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Gabon News

NYT > Gabon Updated: Sept 3, 2009 Gabon is sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest producer of oil. A tiny country with close ties to ex-colonial ruler France, it punches well beyond its weight as a result. El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, the crafty autocrat who ruled for 41 years, may be dead, but his reign is not necessarily over, thanks to his son. The Bongos extended their 41-year reign over this resource-rich central African country on Sept. 3, 2009, as the son of the late long-ruling family patriarch was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election that critics called riddled with fraud. Protests broke out all over the nation of about 1.3 million. Supporters of two losing opposition candidates set fire to the French consulate in Gabon's second-largest city, Port Gentil, put cars and tires to the torch in the capital, Libreville, and shouted hostile slogans and threw rocks at people they thought were French. Ali Ben Bongo, a heavy favorite because of family wealth accumulated after decades in power, was announced the winner by the country's electoral commission, with 41.73 percent, ahead of former interior minister Andre Mba Obame, who received 25.88 percent, and Pierre Mamboundou, a longtime opponent of the Bongo family, with 25.22 percent. The Bongos' long-entrenched party, the Parti Démocratique Gabonaise, has an extensive organization throughout this thinly populated country of dense tropical rainforest, savannah and mangrove swamps. But while the Bongo clan has reveled in its possessions, including more than three dozen of the most sumptuous real estate holdings in Paris, the vast majority of people in Gabon have been left behind in the dust that chokes the sprawling hillside slums here. Some 60 percent live on less than $2 a day, and only 10 percent of the roads are paved. 05/16/2010 08:00 AM In Gabon, Visiting Africa’s Eden Gabon is trying to position itself as the Costa Rica of Africa. 02/04/2010 08:00 AM U.S. Report Details Money Laundering An investigation has shed new light on how major banks unwittingly shifted hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of politicians, their relatives and associates. 10/16/2009 08:00 AM New Security Council Members UN General Assembly elects Bosnia, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria to serve as non-veto-holding members of Security Council in 2010 and 2011 09/15/2009 08:00 AM Underneath Palatial Skin, Corruption Rules Gabon Behind the late ruler’s palaces, which line wide empty boulevards, are shacks and shanties stretching to the horizon. 09/05/2009 08:00 AM Autocrat’s Heir Claims Victory in Gabon After Ali Bongo was declared the new president of the country, violence broke out, targeting French interests in particular. 09/04/2009 08:00 AM Son of Late Gabon Leader Declared Winner in Vote Ali Bongo, the son of the country’s late leader, was declared the winner of the presidential elections, triggering unrest and allegations of fraud. 08/31/2009 08:00 AM Late President’s Son Favored in Gabon Election The son of the late El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, one of Africa’s last “Big Men,” was considered likely to extend his family’s control of the small central African nation. 08/30/2009 08:00 AM Autocrat’s Shadow Looms Over Gabon Vote The son of El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, who ruled Gabon for more than four decades, is expected to ride his family’s power and influence into the presidency. 02/29/2008 08:00 AM Logging in Congo River Basin Imperils Sea Turtles Very Far Downstream Endangered sea turtles have been found dead or unable to build viable nests in nesting grounds off Gabon’s shores, a consequence of logging operations in the rain forests of central Africa. 05/18/2007 08:00 AM Paradise Preserved in a Restless Continent The National Geographic Channel presents its version of enviroporn, with images of surreally beautiful landscapes and the close-ups of frolicking elephants and lowland gorillas. 11/10/2005 08:00 AM Lobbyist Sought $9 Million to Set Bush Meeting Jack Abramoff, once one of most powerful lobbyists in Washington, asked Pres Omar Bongo of Gabon for $9 million in 2003 to arrange meeting with Pres Bush, and directed that fee be paid to GrassRoots Interactive, Maryland company now under federal scrutiny; Bongo met with Bush in Oval Office 10 months later in visit that White House and State Dept describe as routine; government of Gabon is regularly accused by US of human rights abuses; there is no evidence in public record that Abramoff played... 04/07/2003 08:00 AM Gorillas and Chimps in Peril, Report Says Scientists report that gorillas and chimpanzees, most common of great apes and humanity's closest relatives, face such severe threats from hunting and now from Ebola virus that they should immediately be declared 'critically endangered'; say ape population in Gabon and Republic of Congo, home to 80 percent of world's gorillas and most of its chimpanzees, fell by more than half between 1983 and 2000; report is published online by journal Nature; map

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