Joseph Kabila, former president of the (RDC), has returned to his country, which was exiled in 2023, in a gesture of challenge to the authorities and with the aim of “ending the tyranny” of his successor and great political rival, the Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi. According to him and sources from his own party, Kabila has been on Sunday night in rubber, a city controlled by this armed group. His return to Congo occurs just four days after the Senate lifted his immunity so that a military court can judge him by betrayal and participation in an insurrection. The Congolese government accuses him of supporting the M23, which at the beginning of the year occupied large areas of the east of the country with the support of neighboring Rwanda.
“Joseph Kabila has arrived in the city of Goma. We wish him a pleasant stay in the released areas,” Lawrence Kanyuka, spokesman for the M23, wrote on the social network X in the early hours of Monday. Shortly after, Corneille Nangaa, coordinator of the Congo River Alliance to which the M23 belongs, did the same to “rejoice” from Kabila’s arrival. “The return to his country of this great political actor is welcomed favorably. He has made a good choice, better than staying in a forced exile,” Nangaa wrote. Subsequently, the people’s party for reconstruction and democracy (PPRD), Kabila’s political organ, confirmed the news. “He has come to talk to those who carry weapons,” said Emmanuel Ramazani, his spokesman.
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————The former president of the DRC, Mr. Joseph Kabila, arrived in the city of Goma. We wish him a pleasant stay in the released areas.
— Lawrence KANYUKA (@LawrenceKanyuka)
Despite all this, Kabila’s presence in rubber has not been confirmed in images or participated on Monday in any public activity. Nor has it been informed of the road chosen by the former president to get to rubber. , president of Uganda, has so far refused to allow him to use his territory to reach Congo. Kabila himself said he would use “alternative ways” to meet his goal.
The Congolese government has not officially reacted, but high positions were very critical of Kabila’s announcement to enter the rubber. Patrick Maraya, spokesman for the Executive, said in a televised interview that it is “a man of the past who, in the current context, has nothing to offer for the future. In his first public appearance in South Africa he already announced his support for a movement that he himself fought as president”, the aforementioned M23 to which the Congolese government considers a terrorist group.
He won the elections in Congo in 2019, but in reality he could govern thanks to an agreement reached with the hitherto president Kabila, who continued to control the legislative power. This alliance jumped through the air in 2020, but Tshisekedi remained in front of the country after winning the favor of dozens of deputies who were favorable to their rival. However, Kabila maintained a great weight in Congo thanks to her clientele networks and her influence inside and outside the administration, cultivated during the 18 years that she was president, between 2001 and 2019. For TSHISEKEDI, her predecessor was always a ballast from which she has been impossible to get rid of.
After several cases of corruption were uncovered and in view of a possible judicial process against him, Kabila decided to exile from the country in the late 2023. However, after the reactivation of the M23 rebellion last January, TSHISEKEDI has been convinced that his predecessor in office was one of the support of this rebel group. On April 30, the High Military Court of the RDC claimed to have numerous evidence of this support, which led the Senate to raise the immunity of Kabila, who is a life senator, so that he can be tried for high treason and participation in an insurrection.
Given the severity of the accusations, Kabila broke his usual silence and, in, issued through YouTube, he accused Tshisekedi of having a “drunkenness of power without limits.” The former president said: “The blood of our compatriots (…) has run in abundance due to intolerance, cynicism, worse, the State terrorism practiced with a single objective: the abuse of power by power.” Kabila criticized that Tshisekedi has resorted to “mercenary bands, armed groups, tribal militias and foreign armies” to deal with the M23 rebellion, denied being an accomplice of this armed group and presented a 12 -point plan to “end tyranny, end war and restore the authority of the State” throughout the territory. “Everyone must play their role. I promise to comply with mine,” he said.
