PEACE talks between Zaire's warring parties will officially open in Pretoria this morning under the auspices of the UN, according to officials of the South African Foreign Ministry.
Ford the first time since the Zairean conflict began last October, a negotiating team appointed "by President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and one appointed by the rebel leader, Mr Laurent Desire Kabila, will meet face to face.
Marshal Mobutu's envoy, Mr Honore Ngbanda Nzambo, will lead a combined delegation representing the president, parliamentary parties, the army and justice ministry to the groundbreaking talks, according to diplomats.
On the other side of the table, Mr Bizimana Karaha will head a delegation representing Mr Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo Zaire (AFDL), which already controls more than a quarter of Zaire. The talks will be chaired by the special envoy of the UN and the Organisation of African Unity, Mr Mohamed Sahnoun.
Mr Ngabanda, President Mobutu's envoy, refused to comment on Mr Kabila's rejection of an offer by Zaire's new Prime Minister, Mr Etienne Tshisekedi, to give the rebels seats in the Zairean cabinet, and on Mr Tshisekedi's declaration that he does "not see" the need for the Pretoria talks.
In the rebels' headquarters in Goma in eastern Zaire, the talks are seen simply as a gesture of goodwill to the international community. The rebels are negotiating from a position of strength, determined to make no concessions on a ceasefire or sharing power.
Buoyed by their capture of the key sections of Zaire since going on the offensive six months ago and advancing close to the country's second city Lubumbashi, the rebel forces captured the capital of the diamond rich Eastern Kasai province, Mbuji Mayi, yesterday.
Their overriding aim is to see the departure of Mobutu, who has ruled Zaire for 31 years.
Rebel troops entered Mbuji Mayi after government forces fled, according to informed sources in Lubumbashi. Witnesses said government soldiers seized vehicles and engaged in looting, rape and murder.
In Brussels the leaders of the world's four biggest humanitarian organisations yesterday launched an unprecedented joint appeal for help for thousands of refugees trapped by fighting in eastern Zaire.
Ms Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ms Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF. Ms Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Programme and Ms Emma Bonino, the European Commissioner responsible for humanitarian affairs, said urgent help was needed in Zaire.
"We appeal to the participants ... to fully consider the urgent humanitarian needs of hundreds of thousands of refugees and deplaced Zaireans stranded in the war zone," they said.
The four said relief workers urgently needed access to areas from which reports of thousands of starving refugees were emerging.
"We have witnessed the plight of the refugees ourselves," they said. These people fled into the rain forest to escape the fighting and violence in the region. We are now trying to help them and prepare them for repatriation.
"However, many thousands of Rwandan and Burundi refugees as well as internally displaced Zaireans remain out of reach. We are appealing to the international community for urgent assistance."
Some 250,000 child refugees from Rwanda and Burundi are wandering alone in eastern Zaire, according to UNICEF's Zaire spokeswoman in Bonn.
Ms Danielle Maillefer called for pressure to be exerted on Kinshasa to force it to allow UNICEF greater access to the unaccompanied children, saying that it was currently impossible to ship sufficient aid.
Tens of thousands of children are in the forests near Kisangani, in north east Zaire, and thousands could die of hunger or exhaustion, Ms Mailleter said, warning of a new humanitarian disaster.
UNICEF puts the number of refugees in eastern Zaire at around 460,000, Ms Maillefer said. Aid workers said there were probably 100,000 Rwandan and Burundian refugees south of Kisangani up to the town of Ubundu, about 100 km from Kisangani.
In Kisangani, Mr Paul Stromberg of the UNHCR said 120 Hutu refugees among some 80,000 in eastern Zaire are dying every day three times the normal death rate in camps. He said 120 died daily among the 80,000 refugees in two main groups 25 km and 42 km south of Kisangani.
"We have a figure of 120 dead a day. That's 15 per 10,000 per day - compared with what in reasonable circumstances in camps should be five per 10,000 per day," he said.