President Mobutu Sese Seko’s besieged government says it has sent fresh troops into the latest major city targeted by rebels, who control more than half of Zaire.
Mobutu also agreed to meet rebel leader Laurent Kabila in the neighboring Gabonese capital, Libreville, for talks aimed at ending the seven-month civil war, according to a statement released by Gabon’s president, Omar Bongo.
The statement said efforts are being made to get Kabila to the table and that South African President Nelson Mandela would head the talks.
Mobutu spokesman Kabuya Lumuna said he is awaiting a rebel response.
Kabila was in Lusaka, Zambia, on Friday, which he recently said could be another venue for talks. Kabila has insisted such talks must lead to Mobutu agreeing to end his long dictatorship.
Meanwhile, the government announced plans to send troops into the city of Kikwit, the next major city in the path of the rebel army marching westward toward the capital of Kinshasa.
“The town is calm, but it’s a precarious calm,” said Kamitatu Massamba, a veteran politician from Kikwit, 250 miles east of Kinshasa. “Many people are fleeing into the surrounding villages because they are afraid of the soldiers.”
The city of 250,000 made international headlines in 1995 when it was the center of an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.
