Days of decline at the Inter

The Ukrainian mercenaries - all beards, moustaches and pearly-white bellies - were lounging at the poolside. Tinny Christmas carols floated over the hotel music system even though it was a sweltering January morning.

The hired guns clinked their beer bottles and chortled. For work, they had to wear the army fatigues of another country. But now, on their day off, they could strut around wearing nothing but Y-fronts.

At first, the ostentatious underwear parade had outraged upper-crust guests. One regular sighed: "The management asked them to start wearing togs instead. But I don't think everyone got the message."

International business hotels build their reputations on being staid, clinically efficient, places. It's not a charge that can be laid against the Kinshasa Inter-Continental.

Having played centre stage to some of Congo's great dramas of recent years, the "Inter", as it is popularly known, has become a five-star national institution. Expensive, yes, but boring, most definitely not.

Soldiers and generals from four different countries tramp through its marble corridors, Kalashnikovs swinging casually from their shoulders. Government snoops wearing Laurent Kabila shirts jostle with prostitutes for seats at the bar, hoping to eavesdrop on foreign journalists.

The foreign affairs minister runs an unofficial office from the coffee dock, juggling calls on his two mobile phones. Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations mission is up on the 21st floor, his suite of faux-antique pink furniture overlooking the magnificent sweep of the river Congo.

In its heyday, this was the most profitable Inter-Continental in the world. Foreign businessmen would crowd into its over-priced rooms to make lucrative deals with the rapacious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and his acolytes.

But now Mobutu is gone, Congo is at war and the clientele are as likely to be carrying bullets as briefcases. The "Inter-Continental" title has been dropped and it is simply called the Grand Hotel.

Perhaps the clumsily hidden spy cameras in rooms assigned to journalists embarrassed the international chain. Or maybe it heard about the time a UN soldier found an antelope defecating in the corridor - the animal was a war souvenir picked up by a Zimbabwean soldier in a neighbouring room.

In 1997, Mobutu's family were holed up in suite 1153, watching nervously as the rebels advanced on Kinshasa. On the eve of the family's flight, Mobutu's hated son, Kongolo - popularly known as Saddam - stomped into the hotel at three in the morning, thirsting for revenge.

On that occasion, quick-thinking management cut off the lifts, preventing a bloodbath. And within hours the Mobutu family had flown, leaving behind the pathetic detritus of dishonest living: their Zairean passports, drawers stuffed with designer clothes and - perhaps fittingly - a bill for $1 million.