THE ZAIREAN government, with fierce fighting in the east of the country, announced yesterday it would deport Rwandan and Burundian Hutu refugees progressively and by force".
In a statement issued after a cabinet meeting, the transitional government of Zaire said it had decided to start returning "progressively and by force all the Rwandan and Burundian refugees on [its] territory".
Zaire has since last year several times started moving small numbers of refugees out of the camps that were set up in eastern Zaire in 1994. More than one million Rwandan and Burundian refugees, mainly Hutus, have taken refuge there since July 1994. The Rwandans mostly fled their country to escape feared retribution by Tutsi led forces for the genocide carried out in Rwanda by Hutu extremists that year.
But in its statement, the government said it would refuse to take part in any meeting on the crisis in eastern Zaire "so long as the aggressor has not left Zairean soil".
It did not identify "the aggressor", but Zaire, has frequently accused the Tutsi led government of Rwanda of backing the Tutsi rebels fighting Zairean forces in eastern Zaire.
In Zaire's capital, Kinshasa, Tutsis, who feature prominently among the city's business and professional classes, started to pack and flee, fearing that fighting in the east would touch off a witchhunt.
The fighting in east Zaire has already claimed hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives.
State Zairean radio yesterday said Zaire's transitional parliament had voted to sever diplomatic relations with Rwanda Burundi and Uganda, the three neighbours accused by Kinshasa of waging war against the sprawling Central African nation.
Rwanda denies having any troops in Goma, where its soldiers were reported to be yesterday, but says it reserves the right to defend itself from cross border shelling.
Tutsis from Zaire, who have lived for generations in Zaire but became the target of attack by the Hutu refugees and the Zairean government forces in recent months, have in recent weeks pushed the Zairean army out of a long strip of land along the Rwandan and Burundian borders seizing a series of towns.
Hundreds of Tutsis have already quit Kinshasa, most fleeing across the broad Zaire River to Congo. Many talk of harassment.
The Prime Minister, Mr Kengo wa Dondo, with his government under pressure over the fighting in the east, said in Kinshasa Zaire's army had retaken Bukavu and Uvira to the south, where the rebels launched their revolt a fortnight ago.
Mr Kengo, who is part Tutsi, said Zaire's army had the means to defend the country. "Nobody can say that the army doesn't have the means for its operation," he said.
It also emerged yesterday that the country's ailing 66 year old President Mobutu Sese Seko might be more seriously ill with cancer than is being admitted.
Mobutu, an immensely wealthy western backed military dictator who has ruled since 1965, is being treated for prostate cancer in Switzerland.
The French daily Le Monde said yesterday that Mobutu's cancer had spread and was at an advanced stage, stopping the president from returning home.
Aid workers in the eastern town of Goma, the scene of fierce fighting yesterday, told newsagency reporters that Rwandan troops were in the town. Rwandan officials denied this.
International officials have called for Rwanda and Zaire to hold peace talks to avert an all out war in the region. So far these calls have been ignored.
The government meanwhile announced the closure of the borders of the North Kivu and South Kivu regions, where the fighting is taking place, and said it was banning flights over the two regions.
The government also claimed that the town of Bukavu was still in government hands. Bukavu is "under the control of our armed forces, but there are some pockets of resistance," it said in its statement.
The government said that in Goma fierce battles between our forces and the Rwandan Patriotic Army have been taking place since 10 a.m. (9 a.m. GMT) this morning."