English editorial adaptation of the author's French opinion article.
By Fernandez MURHOLA, international human rights defender and former National Human Rights Commissioner of the DRC (2015–2022).
I. Introduction
For three decades, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has lived under a continuing threat to its security. In the author's analysis, Rwanda's actions from 1996 to 2026 are not an isolated episode but a sustained campaign: a long, predatory conflict that wears down a people, fragments a state and makes grave crimes seem ordinary. He argues that silence would amount to abdication, any bargain over national sovereignty would be a serious error, and forgetting would enable impunity. Drawing on international law, criminology and political philosophy, he calls for resistance. His central claim is that a people must not abandon that duty while the aggression it opposes continues.
II. Legal time: no limitation period for the crime of aggression
The author describes the armed pressure on the DRC since 1996 as a continuing aggression. Article 1 of United Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX), adopted on 14 December 1974, defines aggression as the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state. He points to three decades of alleged occupation, penetration of state institutions, predation through proxies, support for armed groups and the extraction of natural resources.
Some crimes under international criminal law are not subject to a limitation period. Article 29 of the Rome Statute states that crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court are not subject to any statute of limitations. The author places the crime of aggression, addressed in Article 8 bis, alongside war crimes (Article 8), crimes against humanity (Article 7) and genocide (Article 6). He argues that the passage of time cannot make an unlawful use of force lawful, erase accountability or confer title over occupied territory. Ex injuria jus non oritur: a legal right cannot arise from a wrong.
III. Moral time: the enduring duty to resist
Article 63 of the DRC Constitution states that every Congolese citizen has the sacred duty to defend the country. The author treats this as an enduring obligation to the nation, not a choice that can be surrendered while an aggression continues and its consequences remain unresolved. He sums up his position in three responses: resistance to aggression, territorial integrity against partition, and resolve rather than fatalism.
He draws on Rousseau's account of sovereignty, Fanon's call for each generation to find its mission, and Camus's defence of revolt. For him, ending resistance before the aggression ends would mean giving up a duty precisely when it is still needed.
IV. A criminological reading of a prolonged state crime
Why, in the author's view, has this conflict lasted so long? He identifies three mutually reinforcing mechanisms. First, the illegal exploitation of strategic minerals can finance territorial control. Second, the creation, dissolution and reconstitution of armed groups can keep the Congolese state under pressure and deepen fragmentation. Third, decades without effective accountability can make repeated abuses appear normal. He invokes Hannah Arendt's idea of the “banality of evil” to describe this normalization.
In this account, the aggressor relies on time: exhaustion, forgetting and resignation. The author's response is to maintain resistance and the demand for justice for as long as the alleged aggression and its effects endure.
V. Three national choices: duty, renunciation and resignation
1. Resist. The author calls this the exercise of a patriotic duty. He advocates seeking state accountability before the International Court of Justice, individual accountability before the International Criminal Court, and action by the UN Security Council under Articles 41 and 42 of the UN Charter. He also calls for the defence of the country's territorial integrity and support for its defence and security forces and the Wazalendo resistance groups.
2. Renounce. He rejects any agreement that would directly or indirectly surrender part of Congolese sovereignty. He invokes Article 2 of the DRC Constitution, which declares the territory, within its borders of 30 June 1960, indivisible. In his view, conceding territory obtained by force would legitimize the result of an unlawful act and betray future generations. He characterizes such a renunciation in the strongest constitutional terms.
3. Resign oneself. For the author, silence would make the deaths and abuses of 1996–2026 seem inevitable. He argues that accepting this outcome would allow impunity to prevail through weariness rather than through any judgment of law. He calls this complicity by omission.
VI. Conclusion: a pact between generations
Thirty years separate the generations that have lived through the conflict, but the author sees one continuing struggle for sovereignty and justice. He contrasts the legal question of accountability for aggression with the constitutional and moral duty to defend the country. The passage of time, he argues, should neither erase the harm nor extinguish the resolve to address it.
In the author's words, resistance is the position consistent with the law; renunciation would betray future generations, and resignation would betray the memory of those who died. History will record the choice made.
Glory to the fallen and honour to patriotic resistance.