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Gabon

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https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/gabon-dam-development-threatens-fish-habitat/

ucsc

Proposed hydropower dams pose threat to Gabon’s fishes

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https://theconversation.com/countries-to-watch-in-2020-from-chile-to-afghanistan-5-essential-reads-129160

 Gabon

Sixty years ago, Gabon was among 17 African countries to declare their independence from colonial rule. Now, many Gabonese are hoping to enter a new era: democracy.

Gabon’s longtime president Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family has run the central African country since the late 1960s, is frail after an apparent stroke. The 60-year-old narrowly survived a military coup last January.

These events have “created a strong national sentiment that Gabon’s five-decade Bongo dynasty is on its last legs,” writes University of Tampa political scientist Gyldas A. Ofoulhast-Othamot.

Political upheaval is rare in Gabon, an oil-rich country of 2 million. But stability is not the same as democracy.

Surveys show 87% of Gabonese feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction under Bongo.“Gabon has had just three presidents” since 1960, writes Ofoulhast-Othamot. “The current president’s father – Omar Bongo Ondimba – ruled Gabon with an iron fist for 42 years,” allowing oil wealth to enrich a tiny elite and dutifully maintaining the country’s loyalty to France.

Gabon’s next presidential election isn’t until 2023. But, Ofoulhast-Othamot predicts, “Bongo’s time in office may run out sooner.”

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http://www.bardachreports.com/articles/oa_01222006.htm

...

But this year, Mehlman's coveted power slot is also a thankless job. Last Fall, as Americans watched the historic city of New Orleans drown on national television, Republicans were anxiously muttering that the party's real troubles were yet to come: that a veritable season of hell was just around the corner. They weren't wrong. Although Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted just one White House player, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, he has continued to scrutinize Karl Rove, the president's most crucial advisor, while throwing backward glances at Vice President Dick Cheney. With Karl Rove consumed by the investigation, the once indomitable administration began a downward slide. More humiliation was served up by Harriet Miers' failed nomination, while poll numbers on most administration policies have tanked. Though periodically bubbling up, George W. Bush's approval rating had slipped to the lowest of any president since Richard Nixon's disgrace by Watergate in early December.

Matters get worse on Capitol Hill, where scandal has knocked the GOP leadership sideways. Indeed, Tom De Lay's indictments for money laundering may turn out to be the good news for the bellicose Texan. Likewise, for Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, whose timely and lucrative stock sales in his blind trust, are now under investigation by the SEC. But the coup de grace was Congressman Randy Cunningham's tearful mea culpa at a surreal press conference, admitting that he'd scarfed up some $2.4 million in bribes - transforming him into a poster boy for what Democrats call "GOP sleaze." Throw in the president's domestic spying scandal, and you have an incendiary mix - one that could imperil the Republicans' monopoly on power come next year's elections.

No one has worked harder to mop up this mess than Ken Mehlman - and he does so - most days- with a smile on his face. No matter that indictments and corruption scandals have laid swarm to the Republican leadership like locusts, or that 60% of Americans polled are disenchanted with the Iraq War, Mehlman remains unfailingly optimistic.

Mehlman came into politics as "a Reagan Republican" in 1990 and made his name as chief of staff for Texas congresswoman Kay Granger and legislative director for Rep. Lamar Smith, another Texan. In 2000, he was field director for the Bush-Cheney campaign, before landing the plum job of White House Director of Political Affairs. "He earned it the old fashion way," says Ken Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's White House chief of staff. "He worked around the clock, he worked weekends, nights, and early mornings, and he kept his head down. He made 2004 happen. He and Karl Rove are a terrific team," Duberstein adds, "but Ken was the chief operating officer."

No one denies Mehlman is a workhorse ,- but his success, say many in his party, owes as much to his unwavering loyalty to George W. Bush - right up to a willingness to take a bullet for Bush or Cheney should any come whizzing. "The family can smell disloyalty from down the road," says a cousin of George W. Bush, who asks that her name not be mentioned so that she can continue attending family events at Kennebunkport and in Texas. "The slightest whiff of criticism, and you're out. Even in the family." On the other hand, she pointed out, loyalty is generously repaid.

These days, however, in the era of Harriet Miers and FEMA's Michael Brown, Bush loyalty, so envied by the fractious Democrats, has also became synonymous with cronyism. "Ken Mehlman's a smart guy but he's an apparatchik," says one veteran GOP Beltway hand, who asked that his name be withheld. "He's an organizer not a visionary."

***

Clearly, the most troublesome scandal bedeviling Republicans and complicating Mehlman's job is the spectacular flameout of the GOP's most powerful lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, charged with fleecing American Indian tribes of millions of dollars and siphoning the money into the accounts of senior Republican lawmakers. Now that Abramoff, along with his partner, Mike Scanlon, are cooperating with prosecutors, the collateral damage is likely to include a slew of GOP congressmen - notably Ohio's Rep. Bob Ney, Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, De Lay, along with Christian activist Ralph Reed. And if prosecutor Alice Fisher, a Bush recess appointee, is not constrained by partisan politics, it will likely lead into the West Wing where Abramoff's former top aide, Susan Ralston, currently serves in the same role for Karl Rove.

