Its stated goal is to establish a democratic and free Rwandan Republic,[1] and its current president is Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
The RDR's creation was a response to the outcome of the Rwandan Civil War and the resulting refugee crisis in the African Great Lakes region.
By August 1994, over two million Rwandan refugees fled to neighboring African countries and created an extreme humanitarian crisis.
In We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, author Philip Gourevitch claimed that the RDR, founded in the refugee camps of exiled Hutus in Zaire after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, is a shadow organization effectively run by former Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) commanders and genocidaires.
He criticized Western aid workers, who regarded the RDR as a moderate and legitimate organization, as naive and ill-informed.