ZAIREAN rebels captured another town in mineral-rich Shaba province yesterday, foreign sources said, a day after agreeing to hold talks with President Mobutu Sese Seko's shaky regime.
The reported fall of Kasenga was a quick reminder that Mr Laurent-Desire Kabila's rebels have a military agenda and are only willing to negotiate the terms of Mr Mobutu's departure.
Mr Kabila controls about a quarter of Zaire, five months after starting the revolt in the east, and his supporters already call him "president".
Delegates for Mr Kabila and Mr Mobutu agreed this week, at a summit in the small west African country of Togo, to hold the first negotiations between the two sides. The talks probably will take place in South Africa early next week.
It is definitely rebel troops who are in control of Kasenga," an expatriate source in the Shaba capital, Lubumbashi, with contacts in Kasenga, said. Kasenga is on Lake Mweru, 220 km north-east of Lubumbashi, Zaire's second city and the centre of the country's colossal reserves of copper, cobalt and precious metals.
There was no immediate confirmation of the fall from the government side, in Lubumbashi or Zaire's capital, Kinshasa.
"If nothing changes, then the talks will be in South Africa and will begin on either Monday or Tuesday," Mr Moise Nyarugabo, secretary-general at rebel headquarters, said in Goma.
Mr Nyarugabo said the issue on the table was the transfer of power to a transitional government led by Mr Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL). "The principle is the alliance would form the government, it is not a question of power-sbaring. Mobutu's party has been in power for 30 years and the results are evident," he said.
Mr Mobutu took power in 1965 with western backing. His regime degenerated into wholesale corruption, inspiring the term "kleptocracy". He returned home a week ago, weakened by fresh, cancer treatment in Europe.