Zairian Rebel Chief Cheered in Seized City

Laurent Kabila flew into this diamond-mining heartland Monday to survey the latest conquest by his rebel force in its seven-month battle to unseat President Mobutu Sese Seko.

Kabila arrived in Mbuji-Mayi accompanied by foreign diamond-mining executives. “Laurent! Laurent!” a group of young men chanted at the airport. About 100 teenage boys yelled the rebel leader’s middle name: “Desire! Desire!”

As Kabila arrived in triumph, a protest march against Mobutu in the capital, Kinshasa, about 600 miles to the west, was broken up by soldiers who drove armored vehicles into the crowd, hurling tear gas and beating protesters with whips and sticks.

In southeastern Zaire, government troops in the country’s second-largest city, Lubumbashi, laid down their arms and declared solidarity with the rebels, The New York Times reported today.

Mortar fire could be heard outside the city limits, near Lubumbashi’s international airport. The city is 950 miles southeast of Kinshasa.

Lubumbashi is the capital of the mineral-rich Shaba region, whose cobalt and copper--along with the diamonds of Mbuji-Mayi--form the basis of Zaire’s wealth.

In South Africa, where representatives of Mobutu and the rebels continued to meet Monday, ostensibly to work out a cease-fire, talks appeared stalled.

Repeating Kabila’s original position, rebel representative Richard Wenu said there could be no progress without direct talks between Kabila and Mobutu, who is suffering from prostate cancer.