[18] The Tutsi-dominated RPF government of Rwanda, which had gained power in July 1994, protested this[vague] as a violation of Rwandan territorial integrity, and began arming the ethnically Tutsi Banyamulenge of eastern Zaire.

[19] The Mobutu regime of Zaire vigorously denounced this intervention, though it possessed neither the military capability to halt it, nor the political capital to attract international assistance.

He had been waging armed rebellion in eastern Zaire for more than three decades (though Che Guevara – in his account of the early years of the conflict – portrayed him as an uncommitted and uninspiring leader).

A UN human-rights investigator published statements from witnesses who claimed that Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFLC) had committed massacres, with the advancing army killing as many as 60,000 civilians.

[21] Roberto Garreton stated that his investigation in the town of Goma turned up allegations of disappearances, torture, and killings; he quoted Moïse Nyarugabo [fr], an aide to Mobutu, as saying that such casualties should be expected in wartime.

[citation needed] Kabila's forces, with support of Rwanda, launched an offensive in earlier October 1996 in South Kivu, and demanded that the Kinshasa government surrender.

[23] In addition to political jostling among various groups seeking to gain power, and an enormous external debt, his foreign backers proved unwilling to leave when asked.

[vague] Two weeks later, Kabila reversed to his previous decision, thanking Rwanda for its help, and ordering all Rwandan and Ugandan military forces to leave the country.

[27] On 12 August a loyalist army major broadcast a message urging resistance from a radio station in Bunia in eastern Congo: "People must bring a machete, a spear, an arrow, a hoe, spades, rakes, nails, truncheons, electric irons, barbed wire, stones, and the like, in order, dear listeners, to kill the Rwandan Tutsis.

[29][needs update] In a bold move, Rwandan soldiers under the command of James Kabarebe hijacked three planes and flew them to the government base of Kitona on the Atlantic coast.

More towns in the east and around Kitona fell in rapid succession, as the combined RCD, Rwandan and rebel soldiers overwhelmed government forces amid a flurry of ineffectual diplomatic efforts by various African nations.

By 24 February 2000, the UN authorised a force of 5,537 troops, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (known by the French acronym, MONUC), to monitor the cease-fire.

"[61] A peace accord Laurent signed in the summer of 1999, the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, "remained unfulfilled largely because he kept staging new offensives while blocking deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in government-held territory."

The agreement described a plan for transitional governance that would have result in legislative and presidential election within two years of its signing and marked the formal end of the Second Congo War.

The main cause for the continued weakness of the Transitional Government is the refusal by the former warring parties to give up power to a centralised and neutral national administration.

Some belligerents maintained administrative and military command-and-control structures separate from that of the Transitional Government, but as the International Crisis Group has reported, these have gradually been reduced.

[70] Mugabe, perhaps the most ardent supporter of intervention on Kabila's behalf, was the only major player involved in the conflict able to marshal a reasonably modern and experienced air force.

They were accompanied by some Soviet-manufactured T-54/55 tanks, Crocodile armoured personnel carriers, and EE-9 Cascavel scout cars flown into the capital on Angolan Air Force planes.

[76] Prior to this deployment, Zimbabwe had built up an apparently potent brigade-sized, combined arms, reaction force with efficient air support and professional competence; however the prolonged operations in the Congo are said to have damaged its credibility.

[78] Despite the effectiveness of its highly mobile, big-gunned Eland-90 and Cascavel armoured cars, Zimbabwean ground forces also lost a significant number, either captured or destroyed by the rebel coalition.

The European Union expressed concern that Nujoma was misusing his country's development funds for the Congo expedition, and individual member states—including Finland—cut off financial aid.

[83] The Angolan government wanted to eliminate UNITA operations in southern Congo, which exchanged diamonds extracted from rebel-held Angola for foreign weapons.

Kabila had originally discounted the possibility of support from Françafrique (Francophone Africa) but after a summit meeting in Libreville, Gabon, on 24 September, Chad agreed to send 2,000 troops.

While the Uganda- and Rwanda-aligned forces worked closely together to gain territory at the expense of Kinshasa, competition over access to resources created a fissure in their relationship.

A 2006 study by the Congolese government, three years after the end of the war, revealed that 76% of the population could not send their children to school, 79% were malnourished, 81% did not have adequate housing, and 82% had no access to medical care.

As hardware losses multiplied, Western donors—including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—placed their aid programmes to Harare under review,[78] denying Mugabe the foreign currency he needed to buy spare parts valued at $600 million for fighting vehicles then employed in the Congo.

[91] Between January and June 2000, the Financial Times reported (via a leaked memo from Minister of Finance Herbert Murerwa) that Zimbabwe spent $166 million on its military ventures there.

[97] On top of that, the mass number of people entering the forests in conjunction with the mines' unsanitary conditions introduced an increased risk of disease for animals such as gorillas.

[100] The roads emerging to support the new logging efforts opened nearby villages to receive easier means of transportation and access to deeper parts of Congo's wildlife reserves.

[102] The result was an observed quintuple increase of protected animal sales in urban markets in north-eastern parts of Congo around Garamba National Park.