President Mobutu Sese Seko's secretary, Lando Kota-Mbongo, confirmed the report on Voice of Zaire radio. It said Mobutu had consented to lawmakers' vote last week ousting Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo. But government spokesman Jean-Claude Biebie Ekalabo disagreed. "It's totally false; the Voice of Zaire cannot announce something that is not true,'' he said.
The report came a day after Mobutu emerged from seclusion after returning from Europe, promising that he would make clear "within 48 hours'' his plans to reunite the country ravaged by rebellion.
Lawmakers have accused Kengo, Mobutu's chosen prime minister, of mishandling Zaire's civil war. The regime had initially rejected last week's vote to oust him, calling it unconstitutional.
Supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi, a popular opposition leader and longtime Mobutu foe, say he should take over as prime minister and begin talks with the rebels. Parliament elected Tshisekedi prime minister in 1992 but Mobutu refused to confirm him.
On Sunday, Mobutu made his first public appearance since his return from France for treatment of his prostate cancer. "My name is Mobutu,'' he declared to reporters who gathered at his sprawling residence on the Zaire River. "I didn't come back to busy myself with the interests of Mobutu, nor the fortune of Mobutu ... but with the highest interest of Zaire -- that is to say, our unity and our territorial integrity.''
But Mobutu's return did not ease tensions within his poorly paid army. Zairean soldiers in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi brawled Sunday in an apparent clash with would-be deserters, French radio said Monday. Asked what his role would be in efforts to forge a national reconciliation, he said only: "You will know within the next 48 hours.''
Just across the river in Brazzaville, Congo, the first wave of U.S. troops arrived Sunday to prepare for the possible evacuation of Americans from Zaire. An estimated 500 U.S. civilians live in Zaire, about 320 of them in Kinshasa.
France and Belgium have also sent troops in case the 7,000 Europeans in Kinshasa need to get out quickly.
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