Chris McGreal in Kigali
ZAIREAN rebels say they have launched an assault against the main diamond-mining region, threatening a major source of the elite’s wealth and potentially providing the insurgents with an important means of funding their war against ailing President Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime.
The Rwandan-backed insurgents are headed toward the regional capital, Mbuji-Mayi, where the giant South African De Beers corporation has considerable investments.
The rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, has sent a 27-page letter to Mobutu, who is convalescing from cancer in the south of France, asking him to resign.
“It is impossible for Zaire to get itself out of the mess it is in, with no constitutional government, no independent judiciary, no constitution. The country’s leader is reigning unconstitutionally, placing himself above the law and holding his people hostage,” a summary of the letter said.
The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire is attacking on at least two fronts after seizing a 650km stretch of territory on Zaire’s eastern borders. Beside targeting the mineral-rich Kasai region in the centre of the country, an alliance leader, Jean Kabongo, said his men are also pressing toward Kisangani, the largest city in the north.
A rebel seizure of Mbuji-Mayi and other diamond-mining areas might prove crippling to Mobutu’s regime. Even through the decades of economic collapse in Zaire, the diamond industry remained a lucrative source of funds for Mobutu and his cronies.
The rebels have assured mining companies – including De Beers, which buys most of Zaire’s diamonds – that they will be free to continue operating in “liberated” territory.
But Kabila said the mining firms will be expected to pay taxes to the rebel administration.