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Eric Lenge (born 1971) was a major in the Congolese military, specifically in the Special Presidential Security Group. He led a failed coup against the government of Joseph Kabila in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He had reached the rank of Major in the Special Presidential Security Group, the branch of the Congolese military in charge of Presidential security.
The coup began with a power blackout before taking over Congolese state radio and announcing that he intended to neutralise the transitional support.
The security forces fought forces loyal to Kabila at the Presidential palace with the loyalists soon gaining the upper hand. Lenge fled the capital with 21 others towards the province of Bas-Congo. As of the middle of 2004, he had not been captured.
Senior members of President Kabila's Government were later dismissed as a result of suspicion in the coup including Presidential adviser Kifua Adamasi, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff Admiral Liwanga Mata. Former National Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo, a loyalist of former President Laurent Kabila met with Lenge five hours before the start of the coup with Katangese partisans suspected by diplomats of involvement. A failure to pay arrears to the troops was another factor. Some Opposition newspapers believe that the incident was a ploy to consolidate Joseph Kabila in power.
In the first half of 2006, a series of letters purported to be from Major Eric Lenge have been sent to Congolese media groups, all ridiculing President Joseph Kabila's regime, contesting his citizenship, his filiation to Laurent Kabila, and his being unwed.
The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago. The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.
Politics of the Democratic Republic of Congo take place in a framework of a republic in transition from a civil war to a semi-presidential republic.
The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the state organisation responsible for defending the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FARDC was rebuilt patchily as part of the peace process which followed the end of the Second Congo War in July 2003.
Laurent-Désiré Kabila usually known as Laurent Kabila, was a Congolese rebel and politician who served as the third President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1997 until his assassination in 2001.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 105 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous Francophone country in the world, and the fourth-largest in Africa. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean.
Joseph Kabila Kabange is a Congolese politician who served as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between January 2001 and January 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila in the context of the Second Congo War. He was allowed to remain in power after the 2003 Pretoria Accord ended the war as the president of the country's new transitional government. He was elected as president in 2006 and re-elected in 2011 for a second term. Since stepping down after the 2018 election, Kabila, as a former president, serves as a senator for life.
The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War or the Great War of Africa or the Great African War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year after the First Congo War, and involved some of the same issues.
The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.
The First Congo War (1996–1997), also nicknamed Africa's First World War, was a civil war and international military conflict which took place mostly in Zaire, with major spillovers into Sudan and Uganda. The conflict culminated in a foreign invasion that replaced Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko with the rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Kabila's unstable government subsequently came into conflict with his allies, setting the stage for the Second Congo War in 1998–2003.
James Kabarebe is a Rwandan retired military officer who has served as a Senior Presidential Adviser on security matters in the government of Rwanda, since 19 October 2018.
Antoine Gizenga was a Congolese (DRC) politician who was the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 30 December 2006 to 10 October 2008. He was the Secretary-General of the Unified Lumumbist Party.
Congolese history in the 2000s has primarily revolved around the Second Congo War (1998–2003) and the empowerment of a transitional government.
The National Congress for the Defence of the People is a political armed militia established by Laurent Nkunda in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in December 2006. The CNDP was engaged in the Kivu conflict, an armed conflict against the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In January 2009, the CNDP split and Nkunda was arrested by the Rwanda government. The remaining CNDP splinter faction, led by Bosco Ntaganda, was planned to be integrated into the national army.
Laurent Nkunda is a former General in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is the former warlord operating in the province of North-Kivu, sympathetic to Congolese Tutsis and the Tutsi-dominated government of neighbouring Rwanda. Nkunda, who is himself a Congolese Tutsi, commanded the former DRC troops of the 81st and 83rd Brigades of the DRC Army. He speaks English, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Lingala and Kinande. On January 22, 2009, he was put under house arrest in Gisenyi when he was called for a meeting to plan a joint operation between the Congolese and Rwandan militaries.
The Republican Guard of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as the Special Presidential Security Group, is maintained by President Félix Tshisekedi. Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) military officials state that the Garde Républicaine is not the responsibility of FARDC, but the Head of State. Apart from Article 140 of the Law on the Army and Defence, no legal stipulation on the DRC's Armed Forces makes provision for the GR as a distinct unit within the national army. In February 2005, President Joseph Kabila passed a decree which appointed the GR's commanding officer and 'repealed any previous provisions contrary' to that decree. The GR is more than 10,000 strong, and formerly consisted of three brigades, the 10th, at Kinshasa, the 15th, and the 16th, at Lubumbashi. It has better working conditions and is paid regularly, but still commits numerous crimes near their bases, including against United Nations officials.
The Congolese Rally for Democracy–Goma was a faction of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, a rebel movement based in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the Second Congo War (1998–2003). After the war, some members of the group continued sporadic fighting in North Kivu. The movement also entered mainstream politics, participating in democratic elections with little success.
The Land Forces, also called the Congolese Army, are the land warfare component and the largest branch of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC).
The following lists events that happened during 1998 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Operation Kitona was a Rwandan/Ugandan offensive that marked the beginning of the Second Congo War. Rwanda hoped to depose Laurent-Désiré Kabila and install a government more favorable to Rwanda's interests by quickly taking control of Kinshasa and the strategic western province of Bas-Congo. On August 4, 1998, joint Rwandan and Ugandan forces launched a surprise attack on Kitona airbase in Western Congo using hijacked civilian airliners. While initially successful in taking control of major ports and infrastructure, Zimbabwean and Angolan intervention prevented the Rwandans and Ugandans from taking control of Kinshasa. The invading forces were forced to withdraw to the jungles of Angola until they were evacuated by air to Rwanda in late 1998.
The 2004 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) coup attempt was a foiled coup d'état against the UN-backed Transitional Government, led by renegade members of the presidential guard, including Major Eric Lenge. At 2:40 AM local time on June 11, rebel forces briefly seized control of state broadcast stations and announced the suspension of the country's transitional institutions with Major Lenge assuming control himself. The nation's capital of Kinshasha also experienced a blackout, reportedly caused by the rebels. Lacking support from government officials or external powers, the coup failed miserably.