The former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, was sentenced to death on Tuesday. According to a military court, he would have been guilty of betrayal and war crimes by working together with rebels. He must also pay for dozens of billions of dollars in fines and compensation.
Kabila has been convicted in absentia, and without present lawyer, because it has not been clear for months where he is. He lived outside Congo for a long time but was seen in May in Goma, a city in Eastern Congo that is in the hands of the M23 rebel movement supported by Rwanda. The death penalty is still imposed in Congo, but has not been implemented for years.
The Congolese authorities accuse Kabila that they have collaborated with M23 and Rwanda. In the first months of this year, the struggle between M23 and the Congolese state army intended. M23 managed to take on the millions of cities of Goma and Bukavu. According to current President Félix Tshisekedi, Kabila supported the advance of the rebels.
Kabila’s party says that the lawsuit was politically motivated. “We believe that the clear intention of the dictatorship in power is eliminating and neutralizing an important political actor,” said the permanent secretary of the Parti du Peuple Pour La Reconstruction et la Démocracy, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, to AP news agency.
Kabila has previously denied the allegations. In February he wrote an opinion article in the South African newspaper Sunday Times In which he led himself very critically about his successor Tshisekedi. According to some observers, Kabila’s conviction must prevent him from uniting the opposition in Congo, according to AFP news agency.
6 million dead
Kabila became president in 2001 after the death of his father Laurent-Désiré Kabila. He remained President until 2019. He postponed new elections, so he resigned two years after his term actually ended. In May of this year, the Congolese Senate agreed that Kabila’s immunity was withdrawn.
More than a hundred armed groups in Congo have been fighting for years for power and for raw materials and minerals, which the country is very rich in. Both rebels and government soldiers use violence against the population. In 25 years of conflict, more than 6 million people came attribute. Nearly 8 million people have been so far displaced.
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