President Mobutu

The Zaire crisis will not end with President Mobutu Sese Seko's appointment of Nguza Karl-I-Bond as his fifth prime minister this year. The embattled dictator had promised that appointment to the opposition umbrella group, Sacred Union, which insists that Etienne Tshisekedi be prime minister until elections are held. Mr. Mobutu sacked Mr. Tshisekedi in October for independence and denying the president access to the treasury.Mr. Nguza, who has been vice president and ambassador to Washington, has broken with President Mobutu five times and returned to the fold as often.

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.

SOUTH AFRICA was initially hesitant to get involved in the Zaire crisis. In November, when the Great Lake region summit discussed spreading rebellion in that pivotal Central African country, President Nelson Mandela's envoy was such an insignificant observer he had to sit outside and wait.But now that other peace efforts have failed, President Mandela is using his stature in the international community to start what may be the last opportunity at mediation. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila secretly jetted to South Africa to meet with Mr. Mandela.

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.

THE REBELLION has paused for three days to consolidate its gains, which are now half of Zaire, as it prepares the final push to Kinshasa and the sea. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila gave President Mobutu Sese Seku this time to hand over the country. If the reaction of the million people in Lubumbashi is indicative, the country is handing itself to Mr. Kabila, with most people welcoming him as a liberator.So much for the brief negotiation in Pretoria, or talk of a cease-fire, or shared power, or the forlorn U.S. State Department suggestion about transitional arrangements.

THE HOMECOMING of President Mobutu Sese Seku after four months in Europe was the best thing that could happen to troubled Zaire in the short term. He was running his regime by phone, diplomats attest. Even his enemies give him some credit for holding the country together. The best use he could possibly make of this probably brief presence, however, would be to prepare an orderly departure.After international agencies and donor nations suspended Zaire's aid, the dictator who seized power with U.S. support in 1965 pledged to hold nationwide elections next June.

The job of holding Zaire together was made more difficult, no matter who is attempting it, by the riots and looting in the capital Kinshasa, the mining center Kolwezi and other towns that erupted late last month. Food and medicine were stolen, factories wrecked, health care centers dismantled. AIDS may even have been spread by the theft of hospital research center refrigerators containing blood samples.Now that President Mobutu Sese Seko has appointed his sworn opponent, Etienne Tshisekedi, to be prime minister, only to threaten to fire him for trying to grab control of the military, confusion rather than either of these two politicians rules the 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.

LONG-DELAYED negotiations between Zaire's apparently invincible rebels and its supposed government were to begin in Pretoria, the South African capital, today. The representatives of rebel leader Laurent Kabila were there yesterday and ready to talk of an orderly transition of power. It wasn't clear whether representatives of the government were showing up.It doesn't matter. Yesterday, Mr. Kabila's troops took the diamond center of Mbuji Mayi and were closing in on the copper capital and second city, Lubumbashi.

Zaire and Somalia have notable differences. Zaire has five times as many people and three times the land area. Zaire is much richer in resources, and therefore matters more to the outside world. Zaire's society is breaking down, while Somalia's has broken down. And what happens to Zaire is more Washington's responsibility than Somalia is.Last weekend's mutiny of troops paid in new currency they consider worthless, the death of some 1,000 people in riots, the murder of the French ambassador and the rescue of Europeans in Kinshasa by French troops crossing the Congo River from the Republic of Congo are part of the death agony of President Mobutu Sese Seko's regime.

THE REBELLION has paused for three days to consolidate its gains, which are now half of Zaire, as it prepares the final push to Kinshasa and the sea. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila gave President Mobutu Sese Seku this time to hand over the country. If the reaction of the million people in Lubumbashi is indicative, the country is handing itself to Mr. Kabila, with most people welcoming him as a liberator.So much for the brief negotiation in Pretoria, or talk of a cease-fire, or shared power, or the forlorn U.S. State Department suggestion about transitional arrangements.

