PRESIDENT Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and the Zairean rebel leader Mr Laurent Kabila will meet tomorrow for talks on board a South African ship, President Clinton's special envoy, Mr Bill Richardson, announced in Kinshasa last night.
The meeting will take place under UN auspices in international waters on a ship that will set sail from the Gabonese capital of Libreville.
"I am pleased to announce that President Mobutu and Mr Kabila have agreed to face to face talks" he said. "This is a historic occasion that hopefully will lead to a peaceful transition in Zaire. There are no preconditions," said the US envoy.
The breakthrough announcement came after Mr Richardson had met President Mobutu for the second time in two days. In between, he met Mr Kabila in the rebel held city of Lubumbashi in southeast Zaire.
Asked about the possibility of a ceasefire during the talks, Mr Richardson replied: "It is our hope that there will be a ceasefire while these talks take place."
Mr Kabila's rebels have captured more than half the country since they started their offensive to topple President Mobutu more than six months ago.
The ailing President Mobutu (66), who is recuperating after prostate cancer surgery, has been in power in Zaire for 32 years.
Mr Richardson said other African leaders would also take part in the encounter. He did not say who, hut went out of his way to praise President Mandela of South Africa, who is expected to chair the talks, and President Omar Bongo of Gabon. The US envoy will also be present at the start of the talks.
Earlier yesterday, when Mr Richardson arrived in the eastern city of Kisangani, he said Mr Kabila had told him that anyone found guilty of massacring Rwandan refugees would be punished. The rebel leader also assured him that a 60 day deadline for the repatriation of the Hutu refugees was flexible". Aid workers had said the 60 day deadline Mr Kabila had imposed for repatriating all the refugees was unrealistic.
Some 85,000 refugees disappeared from two camps south of Kisangani at the end of last week after clashes with Zaireans. They are now starting to emerge from the dense forest.
Yesterday, UN officials flew 236 Rwandan refugees from Kisangani to Kigali in Rwanda in the first major repatriation flight since last week. Among the refugees were 186 refugee children orphaned or separated from their families. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), was planning two more flights to the Rwandan capital and one to the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi last night, said Mr Peter Kessler, Nairobi spokesman for UNHCR.
Another UNHCR official in Kisangani, Mr Paul Stromberg, said if the flights become regular, it would be possible to repatriate more than 1,200 refugees a day.
Mr Richardson said Mr Kabila had promised him that aid agencies complaining of restrictions imposed by the rebels would have free access to the refugees, who say that several hundred Rwandans were massacred at the Biaro camp, 41 km south of Kisangani, as they fled.
The rebels sent a train down to the Biaro camp, where some 10,000 refugees have reemerged, bringing 900 of them, including 500 to 600 children, back to Kisangani to await repatriation.
Mr Richardson said he was "very concerned" about the massacre reports, but said Mr Kabila had agreed to allow an international team to visit Biaro to investigate the accusations.
The US envoy went down to the Zaire River to see refugees coming across by ferry, and also visited a transit centre for refugees, most of them unaccompanied children, before driving to the airport.
The refugees, many of them emaciated and ill, have been fleeing the rebel advance since last October. Before that they were in huge camps along the Rwandan border after fleeing their country in 1994, fearing revenge at the hands of the victorious Tutsi rebel army for the slaughter by Hutu extremists of more than 500,000 men, women and children.