Rebel Advance Rattles Key Zaire City

KISANGANI, Zaire — Residents’ nerves are frayed in Zaire’s strategic Congo River port of Kisangani as rebels advance on what would be the biggest prize so far in their whirlwind campaign.

Tension is palpable in the crumbling streets of Kisangani, whose older residents have horrific memories of rebellions and subsequent army suppression during the 1960s.

The better off have already fled by boat or plane. Those who remain appear paralyzed by the twin fears engendered by encroaching war and the constant threat of plunder by the notoriously undisciplined Zairian army, which has made the provincial capital its headquarters.

Despite the collapse of its diamond and gold trade as Zaire’s 5-month-old civil war draws ever closer, Kisangani remains a pivotal point in the fighting. It is the gateway to more than 600 miles of navigable river flowing west, and its fall could provoke panic as far away as the capital, Kinshasa.

Tutsi-led rebels who took up arms in October when authorities tried to expel them to their ancestral homeland in Rwanda have seized a vast stretch of eastern Zaire.

Rebel leader Laurent Kabila says he is determined to end President Mobutu Sese Seko’s 31-year rule.