Mobutu Returns to Zaire; Rebels Mass for Attack

KINSHASA, Zaire — Defiant to the end, President Mobutu Sese Seko flew home to this beleaguered capital Thursday as Laurent Kabila’s guerrilla army came within striking distance of the city’s airport and an attack appeared imminent.

The crumbling city of 5 million was tense and jittery, with shops and businesses closing early and Zairian soldiers abandoning their posts in anticipation of a rebel assault that could erupt as early as today, diplomats warned--although it was unclear how fierce any ensuing battle would be.

By nightfall, an estimated 2,000 rebel foot soldiers had reached and begun to cross the Nsele River, 15 miles east of the N’djili International Airport and about 25 miles from the capital’s center.

Witnesses said truckloads of Zairian soldiers were seen deserting a military base near the airport that served as headquarters for a paratrooper brigade. Zairian troops also disappeared from outside the government radio and television station, a huge complex expected to be one of the rebels’ first takeover objectives.

“I think people know whenever rebels take a town, the first target is the radio station,” said a Western military analyst. “I think the [troops] decided discretion was the better part of valor.”

The analyst said Mobutu’s army has become so demoralized by its steady losses in the seven-month civil war that he does not anticipate a drawn-out battle for Kinshasa.

“I think any kind of trouble will be very short-lived,” he said. “This is not Liberia, not Somalia. This will be all over in a day or two.”

Battle-hardened troops from Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA force in Angola, who have fought beside Mobutu’s army, were also retreating, the analyst said. He said UNITA soldiers “have hopped on trucks and are heading back to Angola. When you look at it, they’ve lost. Why should they stay?”

Kabila is believed to have assembled up to 10,000 fighters for the final offensive. But the bulk of his army, including its mechanized units, have been stranded since Monday on the east side of the Bombo River, about 35 miles from Kinshasa, because retreating Zairian troops blew up the only bridge.

Capture of the lightly guarded international airport, however, would allow the insurgents to rush reinforcements in from elsewhere.

Some diplomats here fear that Mobutu’s return to Kinshasa from neighboring Congo increased chances that his last defenders will offer stiff resistance to the inevitable rebel assault.

The ailing strongman’s presence also hinders diplomatic efforts to persuade Kabila, who has vowed to topple Mobutu, to slow his offensive.

“It’s bad, very bad,” a European diplomat said. “[Mobutu] is an obstacle. He blocks everything.”

A last-ditch diplomatic push to avert a bloody takeover created a potential opening for peaceful resolution of the crisis when Kabila flew to meet South African President Nelson Mandela in Cape Town on Thursday.

But Kabila’s aides separately issued a stern ultimatum, giving the 67-year-old Mobutu two days to flee or surrender power to the insurgents’ Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire.

Mandela said at a news conference in Cape Town that Mobutu has asked for four days to study South African proposals for a transfer of power.

Asked at the news conference if he would wait for Mobutu’s response before marching into Kinshasa, Kabila replied: “I have nothing to say about it.”

Kabila’s meeting with Mandela came a day after the rebel leader failed to attend a second round of scheduled face-to-face peace talks with Mobutu, to have been hosted by Mandela aboard a South African naval vessel off Pointe-Noire, Congo.

The collapse of the Wednesday talks appeared to scuttle diplomatic efforts to arrange a peaceful transfer of power.

But South Africa’s deputy president, Thabo Mbeki, insisted to reporters in Pointe-Noire that the impasse was just “a hiccup.”

In the streets of Zaire’s broken-down capital Thursday, bedraggled and disoriented groups of soldiers, their uniforms mismatched and torn, could be seen sitting on what was left of the curbs, asking passersby to direct them to local army bases, where they hoped to find food and shelter.