The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has decided to resume capital executions, in particular against soldiers guilty of treason and perpetrators of “urban banditry leading to death”. This decision, notified in a circular signed Wednesday March 13 by the Minister of Justice, Rose Mutombo, and authenticated Friday by the AFP, lifts the moratorium on the execution of the death penalty dated 2003, specifies the text. It comes shortly after new offensives by the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels, supported by units of the Rwandan army, in the Goma region (east).
Regularly imposed, particularly in cases involving soldiers or members of armed groups, the death penalty has no longer been applied since the signing of the moratorium decided under the regime of President Joseph Kabila (2001-2019). Since then, death sentences have been systematically commuted to life imprisonment.
The Congolese pro-democracy citizen movement Lucha (Fight for Change) condemned this decision on Friday, saying that it “opens a corridor to summary executions in this country where the defective functioning of justice is recognized by all, including the supreme magistrate himself,” referring to President Félix Tshisekedi’s recent criticism of the Congolese judicial system.
For two years, the DRC has been facing an offensive by the M23 rebels, who have seized large parts of the province of North Kivu (east). The rout of the Congolese army and its auxiliary militias in the face of the advance of the M23 has fueled suspicions among the authorities of infiltration of the security forces. Many soldiers, including senior officers of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC), but also deputies, senators and economic figures in eastern DRC have been arrested and accused of “complicity with the enemy “.
According to the circular note, the “acts of treachery or espionage have exacted a heavy price from both the population and the Republic given the immensity of the damage suffered.” The reinstatement of executions aims to “rid our country’s army of traitors […] and to stem the resurgence of acts of terrorism and urban banditry leading to human deaths,” writes the Minister of Justice. Security sources from eastern DRC, who requested anonymity, told AFP that “public executions of soldiers” accused of “collaborating with the enemy”, particularly with the M23 rebels, are already planned. and Rwanda.
