Rebels Closing in on Congo Capital, Commander Says

Rebel soldiers fighting President Laurent Kabila’s rule in Congo gathered in a minute Atlantic town Friday for what a commander said would be the final assault on the capital.

“We have come a very long way, and Kinshasa is now very near,” rebel commander Munyatenda Kayoyo said in Muanda.

Kabila’s whereabouts was unknown Friday, with some sources saying he left Kinshasa, and another saying he had returned and was “working like normal.” A Western diplomat in Paris said Kabila was in the southern city of Lubumbashi, his former rebel base.

The president has not been seen in public since early this week, when he appeared meeting army recruits on a state television broadcast.

The former rebel leader, who ousted longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in May 1997, is being challenged by the same forces that helped him seize power: Rwandan leaders and Tutsi rebels in the eastern part of the country.

An army of Tutsi rebels, Rwandan soldiers and disaffected Congolese troops is marching toward Kinshasa from Congo’s western coastline. The force is backed by a broad coalition of people disenchanted with Kabila, who they say has failed to make progress toward rebuilding a country wrecked by three decades of the corrupt Mobutu reign.

With rifles at the ready, edgy government soldiers--some clearly drunk and angry--roamed crowded neighborhoods in Kinshasa on Friday, checking papers and at times extracting arbitrary “fees” from shop owners.

Truckloads of loyalist troops in khaki uniforms rumbled through the capital’s main streets, and a military helicopter buzzed overhead.

The rebellion began earlier this month when Tutsi-led rebels closely tied to Rwanda fought government troops in Kinshasa and opened up fronts in both the east and west of Congo, formerly Zaire.

The rebels said some of their troops had advanced as far as Kasangulu, 18 miles southwest of the capital.

Bizima Karaha, the Congolese foreign minister who defected to the rebels, said Friday that rebel troops had captured the Congo River port of Matadi, 170 miles southwest of the capital.

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On Thursday, the insurgents reportedly took Inga, about 135 miles away, where the primary power transformer for the capital is located.

The electricity supply was severed and remained off in Kinshasa until early Friday afternoon, when it was partially restored.

Kinshasa awoke Friday without electricity, television or newspapers.

“We call on the people to remain calm; the president of the republic and the government are doing everything to reverse this situation,” the radio said in a statement, referring to the power outage.

The city was bracing for the expected arrival of the fighters who launched a rebellion against Kabila earlier this month. Rumors and gossip fueled an uneasy sense of muffled panic. Thousands of people packed sidewalk shops and markets to buy extra provisions.

In Washington, State Department officials said three more U.S. government employees were being withdrawn Friday from the embassy in Congo. That left 20 official Americans in the country, they said. The United States was preparing for the emergency evacuation of its citizens, sending two Marine ships to the Atlantic waters off Congo. It will take up to 10 days for them to arrive.