Joseph Kabila, former leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has urged South Africa to end its military support for his rival President Félix Tshisekedi.
In an opinion piece in the Sunday Times , Kabila blames the crisis in the eastern region of the DRC — site of an insurgency by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group — on the “tyrannical dictatorship” of his successor.
In August last year, Tshisekedi accused Kabila of backing the Alliance Fleuve Congo, an antigovernment group whose main component is M23. In January, an M23 offensive killed 14 South African soldiers fighting in “peacekeeping” missions under the UN and Sadc.
The crisis tearing apart the DRC is deep and multidimensional. It is first and foremost due to the despotism of President Tshisekedi
— Joseph Kabila, former DRC president
“South Africa’s pan-Africanist and progressive ideology stands the test of time, the incorruptible and just judge,” says Kabila, who until now has kept a low profile about the conflict in the eastern DRC.
“Like power and money, time does not change people, but it reveals their sheer identity and exposes their true face. The whole world is watching to see whether South Africa, known for its humanism and values, will continue to rush in troops in DRC to support a tyrannical regime, and fight the aspirations of the Congolese people.”
Kabila said there will not be lasting peace in the DRC unless Tshisekedi changes his ways.
“The crisis tearing apart the DRC is deep and multidimensional. It is first and foremost due to the despotism of President Tshisekedi, and the institutionalisation of a tyrannical dictatorship in the country by him, thus undermining national cohesion, institutional stability, security within the country, as well as peace and stability in the region,” says Kabila.
“Any approach that would tend to provide a solution to a single aspect of this crisis, or ignore its root causes, at the top of which lies the governance of the country by its current leadership, does not have therefore much chance of leading to lasting peace.”
In a separate e-mail, Kabila accused Tshisekedi of violating the Sun City agreement facilitated by president Thabo Mbeki in 2003, which resulted in an end to the civil war then raging in the DRC and paved the way for elections.
Kabila said Tshisekedi, who succeeded him as president in 2019, was guilty of “deliberate and continuous violations” of the DRC constitution and its general laws.
“Then there was the sham election of December 2023, organised in violation of the legal framework and relevant international standards,” said Kabila.
He said the polls were marred by “an unprecedented scale of fraud” and “amplified the illegitimacy of the ruler, artificially reduced the weight of the political opposition in the parliament, and made the head of state the absolute master of the country, without checks and balances as is de rigueur in a democracy”.
“Finally, President Tshisekedi publicly announced his firm intention to change the constitution. Let that happen, [it] would indeed totally liquidate the national consensus of Sun City, which is the basis for the rebirth of the Congo within its 1960 territorial boundaries, following many years of political and security turbulence, and the quasi-implosion and balkanisation of the country due to the 1998—2003 war.”
He accused Tshisekedi’s government of muzzling political opposition, intimidation, arbitrary arrests, “extrajudicial executions”, and forcing opposition politicians and journalists into exile.
Kabila said there were “daily violations of fundamental human rights” in the DRC. The judiciary had lost its independence and “become an obedient servant of the president, his biological family and other cronies of the ruling regime”.
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