The government of DR Congo has decided to resume capital executions, in particular against soldiers guilty of treason and perpetrators of "urban banditry leading to the death of men".
This decision, notified in a circular signed Wednesday by the Minister of Justice, Rose Mutombo, and authenticated Friday March 15 by the AFP, lifts the moratorium on the execution of the death penalty dated 2003 (under the regime of President Joseph Kabila), specifies the text.
Since then, the death penalty was still imposed in the country but was systematically commuted to life imprisonment.
This decision comes shortly after new offensives by the M23 rebels ("March 23 Movement"), supported by units of the Rwandan army, in the Goma region.
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 DR Congo's judicial system.
“Public executions of soldiers” are already planned
For two years, the country has been facing an offensive by the M23 rebels who have seized large parts of the North Kivu province.
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 Fardc (Armed Forces of the DR Congo), but also deputies, senators and personalities from the economic world in eastern DR Congo, were 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 in eastern DR Congo, who requested anonymity, told AFP that there are already plans for "public executions of soldiers" accused of "collaborating with the enemy", particularly with the rebels of the Democratic Republic of Congo. M23 and Rwanda.
With AFP
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