KINSHASA, May 26, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi's party hit back Sunday at criticism from the country's former leader Joseph Kabila, saying the "Rwandan" should stop meddling in the country's affairs.

Kabila, in his first speech to the Congolese people since leaving office in 2019, on Friday denounced "arbitrary moves" by Kinshasa against him, a day after the Senate voted to lift his parliamentary immunity.

That move paved the way towards a treason trial over the 53-year-old's alleged links with the Rwandan-backed M23 militia. Tshisekedi has said Kabila is behind the assault by M23 in the east of the country.

M23 fighters have seized swathes of the resource-rich east of the country near the border with Rwanda, a region plagued by conflict for more than three decades.

"Kabila is not Congolese," Augustin Kabuya, Secretary-General of Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) insisted in a speech Sunday at the party's headquarters in Kinshasa.

"Let him leave the Congolese to deal with their own problems. He, a Rwandan subject whose rule was imposed on us, must leave the Congolese alone," Kabuya added, accusing him of leading the M23.

Kabuya said the former president "has nothing to teach us when it comes to democracy", referring to people killed by the authorities during protests against Kabila's rule.

In his speech on Friday, Kabila said he would soon visit Goma, a key eastern Congolese city the M23 seized at the beginning of the year following a lightning offensive.

After stepping aside for Tshisekedi in 2019, Kabila gained the honorary title of senator for life, and with it parliamentary immunity.

Following his announcement of his grand return via the conflict-hit east, the justice ministry in April referred the case against Kabila to the military courts.

In turn the army's top prosecutor urged the Senate -- dominated by Tshisekedi's ruling coalition -- to lift Kabila's parliamentary immunity to allow his prosecution for his alleged support of the M23.

Although constitutional experts questioned the procedure, that vote passed by an overwhelming majority late on Thursday, with Kabila breaking his long silence the following day.

His intervention came after a series of diplomatic breakthroughs by Kinshasa in talks to end the fighting.

Tshisekedi has reached out to the United States, offering access to the DRC's rare minerals in return for Washington's backing in negotiations with Rwanda to put an end to the more than three-decade conflict.