 When Kabila took power in 1997 , the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo and so the name of the national army changed once again , to the Forces armées congolaises ( FAC ) . Tanzania sent six hundred military advisors to train Kabila 's new army in May 1997 . Command over the armed forces in the first few months of Kabila 's rule was vague . Gérard Prunier writes that ' there was no minister of defence , no known chief of staff , and no ranks ; all officers were Cuban @-@ style ' commanders ' called ' Ignace ' , ' Bosco ' , Jonathan ' , or ' James ' , who occupied connecting suites at the Intercontinental Hotel and had presidential list cell @-@ phone numbers . None spoke French or <unk> , but all spoke Kinyarwanda , Swahili , and , quite often , English . ' On being asked by Belgian journalist Colette <unk> what was the actual army command structure apart from himself , Kabila answered ' We are not going to expose ourselves and risk being destroyed by showing ourselves openly ... . We are careful so that the true masters of the army are not known . It is strategic . Please , let us drop the matter . ' Kabila 's new Forces armées congolaises were riven with internal tensions . The new FAC had Banyamulenge fighters from South Kivu , kadogo child soldiers from various eastern tribes , such as Thierry <unk> , Safari <unk> , etc ... [ the mostly ] Lunda Katangese Tigers of the former FNLC , and former FAZ personnel . Mixing these disparate and formerly warring elements together led to <unk> . On 23 February 1998 , a mostly Banyamulenge unit <unk> at Bukavu after its officers tried to disperse the soldiers into different units spread all around the Congo . By mid @-@ 1998 , formations on the outbreak of the Second Congo War included the Tanzanian @-@ supported 50th Brigade , headquartered at Camp <unk> in Kinshasa , and the 10th Brigade — one of the best and largest units in the army — stationed in Goma , as well as the 12th Brigade in Bukavu . The declaration of the 10th Brigade 's commander , former DSP officer Jean @-@ Pierre <unk> , on 2 August 1998 that he no longer recognised Kabila as the state 's president was one of the factors in the beginning of the Second Congo War . 
