New Military Leader Arrives in Capital

Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the nation’s new military leader, swept into its devastated capital in a looted Mercedes, promising to seek international aid and imploring citizens to help “restore brotherhood” to the country. It was his first appearance in Brazzaville since his Cobra militia seized the capital and the country’s second-largest city, Pointe-Noire, from President Pascal Lissouba last week. Sassou-Nguesso is to be inaugurated president on Saturday. It is his second chance to lead the nation. He ruled over a one-party Marxist state from 1979 to 1991, when public demands for democratic reforms and anger over the country’s economic problems forced him out. He lost the country’s first multi-party election to Lissouba in 1992.