Kabila Invokes the Constitution, Kagame Sends His Troops to Ravage the DRC

Who has the right to talk about the Constitution in Doha? A man who clung to power for two years after his mandate ended, then was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court in his own country for treason, in September 2025. That same man now writes to Qatari mediators demanding "clarification" of Félix Tshisekedi's intentions. Meanwhile, Rwandan soldiers are fighting on Congolese soil, and their presence is being negotiated as if it were a neighborly disagreement.

On 1 November, the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation, chaired by Joseph Kabila and run day to day by its vice-president Bertrand Bisimwa, sent a letter to the Qatari mediation. The text asks the mediators to obtain from Kinshasa an official position on the constitutional revision attributed to Tshisekedi, which would allow him to run for a third term. The FRN links this issue to the future of talks between Kinshasa and the AFC/M23. It relies on the declaration of principles of July 2025 and the framework agreement of the following November, two texts that call for respect for the Constitution, the restoration of state authority, and governance reforms.

We must look at this letter squarely. The FRN does not speak for Congolese democracy. It speaks for an alliance that has joined the ranks of the AFC/M23, whose fighters have occupied Goma and Bukavu since 2025 and whose main military backer is the Rwandan army. The substance of this movement has nothing to do with loyalty to the texts. It is about who will control the next transition and who will sit at the table when the spoils are divided.

Let us start with the facts. The Group of Experts on the DRC of the United Nations has documented, in its successive reports (notably S/2025/446), the presence of officers and battalions of the Rwanda Defence Force operating alongside the AFC/M23. The pattern is well known: a foreign army supplies the elite units, heavy weapons, drones, and command, while a local movement serves as a front and a reservoir of cannon fodder. This is exactly the Russian method in Donbas in 2014. If we call Moscow an aggressor, we must call Kigali the same. Estimates put between 14,000 and 18,000 Rwandan soldiers engaged, a considerable share of Kagame's army. These are not "rebels." They are the soldiers of a neighboring state invading a sovereign country.

And what does the movement led by Bisimwa do with its recruits? It takes them by force. Converging reports describe the forced conscription of tens of thousands of Congolese civilians, young men rounded up in their neighborhoods, and prisoners of war enlisted willingly or under duress. The AFC/M23's ranks are said to have grown from about 3,000 fighters to more than 30,000 in a few years, largely through coercion. Mothers weep for sons torn from them. Entire villages are emptying. More than seven million Congolese are displaced, according to UN figures, while satellite images show, at Kanombe near Kigali, more than 1,170 new military graves since 2021. A state that hides its dead knows exactly what it is doing.

This is the man who asks Kinshasa to respect the Constitution. We cannot let him pass as a defender of constitutional order.

That does not mean we should excuse Félix Tshisekedi. Our Constitution sets two presidential terms. Its Article 220 is clear: the limitation on the number of mandates cannot be the subject of any revision. Every time a Congolese president touches this lock, he drives another nail into the coffin of the rule of law. The debate over a third term, even when presented as a "reform," is poison. A president who wants to stay must first prove he can govern. Tshisekedi cannot prove it while armed groups hold North Kivu and South Kivu and the state can no longer pay its civil servants in those provinces.

Here is the trap. Kagame wants a weak, divided DRC, forever tearing itself apart over its institutions. Kabila wants to return through the back door of an alliance with the invader. Tshisekedi is tempted to change the rules to survive politically. And the Doha mediators, who should be demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops, agree to treat as a procedural matter what is in reality an occupation.

Rwanda itself offers a lesson worth reflecting on. In 2015, Kigali held a referendum that removed term limits and allowed Paul Kagame to run until 2034. The same man who amended his Constitution to stay in power now accuses others of betraying the rule of law. It must be said plainly: Rwanda's constitutional order is not a model. It is a smokescreen.

Africa is not condemned to this cycle. Senegal showed in 2024 that an organized people can stop an attempt at a third term. Macky Sall had to back down in the face of citizen mobilization, Constitutional Council rulings, and pressure from civil society. Botswana has undergone peaceful transitions for decades, with presidents who left when the law required it. Ghana and Mauritius have alternated power without tanks leaving the barracks. These countries have no miraculous resources. They have institutions that hold, an independent judiciary, and citizens who watch their leaders.

So what must Doha do? The Qatari mediation must stop being the stage where the political survival of Kabila, Tshisekedi, and Bisimwa is negotiated while Kigali keeps its troops in place. It must demand the verifiable withdrawal of Rwandan forces, an end to forced recruitment, the opening of humanitarian corridors, and the release of prisoners. The United Nations Security Council must impose targeted sanctions on Rwandan officers and AFC/M23 leaders implicated in abuses. The African Union must stop settling for communiqués and deploy an observer mission with a mandate to protect civilians. Economic partners, whether Western, Chinese, Emirati, or Turkish, must make their mining contracts and arms deliveries conditional on respect for Congolese territorial integrity.

And we Africans, what must we demand? We must demand that the Congolese Constitution be respected without exception, for everyone, including those in power today and those who might return tomorrow. We must demand that Parliament, the Constitutional Court, and civil society reject any revision targeting Article 220. We must demand that the restoration of state authority come through credible elections in every province, not only in those the Rwandan army does not occupy. And we must refuse to let men convicted of treason or accused of collusion with the invader lecture us on democracy.

How many more Congolese must die before our leaders understand that sovereignty is not negotiated in a Doha salon? How many graves must we count at Kanombe, in Goma, in Masisi, before the world stops speaking of "clarification" and starts speaking of aggression? The Constitution of the DRC must not become a bargaining chip between a president who wants to stay, a former president who wants to return, and a neighbor who wants to keep everything. It is the contract that protects millions of Congolese. We defend it, or we will once again watch the rule of law defeated in favor of force.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL