** Kinshasa, April 9, 2025: when questions of power mix with fundamental rights **
It is difficult to ignore the atmosphere that floats around the High Military Court of Kinshasa these days. The trial of the assistant divisional commissioner Padhes Murhula, on the front line of media attention, reveals much more than a simple case of arbitrary arrest. It is a revealer of latent tensions within a country where the weight of institutions and the spectrum of injustice continues to dance a macabre dance.
On December 20, 2023, the sky darkened in Lusambo, Sankuru province, with the arrest of a candidate for provincial deputation, Vital Omba Lumumba. His crime? Be in the wrong place at the right time – or vice versa. And, above all, embody a dissent that does not only scrape the surface. Have arbitrary detentions become a routine in a system which we no longer know if it is maintained in place by force or by fear?
This trial is a window on the dead angle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The battle between those who hold power – armed with their insignia and their authority – and those who dare to challenge the status quo, like Lumumba, is not only a struggle for individual justice, but a systemic confrontation. And here, the question remains: how far the mechanisms of repression go to preserve a certain relative tranquility, so often misleading?
Reading the minutes of a witness, like a rhythm of war drum, resonates at the heart of this audience. This witness is not there, but his words are chained in the corridors of justice. The absence echoes, emphasizing a disturbing reality: where are these voices which do not have the luxury of being heard in the palaces of legality? What do these silences say? They are talking, in fact, of a system that recycles injustices like an old coffee machine that can only make bitter coffee.
What is on the accused’s bench is more than a commissioner. This is the burning question of the state of human rights in a country where fundamental freedoms are still often stored in the closet. Accusations of torture, rights -of -way, and violence are not simple catchy sentences. They are a reflection of a troubled history, marked by governments which are only flexing under international pressure, but which are erected in bastions when it comes to defending their internal foundations.
Next week’s pleadings are of capital importance. They do not only decide the fate of a man, but also the perception of justice in a country where arbitrariness seems to be the norm. The defendants’ lawyers, as Vincent Lonombe, perhaps see only a matter of law, but for others, it is a matter of equity and truth.
And there, we are witnessing a drama that is played on several levels. On the one hand, the hollow desire for a legal process that tries to raise the voice against abuse. On the other, a rigid system that prefers to move forward on rails of silences. The question is asked, but no one seems to have the answer: how many other Lumumba will they be sacrificed on the altar of administrative tranquility?
The Murhula trial is therefore a microcosm of the DRC, a mosaic of struggles for human dignity, but also a reflection of an uncertain future. Because, beyond the Pleidoyers, it is the whole society that is at stake here. And it is these moments, these brutal captures of truth, which tend to remind us that, in the shadow of Kinshasa, a much deeper struggle is emerging. At the end of this trial, will the people get up, united, to claim justice that is not only an illusion? This is the real question that remains unanswered, as much as the future verdict.