Zairian Rebels Capture Key City Third-Largest City Captured; Government Troops May Be Defecting

Kisangani, the largest and last government-held city in eastern Zaire, fell to rebels forces Saturday after a night of confused fighting, posing the most serious threat yet to the 31-year rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko.

The capital, Kinshasa, was quiet as details of the battle spread slowly among the population, but for many the fall of Kisangani, Zaire’s third largest city and the centerpiece of the government’s fight against the six-month-old rebellion, raised serious questions about the ability of Mobutu’s government to survive.

More worrisome for the government than the fall of the heavily defended city was the reported switch of elite government forces in the city to the rebel side, Western diplomats and Zairian officials say.

With a rebel column of armored vehicles moving toward the city on Friday night from the northeast, government officials said elements of the 31st Paratroop Brigade, one of the country’s best armed and trained units, abandoned the government cause and attacked a company of Serbian mercenaries who had been leading the defense of Kisangani.

The mercenaries, under fire, abandoned the international airport aboard helicopters early Saturday, retreating to Mobutu’s home village of Gbadolite, diplomats and government officials here said.

“It appears the rebels infiltrated the town through the jungle and starting shooting at the same time as the armored column was moving toward the airport,” said a Western regional military expert. “It looks like that was enough to panic the defenders pretty badly. And when the Zairian troops started shooting at them, the mercenaries flew out of there in a hurry.”

Late Saturday morning, the rebel radio, the Voice of the People, which is broadcast from Goma, the eastern city that is the de facto rebel capital, announced that Kisangani had been abandoned by the defending forces and said triumphantly, “Victory is at hand.”

Government troops that did not rally to the rebel side pillaged Kisangani before fleeing across the Zaire River and heading into the northern hinterlands, according to Western diplomats.

The fall of Kisangani represents the final unraveling of the war strategy of the government, which relied upon Serbian mercenaries and battle-hardened Hutu fighters from the former Rwandan Army to shore up it own woefully inadequate forces.

Even before this loss, rebels of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo controlled over 30 percent of Zaire’s territory and appeared confident of expanding quickly into areas of central and southern Zaire that are rich in minerals.

Few here now expect much further military resistance by Mobutu’s government, which now faces a strong possibility of being forced to negotiate its own dissolution or being swept away by a coup.

“Everyone is making new calculations about their future,” said a member of Mobutu’s entourage Saturday. “The old game is up. The next few days will show what the new game is all about.”

Mobutu, who has been in France for cancer treatment since last August, has faced numerous rebellions during his rule. As an important cold war ally of the West, however, he was periodically saved by foreign interventions sponsored by the United States or France.

With his country adrift and growing poorer throughout this decade, and with no hope of a democratic transition in sight, Mobutu’s popularity has steadily shrunk. The contempt for him has been so deep, in fact, that he has spent most of the last few years living in his own northern village.

The fall of Kisangani came on the same day that a special U.N. envoy to Zaire began talks with the leader of the rebellion, Laurent Kabila. The United Nations has been pressing for a cease-fire.