Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (French: Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR) (Kinyarwanda: Ingabo za demokarasi zo kubohoza u Rwanda, IDKR) is an armed rebel group active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.[2] As an ethnic Hutu group opposed to the ethnic Tutsi influence, the FDLR is one of the last factions of Rwandan rebels active in the Congo. It was founded through an amalgamation of other groups of Rwandan refugees in September 2000, including the former Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR), under the leadership of Paul Rwarakabije.[3] It was active during the latter phases of the Second Congo War and the subsequent insurgencies in Kivu.
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda
30 September 2000 – present
Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
6,000–7,000 (October 2007)
5,000 (October 2015)[1]
As of December 2009, Major General Sylvestre Mudacumura was the FDLR's overall military commander. He was the former deputy commander of the FAR Presidential Guard in Rwanda in 1994.[4] Mudacumura was killed by DRC security in 2019. The FDLR made a partial separation between its military and civilian wings in September 2003 when a formal armed branch, the Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi (FOCA), was created.[4]
According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, the FDLR is believed to be responsible for about a dozen terrorist attacks committed in 2009.[5] These acts of terrorism have killed hundreds of civilians in Eastern Congo.
Before ALiR merged with the FDLR in September 2000, the military configuration was as follows:
Gerard Prunier presents a different picture to the ICG's assessment. As of approximately August 2001, he describes two separate ALiR groups, the 'old' ALiR I in North Kivu, made up of ex-FAR and Interahamwe, about 4,000 strong, and the 'new' ALiR II operating in South Kivu out of DR Congo government supported bases in Kasai and northern Katanga. Prunier says of ALiR II that '..it had over 10,000 men, and although many of the officers were old genocidaires most of the combatants were recruited after 1997. They were the ones that fought around Pepa, Moba, and Pweto in late 2000.'[6] 'The even newer FDLR had around 3,000 men, based in Kamina in Katanga. Still untried in combat, they had been trained by the Zimbabweans and were a small, fully equipped conventional army.'[7]
It is not clear which if either of these two accounts is correct.
The ALiR is currently listed on the U.S. Department of State's Terrorist Exclusion List as a terrorist organization.[8]