Since August 2023, the case pitting environmental defender Ndesho Kabwene Josué against Major Judge Bulaimu Lazar Amsini has been stalled before the High Military Court. ACEDH and civil society organizations denounce the obstruction, the deaths of several key actors, and call for the urgent intervention of the First President of the Court.
The warning is serious. The Congolese Alert for the Environment and Human Rights (ACEDH), speaking on behalf of several civil society organizations working in environmental and social protection, is sounding the alarm over the scandalously slow and opaque handling of case file RPP 10/023. The case opposes climate and land-rights defender Ndesho Kabwene Josué to Major Judge Bulaimu Lazar Amsini, President of the Goma Military Garrison Court. According to a memorandum submitted to the First President of the High Military Court, the file—lodged with the registry as early as August 2023—was not scheduled for pleadings until two years later, in 2025, after numerous suspicious maneuvers allegedly aimed at shielding the accused magistrate. Even the personal intervention of the First President and his Chief of Staff failed to expedite the proceedings.
These delays are not merely bureaucratic; they have cost lives. Obedi Karafuru, president of the committee of former SICIA workers and an active participant alongside Kabwene in discussions on forest concessions, was assassinated in 2023. More recently, Ntuyenabo Habimana John, secretary of the same committee and a co-accused in case RPA 1108, was killed on 12 January 2026 near Kitshanga, an area under M23 control.
ACEDH also recalls that the matter had previously been on appeal before the North Kivu Military Court under file RRJ 095, which referred RPA 1108 to the South Kivu Military Court. The organizations denounce the legitimate suspicion arising from these dilatory tactics and the risk that “dark hands” may be influencing decisions by senior magistrates, thereby protecting a compromised judge. The case involves critical issues: land rights, the safety of human rights defenders, climate accountability, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s geostrategic positioning. According to ACEDH, the maneuvers to shield the judge place a community of more than 36,000 people at risk—forced to wander without land for the benefit of powerful concessionaires with financial, political, and military clout.
The memorandum underscores the urgency of the First President’s personal intervention at the High Military Court and calls on all authorities copied on the document to exercise their powers to ensure a swift and fair ruling. The organizations strongly condemn any attempt to delay proceedings and demand that the case finally reach its conclusion, in accordance with the law and the rights of environmental and land defender Ndesho Kabwene Josué. For ACEDH and its partners, this case is a test of the credibility of Congolese justice: remaining deaf to dilatory maneuvers and the murder of defenders sends a clear message of impunity and complicity with the powerful. Civil society will not remain silent and is calling for immediate and transparent justice.
By Kilalopress