SOUTH AFRICA's Vice-President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, headed for Gabon yesterday for talks with Zaire's embattled President, Mr Mobutu Sese Seko, after winning a pledge from the rebel leader, Mr Laurent Kabila, to give diplomacy a chance.
Mr Mobutu, who is battling both cancer and Mr Kabila's rebels, delayed his return to Kinshasa for the talks with Mr Mbeki, which will lay the groundwork for another face-to-face meeting between the civil war rivals on a South African ship on Wednesday.
"Mr Kabila says he is committed to the peaceful resolution of the Zaire conflict," Mr Mbeki told reporters in Zaire's second city of Lubumbashi alter talks with the rebel leader.
"He is willing to give diplomacy a chance, and our understanding is he will not proceed with the military campaign until after next week's meeting," he added.
Earlier, as two more international airlines cancelled flights to Kinshasa, the rebels restated their demand that Mr Mobutu hand power to Mr Kabila.
"We insist as we have always insisted that Mr Mobutu must resign and hand over power directly to President Kabila," the rebel "foreign minister" Mr Bizima Karaha, said in Lubumbashi.
There was little fresh news from the war front. Last reports of the rebel advance spoke of a bloody battle at the start of the week at Kenge, around 25km from Kinshasa.
Mr Mbeki is shuttling round Africa as part of efforts to head off a bloody battle for Zaire's capital. He is trying to build on talks between Mr Mobutu and Mr Kabila hosted by President Nelson Mandela on a South African ship on Sunday. He said Mr Kabila had agreed to meet Mr Mobutu on a South African navy ship again on Wednesday and he assumed Mr Mobutu would attend.
Mr Karaha accused French-speaking Central African presidents who held a mini-summit in Libreville with Mr Mobutu one Thursday of "playing games and trying to protect Mobutu". The summit foresaw a key role ford Zaire's parliament and urged early replacement of its speaker, the constitutional successor in the event of Mr Mobutu's death or incapacity.
"We cannot be fooled." Mr Karaha said. The proposal is absolute nonsense to us.
Mr Mobutu's spokesman in Gabon expected yesterday's talks with Mr Mbeki to last around 40 minutes. Officials expected Mr Mobutu to return to Kinshasa today.
Mr Mobutu's fellow French-speaking Central African presidents welcomed his decision not to seek re-election, saying it opened a way for a peaceful end to the war.
The UN yesterday accused the rebels of blocking an investigation into alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern Zaire by denying UN investigators and forensic experts access to rebel-controlled areas to dig up mass graves.
. Two boats carrying 34 refugee Zaireans and Rwandan Hutus have disappeared on the River Zaire after a collision, a military source in Congo said on Friday.
The source said the two boats disappeared on Wednesday night around 45Okm north of the capital, Brazzaville. He added that a search was under way for the missing refugees.