Dictator’s Final Bastion Quickly Falls To Rebels Mobutu’s Palace, Homes Of Elite Looted Amid Sporadic Violence

Rebel soldiers sealed their hold on the capital Sunday with a mix of discipline and brutality, setting up sites for defeated government troops to turn in weapons - and then executing some of them in anger.

A day after the rebels’ euphoric march into Kinshasa, Zairians celebrated their arrival amid the remnants of battle: charred bodies lying on the road and Red Cross trucks loaded with corpses.

In the La Cite district, residents danced around the burnt remains of seven soldiers killed by the rebels. Witnesses said two of them were still alive when they were set on fire. Other scalded bodies lay on the road to the airport.

Early Sunday morning, thousands of troops from Laurent Kabila’s rebel army fanned out across the city, capturing the last government military base, Camp Tshatshi - and with it the palace of ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko - after a brief battle with die-hard remnants of the exiled ruler’s presidential guard division.

The first rebels to rush inside the palace tore down a giant banner reading “Welcome Papa Mobutu” and stamped on it. Palace employees then ran to embrace them and hand out cigarettes and boots.

Crowds swarmed through the palace, looting everything from swimming pool slides to chandeliers, as rebel troops watched. The mansion of Mobutu’s son, Kongulu, also was trashed.

Kabila’s name was chalked on roads and walls. Euphoric crowds donned white headbands and flashed “V” signs for victory. Chants of “Liberty!” rang across the city. And one house flew the blue flag with seven stars that Kabila has chosen for the nation he calls the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Other rebel troops moved into military camps and other strategic positions in the city, where they collected thousands of assault rifles and other weapons surrendered by soldiers from the defeated government army.

Severe looting erupted in some areas, but most appeared targeted at the lavish homes, cars and property of military officers, politicians and other powerful or notorious figures in Mobutu’s hated regime.

More worrying was an eruption of lawlessness and mob violence. Bloated corpses lay along several roads, and dozens more were burned in street bonfires by elated crowds eager to avenge years of official armed thuggery in this city.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said at least 200 people have been killed since rebels first entered the city early Saturday, including an unknown number who died in skirmishes and firefights with the insurgents.

Although all resistance seemingly has collapsed, rebel troops executed at least two men Sunday. Angry mobs identified them as members of Mobutu’s dreaded security forces, and they were shot. There were unconfirmed reports that the insurgents also killed several suspected looters.

While Mobutu’s whereabouts could not be confirmed, Togolese state television reported Sunday that he had fled his jungle palace in his northern home village of Gbadolite on Saturday - with rebels firing on his cargo plane as it took off. Mobutu’s plane stopped briefly in Togo on Sunday morning and then left for Morocco, the report said.

Diplomats said the rebels need to quickly re-establish civil order and security in the city before further lawlessness erupts. Rebel patrols were posted to some areas to keep the peace late Sunday, but normal police operations remained suspended.

The worst looting exploded around Camp Tshatshi, where mobs of youths sacked homes owned by the Mobutu regime’s elite. The rebels made half-hearted efforts to stop the destruction, including firing shots in the air.

At one point, a white leather armchair appeared to be walking down the street. “Why are you pillaging?” a rebel demanded of the man underneath it, ordering him to stop. He did so, but the chair soon walked off again. No one tried to stop the man hauling a huge Cubist painting.

The most determined destruction was at the white poured-concrete mansion of Kongolo Mobutu, the autocrat’s sinister soldier son. He fled Saturday for neighboring Congo.

Filled with giant mirrors and bad art, the younger Mobutu’s home was a study in dictator kitsch, with matching white concrete bunkers with heavy machine guns on the front lawn and an arsenal of assault rifles and grenades out back. Confetti sprinkled on the ground suggested that last-minute shredding of documents had taken place.

Someone quickly ripped out the kitchen stove, and the house soon filled with the distinct smell of gas. That didn’t stop scores of people from running in and carting out everything from air conditioners to cabinet drawers.

One man stood on the roof yanking desperately at a giant satellite dish.

Hundreds of other Kinshasa residents went to another military base, Camp Mobutu, to watch the defeated soldiers hand over their weapons. A large mural of the dictator on the outside wall was pocked with bullet holes, and someone had scrawled “We want change” on it in French.

“For the time being, we’re keeping all the weapons here so that by Tuesday or Wednesday the city will be secure,” said rebel fighter John Batesha, 27, predicting that Kabila will come then.

So far, Kabila is staying at his headquarters in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi, where he met Sunday with envoys of the United Nations and South Africa. But he sent his first political representatives to Kinshasa, saying they will meet with anti-Mobutu political figures.

The rebel troops drew a mixed reaction as they snaked across the city in long green lines. Many residents were exultant, cheering wildly, waving palm fronds and wearing white headbands in welcome. Others stared sullenly or stayed indoors.

“We see many strange men in this army,” said Jean Paul Kasusula, 31, a law student who watched nervously as they passed. “We don’t know what they will do. … Personally, I have fear.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SCENE FROM A LOOTING One looter in the mob stripping the homes of the Mobutu regime’s elite at Camp Tshatshi, stopped to study an officer’s photo album. He grew steadily more furious as he saw pictures of huge plates of food at family feasts. “Look at this!” he said, stabbing his finger at the photo. “We are hungry!”