First Congo WarDR Congo · 1996-1997“Now follow the road from Rwanda into Zaire, where a dying dictatorship fell faster than the world expected.”After the Rwandan genocide, refugee camps in eastern Zaire became shelters for civilians and bases for armed men who had helped carry out the killing. Rwanda saw a threat across the border, and Zaire under Mobutu was too hollow to control it.The lesson the elders kept: A neighbour's security crisis can become another country's revolution. Congo teaches that removing a dictator is not the same as building a state strong enough to survive its liberators.