Hailing him as a hero, civilians cheered Friday's homecoming of a rebel leader whose fighters have captured hundreds of miles of eastern Zaire in their campaign to oust President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Laurent Kabila returned to his home province of Shaba, newly taken from government forces. The self-proclaimed chairman of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire climbed to a stage and yelled, "It is me, Kabila!""Do you want me to liberate your country?" Kabila asked the crowd of 10,000, packed on a lakeside soccer field.
"Yes!" came the emphatic reply.
His fighters easily seized Kalemie on Feb. 2. The rebels came from the north on a road that runs along Lake Tanganyika, and the demoralized government troops fled south and west - looting as they went.
From Kalemie, the rebels are pushing south to the port of Moba.
"Mobutu isn't capable of fighting me," Kabila boasted. "Mobutu is only worried about protecting his riches, stolen from the people of Zaire."
"Now let's win," he said, sounding very much like a team coach.
Kabila, a 60-year-old former Marxist, has struggled against Mobutu for half his life. He said he launched his campaign against the dictator 33 years ago, when he came to Kalemie to study.
"Their parents know me very well," Kabila said, gesturing at the youthful crowd. His hometown of Manono, 140 miles to the southwest, is in the same province.
Kabila's re-emergence has evoked memories of a series of failed regional rebellions and leftist uprising in the 1960s and 1970s against the dictatorship of Mobutu, who seized power in 1965.
This time, the rebellion will succeed, said Gen. Sylvestre Lwetcha, 58, who fought with Kabila in the bush for more than 30 years.
"Now we're better prepared, and we face less opposition," he said.
Mobutu, who is sidelined with prostate cancer, has rejected calls to negotiate with the rebels even though his army is poorly equipped and trained. Opposition groups who support talks with Kabila called a one-day strike on Monday that was widely observed in Kinshasha, the capital.
On Friday, the government banned political rallies. Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi had called for a rally on Saturday.
Also, the government said it would prevent future strikes by sending Cabinet ministers on surprise spot checks of public offices to ensure everyone is at work. Violators risk being fired.
The rebellion began in the fall when ethnic Tutsis who had lived in eastern Zaire for decades were threatened with expulsion. It since has grown into a general rebellion.
Lwetcha praised Kabila for uniting Zairians.
"Everyone admires him because he is a military man. He has fought for us for a long time," Lwetcha said.
Kabila had an easy rapport with the crowd. A round man with a sunny face, he dressed comfortably in a khaki safari suit and white Nike shoes. For more than an hour, he addressed the crowd through a megaphone.
The 15,000 recruits who have finished three-month training and joined the rebel force are not enough, he said.
"We need a lot, a lot of fighters," Kabila said. "We want to get rid of Mobutu quickly, and for good."
Thousands of young men - and even some women - waved their hands high to volunteer for battle. He urged them to help buy arms and food for troops, and medicines for the war wounded.
Kabila got his biggest cheers by criticizing Mobutu, whom the rebels say has destroyed Zaire's economy, education system, roads, communications and morale.
"He is a dictator. He has stolen the lives of his people," Kabila said. When he asked if Mobutu had stolen anything from them, the response was loud and unanimous: "Yes."
Poorly trained and ill-paid Zairian soldiers have been fleeing rebel advances in many parts of Zaire since Kabila's forces began their campaign in September.
More than 150 Zairian soldiers fled this week across the lake to Kigoma, Tanzania, where their arms were confiscated.
Biliba Hussein, a mother of five, fled to Kigoma in a boat also carrying government soldiers. "The rebels were too many, and the soldiers were not getting help from the government, so they fled with us," she said.
U.N. officials said Friday that a thousand Zairians were arriving in Tanzania each day since fighting in Zaire intensified at the start of the month.