On Monday, Joseph Kabila — who previously held the presidency of the Democratic Republic of Congo — announced the formation of a political and military alliance drawing together armed factions and other groups united in their opposition to the country's current administration, among them the M23 movement, which holds control over substantial portions of territory in the country's east.
Kabila's newly formed political vehicle, the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation — known by the initials FRN — has drawn in armed factions that previously operated as part of the Congo River Alliance, with Corneille Nangaa, the former head of that alliance, assigned to one of four vice-presidential positions within the broader grouping.
Speaking at a news conference held Monday evening at the Goma residence of Kabila, FRN advisor Claude Ibalanky outlined the group's stated aim of rebuilding the foundational structures of a functioning republic. The document signed by the group's members, Ibalanky explained, establishes a coordinating structure through which all Congolese people are expected to act together toward what the signatories describe as the liberation of their country, with the agreement explicitly permitting armed action alongside other methods in pursuit of ending what they characterise as tyranny.
No statement from Tshisekedi's administration had been issued in the hours following the announcement.
Close to a hundred armed groups have been fighting over territory in Congo's mineral-rich east, near the border with Rwanda, for years — M23 among them — a conflict that has uprooted and injured people on a scale that puts it alongside the most acute humanitarian crises recorded globally. Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, along with several other urban centres in the east of the country, fell under its authority during a rapid offensive the previous year.
Three parties — Congo, the United States, and a panel of U.N. experts — have each separately alleged that Rwanda provides support to the M23 armed group.
A verdict handed down by a high-ranking military tribunal in Congo found Kabila responsible for treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, resulting in a death sentence issued in his absence during the preceding year. A ruling from the court held that he had worked in coordination with Rwanda and M23. Rejecting the charges against him, the former president maintained his innocence and characterised the legal process as driven by political motives rather than genuine legal merit.
Sanctions were placed on Kabila by U.S. authorities earlier this year, tied to accusations that he channelled financial resources and political backing toward armed factions active in the country's eastern regions. His tenure at the helm of the Democratic Republic of Congo stretched across nearly two decades, running from 2001 until 2019. He took office at 29 after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated, and when his constitutionally permitted term ended in 2017, elections were delayed by two years, allowing him to remain in the presidency beyond that deadline.
The candidate he backed fell to Tshisekedi — Kabila's long-standing political opponent — in the December 2018 vote, with Tshisekedi going on to hold the presidency from 2019 onward.
Yvon Muya, a researcher at the University of Ottawa, characterised the announcement on Monday as placing Kabila and Tshisekedi on a collision course, adding that such a declaration would not have been made without concrete follow-through already in place and that armed activity between the parties was likely to intensify — a backdrop against which the Congolese government and AFC/M23 rebels, responding to pressure from the United States, entered into direct talks in Doha aimed at addressing the security situation.
Over a year on, armed clashes persist across eastern Congo's contested territories, while analysts caution that Kabila's placement in a leadership role stands to complicate any path toward a negotiated settlement — a situation further shaped by the absorption of AFC/M23 commanders into a newly formed armed structure. Muya told a news channel that the mechanics of the Doha process remained unclear even from a practical standpoint, and that the various elements at play posed a threat to its continuation.