I asked Mehlman, whose closest relationship in the White House is with Rove, about a $9 million fee paid to Abramoff fromGabon's President Omar Bongoto arrange a White House visit with Bush. Abramoff had written Bongo in July 2003, "I have been cautiously working to obtain a visit for the President [Bongo] to see President Bush, the Congress and policy and opinion makers in the United States."

Like all of Team Bush, Mehlman has mastered the indignant response reflex. "That's absurd," he tells me, waving his hand dismissively. "Utterly absurd. I have worked with George W. Bush from 1999 to 2004. The notion that anyone could set up a meeting is ridiculous." I pointed out that Bongo, who serves as dictator for life of Gabon, had previously been unable to secure a meeting with any other president. Indeed, Abramoff's former business partner, David Safavian, was a registered agent in Washington for Bongo, previous to his employment as a former White House budget official. [Safavian was arrested in September on charges of lying about his ties to Abramoff.] Unfazed, Mehlman insisted that it was strictly "national security" that secured the meeting with the unsavory Bongo on May 26, 2004, after "Condoleeza Rice, NSC advisor at the time, encourage[d] the President... I know, having dealt for five years trying to get things with the President's schedule, it's a very serious, thoughtful, and appropriate process."

More troubling, has been the murder charges leveled at a trio of mobsters in Fort Lauderdale for the drive-by "hit" of Abramoff's estranged business partner, Gus Boulis, in which another Abramoff partner has become a government witness. When asked if the Abramoff scandal and others have now tainted the GOP, Mehlman, renowned for his vast political network and whose brother and sister-in-law are both lobbyists [at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti and Mehlman Capitol Strategies respectively], seems remarkably ill-informed. "Well, Abramoff is someone who we don't know a lot about," he says. "We know what we read in the paper."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Bongo

El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was President of Gabon for more than 41 years from 1967 until his death in 2009.

Omar Bongo was promoted to key positions as a young official under Gabon's first President Léon M'ba in the 1960s, before being elected in his own right to Vice-President from 1966 to 1967, then succeeding M'ba who was in ill-health to become the second Gabon President in 1967 when M'ba died.

Bongo headed the single-party regime of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) until 1990, when, faced with public pressure, he was forced to introduce into Gabonmulti-party politics. His political survival despite intense opposition to his rule in the early 1990s seemed to stem once again from consolidating power by bringing much of the major opposition leaders at the time to his side. The 1993 presidential election was extremely controversial but ended with his re-election then and the subsequent elections of 1998 and 2005. His respective parliamentary majorities increased and the opposition becoming more subdued with each succeeding election.[3] After Cuban President Fidel Castro stepped down in February 2008, Bongo became the world's longest-serving non-monarch ruler.[4] He was one of the longest serving rulers in history.

Bongo was criticized for in effect having worked for himself, his family and local elites and not for Gabon and its people. For instance, French green politician Eva Jolyclaimed that during Bongo's long reign, despite an oil-led GDP per capita growth to one of the highest levels in Africa, Gabon built only 5 km of freeway a year and still had one of the world's highest infant mortality rates by the time of his death in 2009.[5]

After Bongo's death in June 2009, his son Ali Bongo—who had long been assigned key ministerial responsibilities by his father—was elected to succeed him in August 2009.

Contents

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Early life

The youngest of twelve siblings, Albert-Bernard Bongo was born on 30 December 1935 in Lewai (since renamed Bongoville), French Equatorial Africa, a town of the Haut-Ogooué province in what is now southeastern Gabon near the border with the Republic of the Congo. He was a member of the small Bateke ethnic group.[6] He changed his name to El Hadj Omar Bongo when he converted to Islam in 1973.[7] After completing his primary and secondary education in Brazzaville (then the capital of French Equatorial Africa), Bongo held a job at the Post and Telecommunications Public Services, before joining the French military where he served as a second lieutenant and then as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, in Brazzaville, Bangui and Fort Lamy (present-day N'djamena, Chad) successively, before being honorably discharged as captain.[8]

Political career

Pre-Presidency

After Gabon's independence in 1960, Albert-Bernard Bongo began his political career, gradually rising through a succession of positions under President Léon M'ba.[9] Bongo campaigned for M. Sandoungout in Haut Ogooué in the 1961 parliamentary election, choosing not to run for election in his own right; Sandoungout was elected and became Minister of Health. Bongo worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a time, and he was named Assistant Director of the Presidential Cabinet in March 1962; he was named Director seven months later.[10] In 1964, during the only coup attempt in Gabon's history, M'ba was kidnapped and Bongo was held in a military camp in Libreville, though M'ba was restored to power two days later.[9]

