A former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo has returned to the Central African country after years in self-imposed exile, according to one of his advisers, days after the country’s Senate accused him of treason.
The Senate said the former president, Joseph Kabila, had supported a militia that has captured swaths of Congolese territory this year — an allegation that could lead to his prosecution.
Yet he remains beyond the government’s reach, even after returning to his country. The senate voted to prosecute Mr. Kabila, who led Congo for 18 years, in Kinshasa, the capital. For his re-entry into Congo, Mr. Kabila chose Goma, a city 1,000 miles to the east, where the government is powerless.
Goma was captured in January by M23, a militia backed by Rwanda, Congo’s neighbor. M23 is the militia Mr. Kabila is accused of supporting.
Mr. Kabila’s return to Congo, which leaders of M23 also confirmed, comes as the United States is trying to broker a peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo, and simultaneous minerals deals with both countries. The presence in the country of Mr. Kabila, who still wields considerable influence, could complicate these efforts.
In a video address posted on his social media last week, Mr. Kabila accused his successor, President Felix Tshisekedi, of being a dictator.
In Congo’s 2018 presidential election, Mr. Kabila’s chosen candidate to replace him decisively lost, and it appeared as if a prominent critic of the president and opposition politician, Martin Fayulu, had won. But amid allegations of widespread fraud, another opposition candidate was declared the winner — Mr. Tshisekedi, who proceeded to enter into a power-sharing agreement with Mr. Kabila’s party.
That alliance came to an abrupt halt a year later when Mr. Tshisekedi said sharing power was blocking his agenda for reform.
Since then, Mr. Kabila has mostly maintained silence — until this year, when he began signaling his desire to re-enter Congolese politics. His motivation for returning to Congo at this moment is not known, and a spokesman traveling with him did not respond to a request for comment.
On his arrival in Goma, Mr. Kabila was given an effusive welcome by M23’s political leader, Corneille Nangaa. Mr. Nangaa, a politician turned rebel who lately dresses in military fatigues and regularly excoriates Mr. Tshisekedi, is the same man who, in a previous political life, was president of Congo’s Independent National Electoral Commission when it first declared Mr. Tshisekedi president.
Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa.
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