The United States on Thursday slapped sanctions on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s long-serving former president Joseph Kabila, backing allegations he has assisted Rwandan-linked rebels who have seized vast parts of his country.
It is the latest action by the United States to punish Rwanda or its supporters for violations in a peace deal, which President Donald Trump had announced with fanfare as he met the two countries’ leaders in December.
“President Trump is paving the way for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and he has been clear that those who continue to sow instability will be held accountable,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement reported first by AFP.
“Treasury will continue to use its full range of tools to support the integrity of the Washington Accords.”
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said that Kabila has offered “financial and political support” to groups that are “the principal drivers of violence and instability in the region.”
Kabila succeeded his assassinated father as president of the vast and long-troubled nation in 2001, staying in power until 2019 after extending his term beyond the constitutional limit.
After going into self-imposed exile, he re-emerged last year in Goma, the key eastern city that had come under the control of Rwandan-based M23 fighters as they mounted a lightning offensive.
A military court last year sentenced Kabila to death in absentia for treason and other charges over his role with the rebel group, a move that effectively blocks him from returning to Kinshasa to seek any political comeback.
But Kabila still has major business interests inside the country, despite efforts by the government to seize them, meaning his allies could risk the wrath of US sanctions if they continue to work with him.
The Treasury Department said it was believed that Kabila was living in Goma.
It said that he returned “with the intent to destabilize” the country and that he provided financial support to the M23’s political arm.
It also charged that he had tried to encourage DRC armed forces to defect and encouraged attacks against them.
– Disappointment in Washington –
Trump had voiced hope for a peace deal that would give the United States privileged access to the rich minerals in the eastern DRC.
But M23 troops kept advancing even after the accord, leading the United States to condemn Rwanda and slap sanctions in March on the Rwandan military.
Rwanda has denied direct support to the M23 and has demanded that the Kinshasa government crack down on Hutu militants in the country linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda against Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Rwanda — in an earlier effort to crush Hutu extremists after the genocide — had helped bring to power Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila, who in 1997 toppled Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator who had ruled for decades over the country then known as Zaire.
Joseph Kabila has blamed his successor, President Felix Tshisekedi, for problems in the country and said it was wrong to blame the unrest only on the M23.
“Any attempt to find a solution to this crisis that ignores its root causes — at the top of which lies the governance of the DRC by its current leadership — will not bring lasting peace,” he wrote in South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper last year.
Kabila had enjoyed warm relations early in his tenure with the United States but the relationship deteriorated over his human rights record, attempts to stay in power and opening of mines to China.
The US sanctions block any assets Kabila has in the United States and would make financial transactions with him a crime in the United States.