Mobutu Skips Return Trip Los Angeles Times

President Mobutu Sese Seko failed to return to this capital city as planned Friday amid growing signs that he will meet again next week with his guerrilla opponent, Laurent Kabila, and seek an orderly transition of power in Zaire.

Earlier in the week, Mobutu’s aides had insisted that the president would return to Kinshasa Friday. Mobutu’s movements are being watched by Zairians and foreign observers for signs of whether the Cold War-era strongman will relinquish power quietly in the coming days or hold on for a violent finish.

Diplomatic sources in Kinshasa said the latest attempt to avert a bloody end to the 32-year Mobutu era is based on a plan in which Mobutu would step down and hand power to a newly elected president of the Zairian Parliament.

The parliamentary president would then hand off power to rebel leader Kabila, who would become Zaire’s transitional president until the nation is ready to hold elections.

The two-step process would spare Mobutu the humiliation of having to cede power directly to Kabila, something he has sworn he will never do. And it would allow him to transfer power along relatively dignified constitutional lines because the Zairian Constitution stipulates that when the president is unable to govern, the president of Parliament is first in line to succeed him.

The 67-year-old Mobutu is seriously ill with prostate cancer and could reasonably state that he is too sick to govern any longer. That way, he could avoid a public acknowledgment of Kabila’s military gains in the past few months.