The United States announced sanctions on Thursday against former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, accused of contributing to instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Joseph Kabila, who led the country from 2001 to 2019, has been placed on the blacklist of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. agency responsible for economic sanctions. These sanctions provide for the freezing of all assets the former head of state may hold in the United States. They also prohibit U.S. citizens and companies from engaging in business with him.
Washington accuses Joseph Kabila of seeking to destabilize the Congolese government by supporting the armed group M23, as well as the Congo River Alliance (AFC), presented as its political arm.
The former president reportedly stayed last year in Goma, in the east of the country, under the protection of the M23, a rebel group active in that region.
These accusations come in an already tense context. At the end of September, the Congolese justice system sentenced Joseph Kabila to death in absentia for "complicity" with the M23, a movement that Kinshasa accuses of being supported by Rwanda.
