Waiting for the rebels

EVEN propaganda backfires on Zaire's demoralised army. After the United Nations pulled out of Kisangani last weekend, claiming harassment by Zairean soldiers, the army flew a dozen reporters to the city to show them that the UN had fled without reason and that its aid workers had abandoned more than 150,000 Rwandan refugees east of the town. Beside the Zaire river, in the shade of a bamboo tree, the city's governor, Lombeya Basongo, told the journalists that the UN's flight was political, designed to hurt the country. How, he asked, could a little place like Rwanda make war on Zaire unless it had powerful friends who wanted to destroy Zaire?