SOUTH AFRICA's attempt to broker a pence agreement to prevent a final, bloody climax to Zaire's civil war is tinged with increasing irritation with, and suspicion of the rebel leader, Patrick Laurence writes from Johannesburg.
Mr Laurent Kabila has angered President Nelson Mandela by twice delaying the start of the South Africa-sponsored direct talks on the naval vessel Outeniqua.
On neither occasion, however, did Mr Mandela allow Mr Kabila's brinkmanship to distract him from the objective of clinching a deal. On the first he agreed to Mr Kabila's demand that the vessel sail into international waters, at a cost of millions of rands to South African taxpayers; on the second he prudently arranged for Mr Kabiln to fly to Cape Town - on a South African military aircraft - where he outlined the peace plan which had earlier been discussed with President Mobutu Sese Seko.
The Johannesburg-based Financial Mail remarked: "Initially portrayed as a saviour of (Zaire) and the antithesis of all that ailing despot Mobutu symbolised, Kabila's more recent actions suggest that he could simply be another self-serving tyrant in the making."
