Bishop denounces Zairean President

A CATHOLIC BISHOP HAS accused Zaire's President and his political allies of having "assassinated" the free state.
Bishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kisingani, who heads the council overseeing Zaire's currently blocked attempt at democracy, has accused President Mobutu Sese Seko of engineering the country's collapse for his own gain.
"The state is no longer governed and the institutions of the republic are paralysed," Bishop Monsengwo said in a statement last week.
The 53-year-old bishop is president of the High Council of the Republic which has been stymied by the Mobutu camp in its attempt to bring the central African country from one-party rule to a multi-party constitutional democracy.
The bishop urged Mobutu, who has held onto the presidency for 25 years, to "eliminate all the causes that perpetuate the present crisis".
Officials of the transitional government said that Mobutu has used delay and disrupdon to avoid having to step down from office, even though the country has officially switched to a multiparty system and is working on a new constitution.
Bishop Monsengwo declared last week, "Power no longer has an honourable intent". He went on to warn that the social situation was "catastrophic and the economy in shambles". More than half of the 37 million Zaireans are Catholic.