Zaire Talks Collapse as Rebel Chief Fails to Show

KINSHASA, Zaire — Planned peace talks to avert a bloody battle for Zaire’s capital broke down Wednesday, and Kinshasa’s millions retreated to their homes as part of a general strike while awaiting the threatened appearance of rebel forces.

Residents still hoped that President Mobutu Sese Seko--stood up by rebel leader Laurent Kabila on Wednesday for talks on a ship off Pointe-Noire, Congo--would give up his losing war without attempting a last stand against Kabila.

“We don’t want war in Kinshasa,” said Bienvenu Ikongho, a 19-year-old student.

Kabila said he objected to the site of the meeting, but his snub raised doubts about whether he was willing to stop fighting just as the capital was within his reach.

A Western diplomat and Zairian military officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kabila’s rebels had reached the Black River, about 60 miles outside Kinshasa--the last major defensive position before the capital.

State-run radio, seeking to allay suspicions in the capital of an impending fight, declared that rebels were much farther away--on the far side of the Kwango River, 120 miles east of Kinshasa.

Kinshasa’s people listened inside their homes, kept off the streets by a general strike called by the rebels’ supporters and a night curfew imposed by the government, ostensibly to prevent looting.

People who were on the streets paid little attention earlier in the day when Mobutu’s motorcade sped through Kinshasa on its way to the airport. There, the increasingly reviled president boarded his private Boeing 727 to fly to the talks.

Once in Congo, Mobutu waited for hours for Kabila’s arrival. The South African ship kept its engines running, waiting to take the two rivals into international waters as agreed. Finally, frustrated U.N. envoy Mohamed Sahnoun announced that Kabila had raised a last-minute objection to the site of the talks.

Sahnoun said Kabila had wanted the ship to be in international waters when his helicopter arrived--contrary to already agreed-on conditions. Mediators refused to comply.

Sahnoun and South African President Nelson Mandela, another key mediator seeking to broker an end to Zaire’s war, said they will ask Mobutu and Kabila to consider talks in South Africa instead.

“We are not going to give up,” Sahnoun said. “We will continue to try to avoid another humanitarian tragedy.”

Bill Richardson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had called Mobutu and Kabila on Tuesday night to urge their participation in the talks.

On Wednesday, the State Department reiterated its warning to the 325 Americans still in Zaire to leave the country.

“This is a serious warning. A lot of people are staying. They’re not really responding to this plea to leave,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said. “We cannot anticipate how the Zairian army itself is going to react to the transition. We can’t anticipate if there are going to be pitched battles in the streets of Kinshasa. We don’t know.”

Mobutu did not immediately return to Zaire, again giving rise to rumors that he would instead head into permanent exile. He has passed up other opportunities to do so recently.

In Kinshasa, the collapse of the talks led to speculation that Mobutu’s generals might be preparing their own solution to the crisis.

One scenario had it that with Mobutu now safely out of town the Zairian armed forces would change sides, secure Kinshasa’s airport and help the rebels start landing personnel and equipment here.

The rebels are reported to have thousands of troops standing by in the captured towns of Kikwit and Kananga, which have airports. They are also reported to have access to aircraft from Angola, as well as the ability to hire or commandeer charters in the territory they control.

Until now, Mobutu’s generals have shown remarkable forbearance, loyally backing their president even as their troops have gone from defeat to humiliating defeat.

Now, however, with the rebels poised to close in on the city, some observers believe that the time is right for Zaire’s generals to jump to the other side.

“The dangerous thing for Kinshasa would be if they tried to do something like that without the agreement of the [presidential guards],” said one Western observer, naming the elite military unit assigned to protect Mobutu.

Over the years, Mobutu has built a “coup-proof” military by breaking it into four independent branches, each of which can be played off the others.

Even at Kinshasa’s airport, one branch controls the runway, another controls the interior of the building, a third is responsible for planes and other individual assets, and the regular army keeps paratroopers in a camp across the street.

All of these branches would have to agree to change sides at the same time for a coup to work.

The regular Zairian army is demoralized and expected by many to desert en masse the minute the troops get the chance.

“The soldiers are afraid,” said Jose Feruzi, a reporter for a Kinshasa newspapers. “Some of them wear civilian clothes under their uniforms. . . . I have seen this with my own eyes.”

Mobutu’s presidential guards, by contrast, were recently paid about $30 each--enough in this country’s disastrous economy to create a semblance of esprit de corps and, possibly, motivation to fight.

Meanwhile, Kinshasa’s residents on Wednesday observed what they call a “dead city,” or general strike, to signal their vehement opposition to Mobutu.

Traffic was light in the normally clogged streets, and people avoided walking for fear of harassment by ubiquitous plainclothes and uniformed soldiers.

“The ‘dead city’ shows that we’re no longer obeying the system,” said Feruzi, adding that he had gone out only because he had an appointment. “It’s a sign that we no longer want Mobutu. We pray that this country will never have such a president again.”

Times staff writer Mary Williams Walsh contributed to this report from Kinshasa.