Congo Rebels Driven From Strategic Airport

Angolan troops intervening to help stop an armed revolt in Congo dealt the rebels a severe setback Sunday by recapturing a key military airport for President Laurent Kabila.

The airport at Kitona, near Congo’s Atlantic coast, had been the rebels’ main base for a lightning advance toward this tense capital, about 200 miles inland. Their loss of the base, after a cross-border tank assault from Angola, dimmed their chances of reaching Kinshasa and ousting Kabila’s government.

The rebels acknowledged a “tactical withdrawal” from the airport but claimed to have seized Kisangani, Congo’s third-largest city, about 770 miles northeast of here. If confirmed, that victory would widen their hold over Congo’s borderlands with Rwanda and Uganda, whose governments back the 3-week-old insurgency.

With five armies scrambling for control of Africa’s third-largest country, the conflict seemed headed for a stalemate--with ethnic Tutsis from Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in control of Congo’s northeast and Kabila’s forces, backed by Zimbabwe and Angola, holding the rest of the nation once known as Zaire, including most of its rich mineral resources.

Moving to avert full-scale war in the heart of the continent, South African President Nelson Mandela gathered leaders of 14 other African nations in his country’s administrative capital, Pretoria, on Sunday and received their go-ahead to seek a negotiated settlement.

“There should be a cease-fire,” Mandela said after the four-hour meeting. “There should be a [troop] standstill followed by a process of political negotiation.”

Kabila, an obscure rebel leader, took power in May 1997 after an armed uprising ended the long dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. Increasingly authoritarian and unpopular at home, Kabila is opposed by the same Rwandan Tutsi and Ugandan leaders who sponsored his revolt but later fell out with him. Both governments accuse him of failing to halt attacks on their territory by ethnic Hutu rebels based in Congo’s eastern mountains.

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Mandela’s peace plan recognizes Kabila’s presidency but calls for him to form a broad-based interim government and hold general elections. It also demands a withdrawal of all foreign troops from Congo.

The plan faces an uphill battle. It is opposed by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose troops are trying to help Kabila win a military victory and who boycotted Mandela’s peace summit.

Kabila and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos also weakened the peace initiative by staying home. But Mandela said that low-level delegates from both countries had endorsed it, as had presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda.

“Both sides have to do a minimum of diplomacy now to satisfy their political supporters, but there will not be serious talks until it’s clear that neither of them can win on the battlefield,” said Salih Booker, chief Africa specialist at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. “They’re not quite at that point yet.”

Tutsis in Kabila’s army, joined by elements of Rwanda’s Tutsi-dominated armed forces, started the revolt Aug. 2 by seizing Congo’s far-eastern Kivu region. They ferried soldiers more than 1,000 miles across Congo on hijacked airplanes, captured the Kitona airport and used it as a supply base for a march that moved to within 19 miles of Kinshasa.

The rebels’ loss of Kitona, their first major defeat, trapped several thousand insurgents between the Angolans and the Zimbabweans, who rushed troops, tanks and fighter jets to Kinshasa and the coast last week to shore up Kabila’s poorly equipped military forces.

Zimbabwean soldiers moved through the capital Sunday on the backs of big trucks laden with ammunition crates. Their appearance had a calming effect on some in this city of nearly 6 million people, which has suffered food shortages and almost daily power blackouts because of the fighting.

In other respects Sunday, the capital went about a routine of church services, soccer matches and shopping at outdoor markets.

“I don’t think our army can cope with the situation, but maybe with the help of these allied armies--and of God--we can gain time to rebuild our country and recover from the difficult situation Mobutu left us in,” said Timothy Bompere, an official at the Miracle Center church, which was packed with worshipers at a Pentecostal service.

It is unclear how far Rwanda and Uganda are willing to go in support of a drive on Kinshasa. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, both countries have denied sending troops to the rebel side but are threatening to intervene openly unless Angola and Zimbabwe withdraw from the fighting.

Specialists on Africa say Rwanda and Uganda might be satisfied to help maintain the rebel occupation of northeastern Congo as a buffer against attacks across their borders. Control of Kisangani, a Congo River port and the region’s main commercial center, would help ensure that; to counterattack, Kabila would need the city’s airport.

Angola, the most militarily powerful country involved in the fighting, is unlikely to support such an assault, specialists say. Angola’s motive for intervening, they believe, was to halt use of Congo’s western coastal area by Angolan rebels.

Mugabe, meanwhile, is convinced that his nation’s intervention can defeat the rebels and raise his standing as a regional power broker. Zimbabwe does not border Congo.