On that 12 February 2025, Samuel Mbemba is ready. The Congolese deputy minister of justice, in charge of international litigation, has travelled to Arusha, Tanzania, for the occasion.
In front of an audience of journalists at the headquarters of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR), the judicial body of the African Union (AU), he announced: “Today, the African Court on Human Rights is opening the trial against Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, which is slaughtering people in Congo, plundering our wealth and even raping babies.” “These acts have already caused more than 13 million deaths and 6.3 million internally displaced persons, meaning people driven from their villages to exploit Congo’s ressources,” he continued, basing his argument on “several reports, including those of the United Nations, which confirm that Rwanda is aggressing Congo”.
The Congolese official was referring to the investigations carried out by the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose latest report was published in December 2024. According to this document, the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) continued to provide “systematic support to M23” and to “de facto control M23 operations”, and “General” Sultani Makenga, at the head of the M23 armed rebellion in the eastern Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu, “continued to receive instructions and support from the RDF and the Rwandan intelligence”. “Every M23 unit was supervised and supported by RDF special forces,” says the report, which also highlights M23’s military superiority thanks to “advanced military equipment and technology”.
On the economic front, the report notes that the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), a coalition of rebel groups including M23, and M23 have “ensured a monopoly for the export of coltan from Rubaya to Rwanda, prioritized high-volume trade and levied significant taxes”. “AFC/M23 thus collected at least $800,000 monthly from the taxation of coltan production and trade in Rubaya,” the UN group of experts points out, noting also a control of other mineral resources such as gold, manganese and tin (cassiterite), and the imposition of “salongo” (forced labour) on local people to transport these resources.
Finally, on 21 February 2025, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning M23’s offensive “with the support of the Rwanda Defence Forces”.
To condemn Rwanda
In Arusha, Kinshasa is suing Kigali for human rights violations, aggression and pillaging of its resources. “The Applicant State claims this has caused massacre, occupation of several areas, mass displacement of 520,000 people, a cholera epidemic, and destruction of schools thereby depriving 20,000 children of education, destruction of infrastructure such as electricity supply facilities, and the looting and destruction of agricultural infrastructure homes and health centers. It also alleges that the Respondent State harbors individuals accused of serious crimes, and against whom its courts have issued international arrest warrants,” notes the AfCHPR in its press release.
In terms of reparations, the DRC is asking the Court to order Rwanda to end its support for M23, withdraw its troops from its territory and make reparation for the harm caused to the victims. During the recent events, Rwanda - which has previously denied supporting M23 - has not made any official statement confirming or denying Kinshasa’s accusations.
Before the AfCHPR, Kigali believes that Kinshasa does not have sufficient evidence to support these accusations. “The application before you is based exclusively on information disseminated by mass media”, the Rwandan lawyer insisted to the Court. It is an application “alleging that Rwanda is responsible for human rights violations, either directly or as a result of acts allegedly perpetrated by its armed forces, or allegedly by providing assistance to M23”, he continued, adding that certain documents come from “dubious online sources that have no probative value”.
The judicial proceedings come at a time when the security situation is deteriorating furthermore in the east of the DRC, where M23 troops, supported by 4,000 men from the Rwandan army, have occupied strategic towns such as Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, since 26 January 2025, and Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu, since 16 February 2025.
The judicial proceedings come at a time when the security situation is deteriorating further and further in the east of the DRC, where M23 troops, supported by 4,000 men from the Rwandan army, have occupied strategic towns such as Goma, the capital of North Kivu, since 26 January 2025, and Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu, since 16 February 2025.
Clashes between the regular Congolese army and the rebels for the control of Goma have left almost 3,000 people dead, according to the UN. Kinshasa has put the death toll at more than 7,000, according to prime minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, speaking from the rostrum of the 58th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 24 February 2025. UNICEF said that the number of reports of grave violations against children had tripled. “During this period, data reveals that cases of sexual violence have risen by more than two and a half times, abductions have increased sixfold, killing and maiming is up sevenfold, and attacks on schools and hospitals have multiplied by 12”, the UN agency said on 26 February 2025.
For Kinshasa, the challenge of this trial is to obtain not only the condemnation of Kigali, but also compensation for the alleged victims. “We are asking the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to try and convict Rwanda so that the victims can be compensated and the atrocities in the east of our country can cease”, Mbemba said on 12 February 2025.
Hundreds of thousands of alleged victims
The exact number of victims is unknown, as entire areas are inaccessible and the conflict is still ongoing. Before the Court, the DRC specifically points outs “Rwanda’s responsibility for the massacre of Congolese people on 28 and 29 November 2020 in Kishishe and Bambo, in the Rutshuru territory, a massacre that was indisputably part of a plan for ethnic cleansing”.
Congolese organisations estimate that, since 1996, more than 10 million people have suffered damage at the hands of Rwanda and are awaiting reparation. This is the case of the National Association of the Victims of Congo (ANVC) which, on 3 February 2025, filed with the Congolese ministry of justice what it considers to be evidence of Rwanda’s responsibility. It includes photos, videos and testimonies from various victims, ANVC president Mirand Mulumba told Justice Info. African justice should condemn Rwanda in order to “combat impunity for serious crimes throughout the DRC, but particularly in its eastern part,” he argues.
Two complaints against Rwanda before two courts
During the February hearings before the AfCHPR, the parties argued about the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the Congolese application.
It was on 2 December 2024 that the DRC announced the filing of this complaint with the AfCHPR, via its deputy minister of justice. But the same year, Kinshasa also lodged another complaint against Rwanda, with the Court of Justice of the East African Community (EACJ).
This is unacceptable to Rwanda, which has asked the AfCHPR to declare itself incompetent and to withdraw from the case, because of the existence of this complaint by the DRC before the EACJ Court. Kigali argued that regional remedies had not been exhausted, and its lawyers denounced an “abuse of process”, citing the existence of an “application that is virtually identical in substance”. Kinshasa maintains that this argument is unfounded.
In addition, Rwanda is asking the AfCHPR to declare itself incompetent to judge the case on the grounds that “the request is incompatible with the Constitutive Act of the African Union”. Kigali argues that the protocol establishing the AfCHPR and its rules of procedure “circumscribes the Court’s mandate in matters of human rights”. The DRC’s application “relates to issues of peace, security and territorial integrity”, which Kigali argues are not “matters governed by the African Charter or, indeed, by any other human rights instrument”.
But Kinshasa does not see it that way. “How can it be conceived that the violation of the right to life and physical integrity, invoked by the DRC in its application, could reasonably constitute a question of political or security nature and therefore escape your Court’s scrutiny?,” asks the Congolese lawyer in Court. For the DRC, the African Union court based in Arusha has jurisdiction.
On 13 February 2025, the Court gave the parties eight days to file their pleadings before deliberating. There is no set date for Its ruling but it could be expected during the Court's next session in June.
