OP-ED | Congolese Army: Guilty Silence, Criminal Loyalty
By Modeste Boukadia, President of the Cercle des Démocrates et Républicains du Congo (CDRC) – June 2, 2025

Massacres, repression, rigged elections—while the Congolese people suffer, the army remains silent. A guilty silence. A criminal loyalty. In this op-ed, Modeste Boukadia accuses the Congolese Armed Forces of betraying the Republic in order to serve a clan. And he poses a radical question: does such an army still deserve to exist after Sassou?
(CDRC Press Service)

Fifty years in power without a single coup. Half a century of military omertà, political complicity, and loyalty to a man rather than to a nation. That’s the record. And the state of Congo speaks for itself: ruined, humiliated, silenced. All the while, the weapons—meant to defend the Republic—have fallen silent, or worse, have spoken and are ready to speak again, against the people.

Denis Sassou Nguesso, the undisputed leader of a calcified regime, has never hidden his foreign support. “What I do, I do because France asks me to,” he once dared to say. Yet during his recent state visit to Paris, President Emmanuel Macron, speaking directly to him, denied any French responsibility in Congo’s descent into ruin. The longtime patron now pretends to take distance. So whom will Sassou Nguesso blame this time for the crimes and failures of his regime? His corrupt ministers? The people he constantly accuses? Or the officers who, through their silence, traded republican loyalty for clan allegiance?

One might have believed that the Congolese army, proud of its history, would have preserved some ethical standard. History reminds us that in 1963, under President Fulbert Youlou, officers like Félix Mouzabakani and David Moutsaka refused to crush the popular uprising. They let the people speak, protest, rise up. And even if the pretext—“Youlou stole everything!”—was questionable, the transition occurred without bloodshed. Because men in uniform had the courage to choose the nation over ambition.

Today, the opposite is true. Officers remain silent. They avert their eyes, obey quietly, and protect a regime that slowly murders its people. This is no longer discipline—it is complicity. Not a word in the face of massacres. Not a gesture in the face of imposed misery. It is betrayal. A military disgrace. A moral collapse.

So let us ask the real questions: Are we still living in a Republic, or in a military barracks ruled by a clan? Can we still speak of Congolese Armed Forces when they defend neither the Constitution nor the people, but only a man and his inner circle?

And above all: if these forces persist in acting as a militia in service of a tyrant, do they still deserve to exist after Sassou Nguesso? The hour is approaching. The people are refusing to take part in yet another rigged election. And history will harshly judge those who fire upon their own nation just to prolong the agony of an illegitimate regime.

The army must choose: defend the Republic or sink with the regime. There is still time, for those in uniform, to break with this criminal loyalty. Because in the future we will build, there will be no place for the accomplices of silence.

Modeste Boukadia
President of the Cercle des Démocrates et Républicains du Congo (CDRC)