Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), formerly the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda, is a guerrilla force that is [Page 158]leading an insurgency against the government of Rwanda, largely from bases in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The conflict between the FDLR and the government of Rwanda is related to deep divisions between the two ethnic groups of Rwandan society, the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu. In the early 1990s, a Tutsi-led rebel army began attacking Rwanda from neighboring Uganda, and by early 1994 the rebel forces had taken large parts of the countryside and were approaching the capital. The Hutu-controlled government then initiated a massive genocide against Rwandan Tutsis and any Hutus believed to be collaborating with them. An estimated 500,000 people were killed. By late summer, however, the Tutsi rebels had conquered the government forces and stopped the genocide. Tens of thousands of Hutus fled into the neighboring Congo, including much of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and the civilian militias, known as the Interahamwe, that FAR had recruited to carry out the genocide.

The Rwandan government's desire to eliminate the remaining FAR and Interahamwe precipitated a complex chain of events that included the 1997 overthrow of the Congolese dictator Joseph Mobutu and the installation of the guerrilla leader Laurent Kabila in his place; the July 2001 assassination of Kabila and his replacement by his son, Joseph; and a massive war in Congo from 1998 to 2003 that involved nine African nations and killed approximately 5 million people. (Rwanda and Uganda opposed the Kabila regime and its allies in this war.) Initially, the Hutus in Congo fought against the Rwandan forces and were supported by the Kabila regime. Under the leadership of Joseph Kabila, the provisions of a peace accord signed in 1999 have begun to be enforced, and the Congolese government stopped actively supporting the Hutu rebels.

The Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR), the precursor to the FDLR, was formed in the late 1990s, apparently in an attempt to coordinate Hutu groups’ efforts at defense. The ALIR leadership was mostly composed of former FAR officers, but its membership as a whole included many fighters who were not implicated in the original genocide—a large proportion were children in 1994—but who became involved in the conflict after becoming refugees. Papers seized at ALIR encampments suggest that a Christian evangelical movement may be associated with the group, but the scant evidence available precludes speculation on the ALIR's religious character.

The ALIR set up jungle training camps run by former FAR and Interahamwe members to train its new recruits. The organization issued a threat against U.S. interests in Rwanda in 1996, and three years later ALIR members slaughtered eight English-speaking foreign tourists visiting mountain gorillas in Uganda in an effort to reduce U.S. and British support for Rwanda's government.

In 2001 the ALIR merged with another Hutu group based in the Congo to form the FDLR, which largely operates in eastern Congo. Although Joseph Kabila was able to negotiate a peace with Congo's neighbors in 2003, the continued presence of the FDLR in Congo has led to repeated outbreaks of violence.

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