Official Admits Role in Zaire War

Rwanda’s powerful defense minister, Paul Kagame, has acknowledged for the first time his country’s key role in the overthrow of Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko, saying that the Rwandan government planned and directed the rebellion that toppled the longtime dictator and that Rwandan troops and officers led the rebel forces. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila, who in May proclaimed himself president of what is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo, has maintained that his forces were assembled from among Congo’s many ethnic groups. But the large number of ethnic Tutsis--who account for a tiny percentage of Congo’s population but dominate the government and armies of Rwanda and Burundi--in the rebels’ ranks have led Kabila’s critics to claim Congo is being ruled by a Rwandan occupation force.