I've never heard of it before today, where I heard it referenced by that name and said to be especially bloody. I did look it up and I could see there were several countries involved, and that it was a comparatively long war, but I'm not really clear on what caused it or why it has such a huge legacy. What is it that makes this war so important even with all the conflict in Africa since colonization?
even with all the conflict in Africa since colonization?
So, I'm going to start off with a dodge, and only address conflict on the continent since 1960.
Though there have been many conflicts on the continent in the past 57 years, inter-state wars like the Second Congo War have been quite rare. Most of the time, conflicts have taken the form of either anti-colonial struggle (e.g. guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Namibia); secessionist movements (Eritrea, Biafra, Cabinda, Katanga) or Civil Wars (Angola, Mozambique, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia etc.)
Other than the Second Congo War, I can only really think of the Ogaden war between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977-78, and the Uganda-Tanzania war where Tanzanian forces and Milton Obote's rebels overthrew Idi Amin in 1979; as other examples of inter-state wars where state's militaries were in direct conflict.
Those two wars were both relatively quick wars lasting several months. By contrast, the Second Congo War was a large, several year long war that had the direct military involvement of DRC, Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers, as well as materiel support, funding and fighters from states like Tanzania, Angola, Zimbabwe, Burundi, and Chad.
So, in terms of the number of states involved either in direct military conflict, or as supporting allies, the Second Congo War was much greater in scale than other conflicts, and was of longer duration than other inter-state wars. In terms of total casualties, the Second Congo War killed more than any other conflict in post-colonial African history.