A sharp warning about security practices in the Republic of Congo has surfaced in the form of a published opinion piece. Its author, a legal adviser, argues that the state’s chosen response to urban crime has crossed a dangerous line.
The text is signed by Ismael Mayela, a legal counsel and member of the Association pour la promotion de la Justice Penale Internationale. He addresses how the authorities have framed their fight against persistent banditry.
A Militarised Security Choice
Faced with enduring urban crime, the piece contends, the authorities opted to militarise their answer. They did so by deploying the Direction Generale de la Securite Presidentielle into the role of public order.
According to the author, this strategy has produced bloody excesses. Under the cover of maintaining order, he writes, it entrenches summary execution and tramples the foundations of the rule of law in the country.
A Decade Of Failed Containment
The backdrop, as the tribune recalls, stretches back years. After the 2014 operation known as Mbata ya bakolo came the rise of the “bebes noirs,” young offenders notorious for deadly actions across Brazzaville.
State responses brought only limited results. Joint police-gendarmerie patrols launched from May 2017 had partial success, and the mass escape of more than 130 detainees from the CNSS de Texaco in May 2025 exposed the limits of containment.
The Allegations Of Extrajudicial Violence
A formal turn came through decree number 2025-390 of 18 September 2025, which officially vested the DGSP with a public security mission. The author marks this as the start of a darker phase.
Since then, he writes, testimonies and images have documented summary executions of young suspects. Some, the account states, were bound and shot at close range in public spaces, a description central to the tribune’s case.
A Constitutional Contradiction
The piece grounds its objection in Congolese law. The author recalls that Article 8 of the 2015 Constitution abolished the death penalty and recognises the sacred character of human life.
Measured against that text, the conduct alleged amounts to a grave breach. The hooded agents of the DGSP, the author argues, would thereby have made themselves guilty of murder within the meaning of Article 296 of the Penal Code.
The Question Of Impunity
The tribune reserves its strongest concern for what has followed the violence. In the wake of the 2026 presidential ballot, the author states, none of these agents has been troubled by the justice system.
That silence, he argues, carries weight. Such impunity, the piece contends, resembles a tacit validation of the abuses by the machinery of the state itself, blurring the line between enforcement and license.
The author closes with a call rather than a verdict. He urges strict oversight of the DGSP, so that the force does not become a danger to the very populations it is meant to protect, a plea framed as a defence of the rule of law (Mondafrique).