Lula, Monday

Zaireans armed with knives and machetes went on the rampage in rebel-held eastern Zaire against aid workers and Rwandan Hutu refugees whom they blamed for killing six villagers.

In the capital Kinshasa, which rebels say is their next target, Zaire's information minister told foreign journalists they needed new permission by Wednesday to report on the war.

Armed with knives, machetes, and clubs, some angry Zaireans south of Kisangani said they looted vehicles today at the urging of the Tutsi-dominated rebels, who have seized more than half of Africa's third largest country.

''The liberators (reb-els) sent us here to pillage things going to the refugees. When we got back ... they took the things from us,'' said a young man at Lula, four miles from Kisangani.

''We are angry because the refugees have killed our people so we are here to loot any vehicle that goes past,'' another said.

They said aid convoys were carrying arms for the Hutus in bags of maize and they would stop all aid workers from passing.

After the killings, UN refugee agency chief Sadako Ogata said a rebel operation near Kasese camp, 15 miles south of Kisangani, raised fears of a new refugee exodus.

Residents said Hutu refugees attacked a village near Kasese camp, with 32,000 refugees, before dawn and killed at least six people. Journalists saw six bodies and were stoned by Zaireans.

Villagers attacked a train loaded with 120 tonnes of food for the Hutu refugees near Lula today, then looted a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse.

''We lost 119 tonnes of food on the train and they took 72 out of 78 tonnes of food in the warehouse and on two railway wagons plus portable storage equipment being brought in from Uganda,'' said a WFP spokeswoman.

''We're talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of food and equipment,'' she added.

Aid workers said they feared residents who looted aid and stopped aid workers reaching the camps south of Kisangani were doing so with encouragement from the rebels, who deny any role.

Eastern Provincial Governor Yagi Sitolo said up to eight Zaireans were killed in the attack near Kasese camp.

''There is tension ... we heard the population is angry because the refugees killed six or eight Zairean people,'' Sitolo said.

Yesterday he said that a UN airlift for about 100,000 refugees south of Kisangani should not start until May 5 owing to a cholera epidemic. Aid officials say they planned only to fly out healthy refugees.

The death toll from cholera, malaria, and malnutrition among the refugees stands at about 40 a day, with bodies lined up under blankets along a mud road leading through the camps.

In Kinshasa, Zairean Information Minister Kin-Kiey Mulumba on Monday said that all foreign journalists had to seek new accreditation by Wednesday and announced the setting up of an ''ethics'' committee to monitor foreign reporting of the war.

Mulumba, who has been deeply critical of reporting on the war, did not make clear if reports would be subject to checks.

As the rebel drive to unseat President Mobutu Sese Seko has gained speed - they now control about half the country -foreign journalists have poured into Kinshasa to witness what may be the final days of his more than three decades in power.

A long search for a diplomatic resolution of the six-month conflict by talks in South Africa looks elusive after Kabila said he was building up rebel forces to seize Kinshasa.-Reuter.