Kabila

LUBUMBASHI, Zaire -- Until seven months ago, the man who declared himself president of what he has renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo was an obscure rebel leader with a history of starting quixotic Marxist revolts that fell apart. He had never administered anything larger than a small socialist commune in the mountains of eastern Zaire in the 1970s.Now Laurent Desire Kabila has succeeded in ousting President Mobutu Sese Seko and becoming the next ruler of Zaire, a vast country of more than 40 million people whose tribal and regional conflicts would try the skills of the most masterful statesman.

THE DEATH RATTLE of the 32-year tyranny of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire came when Gen. Nzimbi Ngbale donned civilian clothes and hopped a speedboat to sanctuary in neighboring Congo. If a last stand was going to be made, the presidential guard he commanded would have made it. The departure of President Mobutu from Kinshasa and announcement of his giving up power were anticlimax.Taking over an unresisting Kinshasa is a daunting challenge. It is a Third World megalopolis of some five million people, who need water and food and sanitation, reached by few roads, a mighty river and an airport.

Those who kept Mobutu in power are worried about Kabila's commitment to democracy.The U.S. report adds little to what was known about Switzerland's gold policy 50 years ago except the Truman administration's indifference to it.If we hold cigarette companies liable for cancer, are spray-paint manufacturers guilty of graffiti?Lieutenant Sweeney died for all Baltimoreans.Pub Date: 5/09/97

WITH KINSHASA preparing to welcome Laurent Kabila and his Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seku's 32-year misrule of Zaire is virtually ended, and the trauma of rebellion nearly so.President Mobutu flew mercifully to Gabon yesterday. Although promising to return, he will dismay all Zairians if he fails to fly on to his ill-gotten villa in the south of France, there to see out his remaining days.A Western world that created, coddled and ignored the Mobutu tyranny has suddenly awakened to imperfections of the obscure liberator.

WASHINGTON -- The best thing about Laurent Kabila, in the eyes of Washington, is that he is not Mobutu Sese Seko -- the president of Zaire for 31 years but almost surely for not much longer.American officials are now on Kabila's side as he prepares to push Mobutu aside and become Zaire's ruler. But he is a figure with a checkered past and worrisome recent actions whose capacity for leading the vast African nation remains unknown.For several weeks, the Clinton administration has been trying to get Mobutu to face reality by stepping aside to allow a peaceful transition for Kabila, whose troops have virtually conquered the whole country.

WHETHER President Mobutu Sese Seko takes advantage of a South African offer to meet with Zairian rebels matters less and less as each hour passes. His misrule is coming to the end.In seven months, the rebels have seized more than half of Africa's third-largest nation. Yesterday, they captured Kikwit, a city on a major highway 250 miles east of the capital. "The next stop is Kinshasa," a rebel spokesman said.The U.S. position is revealing. After propping up the regime for so long, Washington now wants President Mobutu to resign so democratic elections can be held and the possible disintegration of Zaire avoided.

HAVANA -- He was Che Guevara's worst headache. Laurent Kabila, leader of the rebel forces in Zaire, is portrayed as leader of an earlier, failed rebellion, but witnesses from those times say he was often far from the fighting, and had a tendency to issue orders that were impossible to carry out.Guevara and nearly 100 Cuban officers spent six months in Zaire -- then the Congo -- in 1965. trying to train fighters in a movement begun by members of the government of that assassinated Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- President Nelson Mandela invited Zaire's beleaguered President Mobutu Sese Seko yesterday to meet with rebel leader Laurent Kabila for face-to-face talks here in South Africa.The invitation caps a sustained effort by Mandela's government to play a leading role as continental peacemaker in a civil war that threatens not only the survival of Zaire but Central Africa's stability."We are confident that all parties are committed now to having a summit between the two leaders," Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said in a radio interview last night.

THE ASPECT of the Zairian civil war crying out for international intervention is the plight of Hutu refugees, herded by former soldiers toward death by starvation and disease. Laurent Kabila, who seems certain to take over Zaire in the near future, will then want international aid, respect and cooperation. He should be judged on how well he facilitates aid agencies in finding and rescuing these refugees.Of some 100,000 surviving Hutu refugees who fled the Tingi-Tingi camp in March, some two-thirds have been spotted moving toward the Central African Republic to the north.

KISANGANI, Zaire -- The three guerrillas looked menacing amid the market stalls. Two held shiny assault rifles. Their leader, a huge man with a bushy beard, wore a pistol at his side. Suddenly, they stopped and gruffly ordered Marie Lifaefi to fill a bottle with cooking oil from the vat at her feet.When she finished, the leader slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out money. He smiled, paid for the palm oil, and the rebels wandered on.Behind them, Lifaefi, 40, seemed stunned. "Before, soldiers took everything by force," she explained.