DR Congo: A military prosecutor will question Kabila’s friends

DR Congo’s former president Joseph Kabila’s party officials have been invited to appear before a military prosecutor on Monday, March 10, according to Reuters.

Jean Mbuyu, a lawyer for the officials and a former Kabila security advisor, said it was unclear why the invites were sent out.

However, Kabila was recently accused by President Felix Tshisekedi, who previously had an uneasy power-sharing agreement with him, of supporting the M23 rebels who have taken control of the two largest cities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since January.

Amid criticism of Tshisekedi’s response to M23’s military operations, Kabila has also made contact with civil society representatives and opposition lawmakers to discuss the nation’s political destiny.

Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy members received roughly ten invitation letters from the military prosecutor’s office, but just three were anticipated to show up for interrogation in the capital city of Kinshasa on Monday, according to Mbuyu.

According to Mbuyu, they included Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister and presidential candidate, and Aubin Minaku, the party’s vice president and former president of the National Assembly.

“We’re going to listen because the invitation contains no reason,” he stated to Reuters.

In response to the invites, Minaku stated that the authorities would act “to avoid any suspicion” and denied any affiliation with M23 or other armed organizations.

He told Reuters, “We are taking a purely Republican approach, not one of rebellion,” using the term “Republican” to denote patriotism.
“We clearly denounced any illicit presence of foreign forces,” he stated.

Tshisekedi was recently accused by Kabila, who stepped down in early 2019, of mishandling the situation in eastern DR Congo and putting the nation “close to imploding.”

The eighteen-year leader, Kabila, has also demanded that all foreign forces leave DR Congo “to give the Congolese the flexibility to talk about… peace,” as was done in the early 2000s.

Tshisekedi has rejected any peace negotiations with the M23 rebels, who are affiliated with the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), despite losing the cities of Goma and Bukavu in less than two months. He has also charged Kabila with being the AFC’s mastermind.

In an interview with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), Kabila claimed that the presence of thousands of foreign troops in DR Congo was putting the country in “an undesirable situation.”

In addition to a variety of militias battling alongside the Congolese army against the AFC/M23 rebels, they include SADC forces, Burundians, and European mercenaries.