First Congo War - Zimbabwe

The First Congo War resulted from the Rwandan Civil War which starting in 1990. The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) - which included Paul Kagame and was predominantly Tutsi - began operations in 1990 against President Juvenal Habyarimani (a Hutu). This ended in the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 and the installation of the RPF as the government. The losers, Hutu extremists, those guilty of genocide, the former Rwanda army, and many Hutu refugees, fled to eastern Zaire, from where they attempted to continue the war.

In 1996, Rwanda (now RPF) invaded Zaire to end the war, begnning the First Congo War. The Rwanda army invaded Zaire to remove Hutu/Interhamwe militias forming in the refugee camps. The Alliance des Forces Démocratiques por la Libération du Congo (AFDL) came in to being. Ultimately headed by Laurent Kabila (the man the Cuban Column, headed by Dreke and including Che Guevara, fought for in the Fizi-Baraka pocket), an anti-Mobutu politician. The AFDL including many other anti-Mobutu opposition forces, and including many Zaire Tutsi (Banyamulenge). This force moved all the way to Kinshasa, often not stopped by the disintegrating Zaire Army. On 16 May 1997, Mobutu fled. On 23 May 1997, Laurent Kabila arrived in Kinshasa and formed an AFDL dominated government. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ^[1]

See Congo Wars - Zimbabwe.