Door for Talks Closing as Zaire Rebels Advance

Rebel soldiers were reported racing to within 250 miles of this capital on Saturday, raising fears that time is running out for a negotiated solution to Zaire’s civil war--and apprehensions among some diplomats about what an outright rebel victory would mean.

U.S. officials announced Saturday that U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson will fly to Zaire in an eleventh-hour bid to get negotiations started between guerrilla leader Laurent Kabila and President Mobutu Sese Seko. He is expected to arrive in Kinshasa on Monday to meet with Mobutu and then proceed to the rebel-controlled east to see Kabila.

The hastily organized trip takes place against the backdrop of failed attempts by South African President Nelson Mandela and other intermediaries in the past few days to break a deadlock delaying a meeting between Kabila and Mobutu. Both leaders have agreed “in principle” to meet but have not settled on a venue.

“Talks have to come very, very quick now,” one African envoy said. “In a week or two, it won’t matter.”

While there are no tears being shed in foreign capitals at the prospect of the end of Mobutu’s 32 years of dictatorship and kleptocracy, Western diplomats emphasize that they strongly favor a negotiated transfer of power rather than a climactic battle for Kinshasa, a city of 5 million people.

In just the past week, however, the rebels have taken the city of Boende in the northwest of the country, the key Kasai River port of Ilebo and the diamond mining town of Tshipati, conquests that put them in control of about two-thirds of the country.

Unofficial reports reaching the capital Saturday put the rebels on the approaches to Kikwit and Bandundu, both about 250 miles from Kinshasa.

From Bandundu, northeast of Kinshasa, the rebels could easily travel by river to the capital; from Kikwit, due east, there is a relatively good road by local standards--although it is now clogged with deserting government soldiers and people hoping to escape a possible battle.

Meanwhile, Zairian state radio Saturday accused Angolan troops of invading Zaire from the opposite direction--approaching Kinshasa from the west. Although Angola’s government is sympathetic to the rebels, it has denied sending any of its soldiers into Zaire. A Western diplomat was skeptical of the Zairian claim, despite a barrage of rumors of rebel activity in the vicinity.

Diplomats say a negotiated settlement to the civil war is crucial because it would prevent casualties in Kinshasa and any further damage to the country’s lamentable infrastructure.

And they say that, even more important in the long run, a government that comes to power through negotiations would have a greater chance of success and be more likely to bring democracy to Zaire.

Negotiations that see Mobutu leave the country peacefully and legally would leave far “fewer scars on the body politic,” one ambassador said. “It’s much easier to get from negotiations to elections than from a total Kabila victory to elections.”

If there are negotiations, the international community would seek to ease out Mobutu and bless Kabila’s rise to power in a transitional government, plus give financial support to rebuild the country.

But if Kabila marched into Kinshasa in a military victory, he would be less indebted to the West and probably less willing to compromise or share power with other political leaders in Zaire, some diplomats believe.

In that case, one European emissary said, the rebel leader eventually could prove “equal to, or worse than, Mobutu.”

If he came to power after negotiations, however, the enigmatic guerrilla leader would be expected to hold elections designed to reconcile the divided country and put it on a path to democracy for the first time since independence in 1960.

Such a development would be an enormous boost for Africa, helping to shift the power balance on the continent from dictatorships to elected governments.

“A strong, stable Zaire can anchor the whole region, but a totally messed up Zaire is infectious” to the countries around it, a Western diplomat said.

Although the commander of Mobutu’s presidential guard has called on troops to “fight to your death” to defend Mobutu and the nation, few doubt that Kabila’s forces would prevail if a battle for Kinshasa took place.

“If Kabila wanted to show up today, he could. There is no resistance. Even the soldiers are with the people,” said Maitre Roger Kabeya, an opposition member of parliament.