Is Joseph Kabila's death sentence a threat to stability in DRC?

The death sentence handed down to former President Joseph Kabila has raised serious concerns about the Democratic Republic of Congo's overall stability.

On Tuesday, a military court in the DRC convicted Kabila in absentia of treason and war crimes - including charges of murder, sexual assault, torture and insurrection.

Kabila is accused of backing M23, which has seized control of large parts of the eastern North and South Kivu provinces, where the rebel group has established its own administrations.

In addition to being sentenced to death, Kabila has been ordered to pay approximately $33 billion (Sh4.27 trillion) in damages to the national government and to the provinces of North and South Kivu.

President Felix Tshisekedi has gone as far as publicly accusing Kabila of being the mastermind behind the armed M23 group, which Kabila denies.

Fears of peace process collapse

Many of Kabila's supporters believe that the ruling is politically motivated and say the sentence could derail peace efforts.

"We are very concerned about the sentencing of [Joseph Kabila] by the military court," Roger Mwinihire, a DRC politician aligned with Kabila, told DW. "This could end the process of peacefully resolving the country's political and security crisis."

Mwinihire said the ruling undermined diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict in the eastern DRC, which has, in its current form, been raging on since 2022.

"We regret that our government is not weighing the consequences of the important decisions that are currently being taken in Kinshasa," he said.

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Ramazani Shadary, secretary general of Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, told DW that the ruling is an "adventurous decision by the judiciary."

"This is a sham trial announced by the institutions of a dictatorial regime," he said, adding that he believes the verdict is part of a broader clampdown on political opposition.

"For us, this is the obvious will of the existing dictatorship to eliminate and neutralise an important political actor," he said, "an actor that is more indispensable than ever in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

Calls for accountability

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• Joseph Kabila Treason
• Is Joseph Kabila's death sentence a threat to stability in DRC?
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Some activists support the ruling. Souzy Kisuki told DW that Kabila is "playing a key role in the M23 rebellion - and therefore deserves this conviction."

"Our common wish as Congolese would be to see Kabila condemned because we are tired of it. Since 2014, he has been named as the mastermind of the massacres of civilians in Beni," Kisuki said, referring to a region within North Kivu province in which more than 2,000 people have been violently killed by various rebel forces over the past decade.

Kisuki said she doubted that the sentence would ever be enforced: "For me, this is a non-event, because even the current president of the Republic has declared that there is no justice in the DRC," she said.

Political analyst Bob Kabamba echoed Kisuki's scepticism, highlighting the fact that there is a long history of unenforced death sentences in the DRC and adding that Kabila's whereabouts remain unknown.

"It can therefore be assumed that this death sentence, like the others, cannot be carried out," Kabamba said.

A long-standing rivalry

Kabila had briefly appeared in rebel-held eastern Congo in May, where he attempted to mediate in the ongoing peace process, an effort that reportedly angered officials in Kinshasa.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told DW that the military trial of Kabila marks the climax of a long-standing rivalry between Kabila and Tshisekedi, who succeeded him in the role:

"This is a culmination of a friction that started since the time President Tshisekedi became the head of Congo," Dizolele said, warning of the broader implications of the judgment.

"The DRC is a country that has been in transition for a long time now," Dizolele said. "The ruling has tremendous consequences. It is obvious that it is going to bring a lot of frustration among supporters of Joseph Kabila."

Despite Kabila's long tenure as president and the fact that he still enjoys some popularity among certain parts of the population, Dizolele does not believe that the conviction will trigger major unrest, as most Congolese view Kabila as a disappointment:

"He was in power for 18 years, and he did not deliver for the country," Dizolele said. "So people are not going to rally in his defence."

In any event, the sentence against Kabila now makes his return to the country extremely unlikely.