signaling the beginning of the First Congo War. The RDR was replaced by the Armée de Libération du Rwanda (ALiR).

Development of the RDR

Following the end of the Rwandan Genocide in October 1994, two million refugees fled out of Rwanda into neighboring countries, particularly Zaire and Tanzania. While most were people of Hutu ethnicity who feared retaliation by the Tutsis of the new government, they also included many of the leaders and organizers of the genocide who were intent on regaining control of the government. These survivors first engaged in banditry as they tried to find a way to survive. However, these uncoordinated acts of violence quickly developed into targeted assassinations of Tutsi survivors of the genocide and Hutu leaders willing to work with the new government of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front.

The arms and organizational ability of the RDR soon resulted in its control of the vast refugee camps set up in Bukavu, Goma and Uvira in the Zairean states of North and South Kivu for the one million civilians who had fled across Rwanda's western border. This control was solidified as the RDR recreated the administrative structures they had used during the Rwandan Genocide. The RDR also received arms and other support from the Hutu rebel National Council for the Defense of Democracy, which under the leadership of Léonard Nyangoma was attempting to overthrow the Tutsi government of Burundi, as well as from Zairean President Mobutu Sésé Seko, who had in interest in destabilizing the hostile government of President Paul Kagame.

The RDR was also able to capture and control the flow of international relief aid flowing to the refugee camps through the United Nations and other humanitarian aid organizations. The normal procedure in humanitarian emergencies is to funnel aid through the local, pre-existing administrative structures. In this case, all of these structures were controlled by the RDR. This forced aid organizations to deal with militants accused of genocide in order to give relief aid, such as basic food and medicine, to the many refugees living in desperate situations. The RDR also began to gather resources from the Hutu diaspora in Nairobi, Kenya and western countries. As the RDR grew in strength it began to begin training and arming Hutu refugees in camps in Tanzania in preparation for opening an eastern front against the Rwandan government. The rebels also benefited from the presence of many sympathetic Hutus who had remained within Rwanda.

By March 1996, the RDR had begun carrying out raids against the Rwandese provinces of Cyangugu, Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. The RPF government response was heavy-handed, prompting even more resistance from the Tutsis. At the same time, the RDR was beginning to carry out ethnic cleansings of the Banyamulenge, kin to the Tutsis living in Zaire, and native Zairean Tutsi living near Masisi. There was widespread forced recruitment into armed groups from both the Rwandese refugee population and Zairean Hutu near Rutshuru and intensive military training throughout the Kivus. By early 1996, the RDR forces numbered 50,000-70,000 soldiers divided into two commands, with headquarters in Mugunga, North Kivu and Bukavu, South Kivu, that were commanded by experienced ex-FAR generals such as Augustin Bizimungu and Gratien Kabiligi.

The Rwandan attack

The Rwandan government of Paul Kagame had vociferously protested the presence of Hutu militants within refugee camps of eastern Zaire since the end of the Rwandan Genocide. However, the various humanitarian aid agencies declared that their responsibility was to help those in need, not to disarm armed forces. The Mobutu government was actively helping the rebels. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found itself unable to implement a proposed solution to move the refugee camps, and the militants, farther into Zaire. Mobutu did not want the security threat to move away from the border, the population of Kivu that was hosting the refugees thought that moving the refugees farther into the country would prolong their stay, and the residents of Maniema, which was the proposed target of relocation, did not want the refugees at all. The outside international community, despite many recriminations about the lack of action during the Rwandan Genocide, lacked the will to intervene in what was obviously a highly unstable situation.

In response to the attacks of the RDR and Kivutian Hutu extremists against the Banyamulenge and Tutsi of Masisi, the RPF began to supply arms and training to these kin groups within Zaire. Nevertheless, Rwanda was faced with two basic choices: wait for the RDR to attack or preempt such an attack. Following an attack on Banyamulenge villages in October 1996, Rwanda carried out the second option, marking the beginning of the First Congo War. A massive RPF offensive across the Zairean border had three objectives: 1) destroy the RDR command structure, 2) repatriate the refugees who formed the resource base of the RDR, and 3) remove the hostile Mobutu government. Rwanda organized four Zairean rebel groups into the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire (AFDL) led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila to assist in their goals.

The attack on the refugee camps, for which Rwanda was heavily criticized, led to the destruction of the RDR command structures and the forced repatriation of 600,000 refugees in the Kivus, as well of a further 400,000 refugees in Tanzania, in December 1996. Unknown hundreds of thousands of refugees died either from the violence or from exposure and hunger after fleeing into the forests of the region. In May 1997, the AFDL and their Rwandan and Ugandan backers swept into the capital Kinshasa and Mobutu fled into exile. Kabila declared himself president and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), ending the First Congo War.

However, it proved to be a temporary respite. RDR fighters scattered to neighboring countries such as Zambia, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Burundi and Tanzania. After a few months of relative peace, these Hutu fighters were reformed into a new insurgency group, the Alliance for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR), that began to start operating in the eastern DRC again in early 1997.

External links

* [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=login&ref_id=1633 Disarmament in the Congo: Jump-Starting DDRRR to Prevent Further War] , International Crisis Group, 14 December 2000, pp. 4-6
* [http://www.rdrwanda.org Republican Rally of Democracy Rwanda]