BY MEGAN ARNEY
On May 16, Mobutu Sese Seko fled Kinshasa, Zaire, after 31 years of dictatorial rule. The next day troops of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo/Zaire (AFDL) took over the capital city. With very little actual combat, the AFDL had crossed the third-largest country in Africa in just seven months. According to the Red Cross, some 220 people were killed in the capital.

On May 17, AFDL leader Laurent Kabila assumed presidential power and his regime renamed Zaire with its post-1960 independence name of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Washington and its allies across the globe have moved to recognize and work with the AFDL in hopes of restoring stability and establishing a pliant capitalist government.

After the AFDL took the capital city, they quickly moved to broadcast via the state radio for the citizens to remain calm and soldiers from the old regime to turn in their weapons. There were small celebrations for the downfall of the hated dictator in the streets. AFDL officials say the new government will suspend the activities of political parties and organizations other than the alliance.

U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright warned the incoming regime that there would be conditions for international support and aid. "We are making it very clear that it is important for the new government to be inclusive," she said.

The AFDL announced May 19 that it would not quickly organize elections. The May 22 Washington Post quoted an unnamed aid to Kabila saying that elections will be held in 12 months.

Daniel Simpson, the U.S. ambassador in Zaire, met with two senior AFDL officials May 19 and reiterated Washington's interest in the "inclusive" elections. In particular, the Clinton administration is pressing for Etienne Tshisekedi, leader of the Union of Democracy and Social Progress party, to be included. Tshisekedi was part of Mobutu's single-party government until 1980 before splitting to form the official bourgeois opposition. He has served as Mobutu's prime minister three times. Tshisekedi personally signed the arrest warrant for Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Lumumba, who led the independence movement against Belgium, was later murdered in government custody.

The local newspaper Le Potentiel predicted May 20 that Tshisekedi would be named Kabila's prime minister. That same day some 500 supporters rallied in front of Tshisekedi office. But when the AFDL requested Tshisekedi come to the rebel headquarters, he refused. According to Reuters news agency, when the AFDL was asked if it would include Tshisekedi's opposition party, Finance Minister Mwana Nanga Mawampanga said, "We don't include political parties. We only include individuals."

Foreign companies began lining up to meet with the incoming regime even before it took power, making deals with the AFDL to insure they can continue operations. Many are mining companies vying for the country's mineral wealth. The Democratic Republic of Congo leads the world in industrial diamond production, produces about a quarter of the world's cobalt, and ranks sixth in copper production. Other natural resources include various other metals, hydroelectric potential, and oil reserves.

Mobutu, who came into power in the 1960s with Washington's backing, has usurped billions of the country's wealth. For decades Washington and Paris relied on his regime as a protectorate in the region. Mobutu has long served imperialist interests in the region - from Mozambique to Angola - and has been a CIA employee.

Meanwhile, some 3,000 imperialist troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and elsewhere are still based in the capital city of Brazzaville, Congo, just across the river from Kinshasa, where they were placed on the pretext of a possible evacuation of foreign citizens.

The rebellion started in the far eastern part of what was then called Zaire. The Zairian government had for decades launched armed assaults against the border countries in that region - Angola, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. In October, local politicians in the southern Kivu province announced a plan to push 300,000 Tutsi who had lived in Zaire for more than two centuries, known as the Banyamulenge, into Rwanda. This attack sparked an armed uprising by the residents, who joined with the rebels and helped them push the Zairian army out of the city of Bukavu and take over Goma.

Initially, the rebellion was reportedly led by André Ngandu Kassasse, a leader of a bourgeois opposition group who called the conflict "a popular uprising against President Mobutu." He said November 5 that his forces crossed ethnic lines, and he himself was not a Tutsi. Kassasse was later killed.

Kabila came onto the scene about two weeks after the fighting started in October. In the past he was a youth leader of the independence political party of Lumumba, participated in the 1963-64 uprising in what is now called Kisangani, and fought with Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara in 1965. From 1964 to early 1980, Kabila headed the People's Revolutionary Party, and ruled an enclave in far eastern Zaire's Kivu province. From the 1980s until the rebellion, Kabila lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, running a thriving business selling gold mined from eastern Zaire. He owned another home in Uganda.

The Mobutu regime at one time had a strong army. Tel Aviv trained a special Presidential Division Mobutu used until he fled; Paris trained an airborne brigade; the Italian rulers assisted the Air Force; Belgian forces operated the military academy; and Washington doled out millions. Much of this support dried up in recent years, and as Zaire's economy crumbled so did the military. By last October, soldiers were being paid the equivalent of $1 a month, or not at all. Many were poorly armed and trained. The regime's decision last year to hire well-paid mercenaries didn't boost morale either, and the rebel forces quickly gained ground.

The AFDL forces had no mechanized divisions to move troops, no heavy artillery, no air force, no radios, and until later in the rebellion, no engineering units to cross rivers. The AFDL were reportedly joined by logistical and some military help from Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda troops. Angolan troops may have also provided military support later in the rebellion as the AFDL moved toward Kinshasa. The capitalist media continues to claim that these countries were the basis of the rebellion; the response from the governments of those countries is that they were not involved.

The AFDL forces picked up momentum as they crossed the country, recruiting many young people from the liberated areas. The rebels advanced with the help of the local population who gave them information, directions for the jungle terrain, and helped them cross rivers. This reflected the general hatred of Mobutu by the people of then Zaire. "Everywhere we go, the population is with the rebels," a Zairian colonel complained in Kisangani, three days before the third-largest city fell in March.

The new regime has laid out only a preliminary program, according to the Financial Times of London, saying it wants a multiparty democracy and a market economy. The AFDL has not been any more specific on their economic program.

With the capture of capital, the AFDL told economists to strengthen the zaire, the country's currency. Moneychangers on Kinshasa's "Wall Street" posted the zaire at about 70,000 to the dollar - doubling the value in just a week.

Just days after the fighting in the capital, the streets filled with people going back to work. Many big- business newspapers report high expectations of the new regime among the Congolese people, after three decades of the Mobutu dictatorship.  
 
 
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