Who was Laurent Kabila and what was his role in the conflict in Congo?
Mobutu allowed the Hutu rebels to remain, which threatened the now Tutsi-governed Rwanda and another neighboring country, Uganda. So Rwanda and Uganda recruited a rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, to lead a revolt to bring down Mobutu. The Rwandans and Ugandans thought that if Kabila won power, he would protect their countries by forcing out the radical Hutu groups. Kabila successfully ousted Mobutu and was hailed as a conquering hero when he marched into the capital, Kinshasa, in May 1997. The people of newly renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo hoped he would reverse Mobutu’s years of terror and corruption. Kabila’s backers in Rwanda and Uganda also felt they could count on the new leader to no longer harbor Hutu rebels. Within a year, however, Kabila changed his mind and refused to force the Hutus back into Rwanda. The Rwandans and Ugandans, realizing that the Hutu threat would now remain along their western border, abruptly switched sides and began to support rebels seeking to over
