Word: gabon
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...Gabon Violence Follows Vote Ali Ben Bongo was set to fill the shoes of his late father Omar Bongo as Gabon's next President after winning the sub-Saharan nation's presidential elections Sept. 3. But demonstrators demanding change after 41 years of Omar Bongo's rule responded with violence, torching shops, a police station and the French consulate. Ali Ben Bongo's challengers allege stuffing of ballot boxes and "incomprehensible swelling of voter lists" and call for a recount, although they have so far offered no evidence of tampering...
...situation appeared to be calming on Friday, after unrest had erupted in Gabon's cities the previous afternoon with the announcement that Ali Ben Bongo had won the election to succeed his father Omar Bongo, who died in June after having ruled the nation with an iron fist for 41 years. On Thursday, opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the capital, Libreville, while others in the main economic city of Port-Gentil ransacked shops, set fire to the French consulate and attacked the compound of French oil giant Total. Their grievances were clear: after having helped Omar Bongo squash...
...influences of Britain, the U.S. and more recently China. Typically, the authoritarian African leaders who gained from this relationship grew magnificently rich as their people, inversely, became impoverished. And no ruler was more iconic of the so-called Big Men that Françafrique produced than Omar Bongo. (Read "Gabon Faces Bongo's Disastrous Legacy...
...fact that France has stayed silent in the face of loud claims in Gabon that Ali Ben Bongo's election victory, with 41.7% of the vote, was gained by fraud further suggests that Sarkozy is finding it easier to live with Françafrique than to end it. And he's not the only one. Just hours before the announcement of the election results on Thursday, French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner said he'd been in contact with Ali Ben Bongo and his two main rivals, all of whom were claiming victory. "I hope they will come...
...incestuous relations" with the African leaders it has connived with out of "mercantile and political interests." Harking back to Sarkozy's Dakar speech to students in which he promised France's aid in building real, lasting democracies, Sergent asks, Where is Paris now with such help for Gabon...