Beset by cancer and rebel attacks, Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko has agreed to long-delayed elections in his country and acknowledged he is too ill to be a candidate.
Still, the man rebels claim has looted Zaire for nearly 32 years clung to his presidency and insisted he would return to his capital today.The editor of the government-run daily newspaper L'Union, Ngoyo Moussavou, said Mobutu planned to fly home Friday- but by noon, his plane still had not taken off from Gabon.
In Kinshasa, the Zairian capital, several hundred Mobutu supporters protested today in front of the U.S. Embassy. Zaire has accused the United States of joining Uganda and Rwanda in supporting rebel leader Laurent Kabila's efforts to unseat Mobutu.
Waving placards saying, "We don't want a bloodbath in our dear capital," the demonstrators called for negotiations with the rebels who have captured three-quarters of Zaire.
Soldiers drove by but did not break up the rally - even though rallies are banned in Kinshasa - indicating the protest was sanctioned by Mobutu's camp.
Western diplomats are pushing for a peace settlement between Mobutu and Kabila, whose forces have been fighting government troops in recent days in Kenge, 115 miles east of Kinshasa.
"The next few days are critical for peace in Zaire," U.S. envoy Bill Richardson said in Paris after briefing French diplomats on his nine-day shuttle diplomacy mission in Zaire.
Richardson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, refused to say whether Mobutu would go into exile, but he all but acknowledged that the 66-year-old dictator's reign was coming to an end.
"The ultimate solution will involve a transitional government - there's going to be a change in Zaire," Richardson said.
South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki went to Lubumbashi in southern Zaire for a meeting today with Kabila.
A rebel spokesman in Lubumbashi, Bizima Karaha, said Kabila and Mobutu planned to meet again next week, but Kabila is demanding that the meeting include a direct transfer of power to him.
In a summit in Gabon on Thursday, African leaders called on the Zairian armed forces to prepare for new elections and said Mobutu was too ill to run.
The presidents of Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and Chad, and the foreign minister of Cameroon, prepared the statement in the presidential palace while Mobutu waited in a guest room.
The document was read aloud at a news conference, and Mobutu nodded and signed it along with the other representatives.