LONG-DELAYED negotiations between Zaire's apparently invincible rebels and its supposed government were to begin in Pretoria, the South African capital, today. The representatives of rebel leader Laurent Kabila were there yesterday and ready to talk of an orderly transition of power. It wasn't clear whether representatives of the government were showing up.It doesn't matter. Yesterday, Mr. Kabila's troops took the diamond center of Mbuji Mayi and were closing in on the copper capital and second city, Lubumbashi.

IT IS ABUNDANTLY clear that Zairians will not fight to save the presidency of Mobutu Sese Seku, whose chief protectors are foreigners: Hutu refugees who were soldiers in Rwanda; Serb and Croatian mercenaries, and some UNITA insurrectionaries of Jonas Savimbi in Angola. But Zairian civilians, aside from the ruling clique in Kinshasa, are more afraid of the Zairian army -- unpaid looters who won't fight -- than of the rebels. Better the devil they don't know.Rebel forces of Laurent Kabila are moving inexorably forward from the fifth of the country they occupy.

SOUTH AFRICA was initially hesitant to get involved in the Zaire crisis. In November, when the Great Lake region summit discussed spreading rebellion in that pivotal Central African country, President Nelson Mandela's envoy was such an insignificant observer he had to sit outside and wait.But now that other peace efforts have failed, President Mandela is using his stature in the international community to start what may be the last opportunity at mediation. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila secretly jetted to South Africa to meet with Mr. Mandela.

THE HOMECOMING of President Mobutu Sese Seku after four months in Europe was the best thing that could happen to troubled Zaire in the short term. He was running his regime by phone, diplomats attest. Even his enemies give him some credit for holding the country together. The best use he could possibly make of this probably brief presence, however, would be to prepare an orderly departure.After international agencies and donor nations suspended Zaire's aid, the dictator who seized power with U.S. support in 1965 pledged to hold nationwide elections next June.

GOMA, Zaire -- On a lakeshore outside this once pleasant resort town lies a ruined palace, testimony to the opulent lifestyle of President Mobutu Sese Seko and the violence that is pushing his country into the annals of African suffering.Soldiers for one of several rebel armies now guard the sprawling mansion where Mobutu used to sit on ornate chairs with lions thrusting their gilded heads from the armrests. Above him was his own portrait, hammered out of local copper. In one of the bathrooms, there is still a gallon-size jar of French cologne with the label "Je Reviens" -- "I am coming back."

IT IS ABUNDANTLY clear that Zairians will not fight to save the presidency of Mobutu Sese Seku, whose chief protectors are foreigners: Hutu refugees who were soldiers in Rwanda; Serb and Croatian mercenaries, and some UNITA insurrectionaries of Jonas Savimbi in Angola. But Zairian civilians, aside from the ruling clique in Kinshasa, are more afraid of the Zairian army -- unpaid looters who won't fight -- than of the rebels. Better the devil they don't know.Rebel forces of Laurent Kabila are moving inexorably forward from the fifth of the country they occupy.

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.

Zaire and Somalia have notable differences. Zaire has five times as many people and three times the land area. Zaire is much richer in resources, and therefore matters more to the outside world. Zaire's society is breaking down, while Somalia's has broken down. And what happens to Zaire is more Washington's responsibility than Somalia is.Last weekend's mutiny of troops paid in new currency they consider worthless, the death of some 1,000 people in riots, the murder of the French ambassador and the rescue of Europeans in Kinshasa by French troops crossing the Congo River from the Republic of Congo are part of the death agony of President Mobutu Sese Seko's regime.

The Zaire crisis will not end with President Mobutu Sese Seko's appointment of Nguza Karl-I-Bond as his fifth prime minister this year. The embattled dictator had promised that appointment to the opposition umbrella group, Sacred Union, which insists that Etienne Tshisekedi be prime minister until elections are held. Mr. Mobutu sacked Mr. Tshisekedi in October for independence and denying the president access to the treasury.Mr. Nguza, who has been vice president and ambassador to Washington, has broken with President Mobutu five times and returned to the fold as often.