Ofure Akhigbe
Former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila, was seen in public on Wednesday for the first time since being sentenced to death in absentia on charges of treason and war crimes.
Kabila appeared at a ceremony in Nairobi, Kenya, alongside Congolese opposition figures. The DRC government has accused him of collaborating with Rwanda and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, which captured several key cities in the country’s mineral-rich east in January.
Kabila’s political party has dismissed the verdict, issued late last month, as politically motivated. The former leader has denied the allegations but had earlier expressed support for the rebels’ campaign in an op-ed published in South Africa’s Sunday Times in February.
In Nairobi, Kabila and a dozen other Congolese political leaders signed a declaration to form a new opposition movement aimed at uniting “all Congolese people opposed to the dictatorship” to “end tyranny, restore state authority, reestablish democracy, and promote national reconciliation.”