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Can Mobutu Hang On?

For more than 30 years, President Mobutu Sese Seko has ruled Zaïre with an iron fist and greedy fingers. While Mobutu has grown rich, with homes in half a dozen countries, his people have grown ever poorer. In a land rich with diamonds, copper and gold, the people have nothing.

For months Laurent Kabila has led a rebel army against Mobutu. They have captured a quarter of Zaïre, and demand that the leader hand power to Kabila.

"This regime is completely worn out," Kabila recently told TIME. He promised to stop fighting only if Mobutu stepped down: "That is our condition for a cease-fire."

Mobutu is very sick from cancer and has spent much of the past few months in France trying to get better. But he refuses to give up power.

Last week both sides finally agreed to meet to discuss ending the seven-month war. The outcome of the talks is unclear, but the people of Zaïre hope that if Kabila does seize power, he will rule more fairly than Mobutu.

"We would have to make him understand that we do not want to live under dictatorship," said a doctor in Kinshasa, Zaïre's capital. "I have suffered so much. I cannot live like that again."

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