THE government of Zaire urged citizens not to panic yesterday as Tutsi led rebels announced the end of the era of President Mobutu Sese Seko after capturing Kisangani, Zaire's third biggest city.
Mr Mobutu (66), who has spent most of the six months of civil war in Europe, is planning to return to his homeland, his son, Mr Mobutu N'Zanga, said in Monaco. He was speaking outside the Princess Grace Hospital, where the president was admitted on Sunday for tests following an operation for cancer of the prostate in Switzerland last August.
A statement issued in Kishasa after an unscheduled cabinet meeting said Mr Mobutu, who seized power in September 1960, 2 1/2 months after independence from Belgium, and again in 1965, would return "this week".
It told Zaireans they should not yield to "unwarranted panic", and was apparently aimed at halting rumours in the capital, where travel agencies are under siege by citizens and foreign residents trying to book flights to Europe.
The Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr Erik Derijcke, acknowledged on Sunday that "the Mobutu era came to an end some time ago adding that the rebel leader, Mr Laurent Desire Kabila, "cannot be ignored".
The statement blamed "heavily armed regular units of the Ugandan army equipped with sophisticated weapons" for the fall of Kisangani, where witnesses said government troops fled on Saturday after a looting spree.
The Kampala government which has consistently denied accusations from a number of quarters that its troops are fighting alongside the rebels, issued no immediate rejoinder, but residents of Kisangani said its conquerors were "long noses" Tutsis.
The rebels, who captured Kisangani three days after the Prime Minister, Mr Kengo wa Dondo, declared it would not fall, are now advancing on Lubumbashi, capital of the southern province of Shaba, rich in copper and cobalt.
"This is the end of Kinshasa's rule they must hand over power," said Mr Gaetan Kakudji, the rebels" foreign affairs spokesman.
President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya is meanwhile planning to host a minisummit on Zaire on Wednesday. A bigger African summit will be held in Lome on March 26th.
Officials said President Paul Biya of Cameroon, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, President Pascal Lissouba of Congo and Vice President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa were coming, as well as the Prime Minister of Zaire, Mr Kengo wa Dondo. Mr Moi did not invite Mr Kabila because he is not a head of state.
Mr Kabila has accepted in principle a five point peace plan drawn up by Mr Mohamed Sahnoun, the special envoy of the UN and the Organisation of African Unity, but says that any ceasefire must be preceded by negotiations.
The UN World Food Programme meanwhile said yesterday that all relief food in Ubundu, 150 km south of Kisangani, had been distributed to the 100,000 Rwandan and Burundian Hutu refugees there, and that warehouses in Kisangani had been looted. Some 300,000 other refugees are estimated to be hiding in rain forests.