On 24 September 1965, he was appointed as Presidential Representative and placed in charge of defense and coordination. He was then appointed Minister of Information and Tourism, initially on an interim basis, then formally holding the position in August 1966. M'ba, whose health was declining, appointed Bongo as Vice-President of Gabon on 12 November 1966. In the presidential election held on 19 March 1967, M'ba was re-elected as President and Bongo was elected as Vice-President during the same election. Bongo was in effective control of Gabon since November 1966 during President Léon M'ba's long illness.[11]

Single-party rule

Bongo became President on 2 December 1967,[10] following the death of M'ba four days earlier, and was installed by de Gaulle and influential French leaders.[12] Aged 31, Bongo was Africa's fourth youngest president at the time, after captain Michel Micombero of Burundi and sergeant Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In March 1968 Bongo decreed Gabon to be a one-party state and changed the name of the Gabonese Independence Party, the Bloc Democratique Gabonais (BDG), to the Parti Democratique Gabonais (PDG).[13] In the 1973 elections for the national assembly and the presidency, Bongo was the sole candidate for president. He and all PDG candidates were elected by 99.56% of the votes cast. In April 1975 Bongo abolished the post of vice-president and appointed his former vice-president, Léon Mébiame, as prime minister, a position Bongo had held concurrently with his presidency from 1967. Mebiame would remain as prime minister until his resignation in 1990.

In addition to the presidency, Bongo held several ministerial portfolios from 1967 onward, including Minister of Defense (1967–1981), Information (1967–1980), Planning (1967–1977), Prime Minister (1967–1975), the Interior (1967–1970), and many others. Following a Congress of the PDG in January 1979 and the December 1979 elections, Bongo gave up some of his ministerial portfolios [14] and surrendered his functions as head of government to Prime Minister Mebiame. The PDG congress had criticized Bongo's administration for inefficiency and called for an end to the holding of multiple offices. Bongo was again re-elected for a seven-year term in 1979, receiving 99.96% of the popular vote.[14]

Opposition to President Bongo's regime first appeared in the late 1970s, as economic difficulties became more acute for the Gabonese. The first organized, but illegal, opposition party was MORENA, the Movement for National Restoration (Mouvement de redressement national). This moderate opposition group sponsored demonstrations by students and academic staff at the Universite Omar Bongo in Libreville in December 1981, when the university was temporarily closed. MORENA accused Bongo of corruption and personal extravagance and of favoring his own Bateke tribe; the group demanded that a multi-party system be restored. Arrests were made in February 1982, when the opposition distributed leaflets criticizing the Bongo regime during a visit by Pope John Paul II. In November 1982, 37 MORENA members were tried and convicted of offenses against state security. Severe sentences were handed out, including 20 years of hard labor for 13 of the defendants; all were pardoned, however, and released by mid-1986.[14]

Despite these pressures, Omar Bongo remained committed to one-party rule. In 1985, legislative elections were held which followed past procedures; all nominations were approved by PDG, which then presented a single list of candidates. The candidates were ratified by popular vote on 3 March 1985. In November 1986 Bongo was re-elected by 99.97% of the popular vote.[14]

Multi-party rule

On 22 May 1990, after strikes, riots and unrest, the PDG central committee and the National Assembly approved constitutional amendments to facilitate the transition to a multi-party system. The existing presidential mandate, effective through 1994, was to be respected. Subsequent elections to the presidency would be contested by more than one candidate, and the presidential term of office was changed to five years with a term limit consisting of one re-election to the office.

The next day, 23 May 1990, a vocal critic of Bongo and the leading political opposition leader, Joseph Rendjambe, was found dead in a hotel, reportedly murdered by poison.[15] The death of Rendjambe, a prominent business executive and secretary-general of the opposition group Parti gabonais du progres (PGP), touched off the worst rioting in Bongo's 23-year rule. Presidential buildings in Libreville were set on fire and the French consul-general and ten oil company employees were taken hostage. French troops evacuated foreigners and a state of emergency was declared in Port Gentil, Rendjambe's hometown and a strategic oil production site.[15] During this emergency Gabon's two main oil producers, Elf and Shell, cut output from 270,000 barrels per day (43,000 m3/d) to 20,000. Bongo threatened to withdraw their exploration licenses unless they restored normal output, which they soon did. France sent in 500 troops to reinforce the 500-man battalion of Marines permanently stationed in Gabon "to protect the interests of 20,000 resident French nationals". Tanks and troops were deployed around the presidential palace to halt rioters.[16]

In December 1993, Bongo won the first presidential election held under the new multi-party constitution, by a considerably narrower margin of around 51.4%.[13] Opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity.[17] This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the backdrop for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election.[18] Bongo was eventually successful in consolidating power again, with most of the major opposition leaders being either co-opted by being given high-ranking posts in the government or bought off, ensuring his comfortable re-election in 1998.[19]

In 2003 Bongo secured a change in the Constitution allowing him to seek re-election as many times as he wanted, and changing the Presidential term to seven years, up from five. Bongo's critics accused him of intending to rule for life. On 27 November 2005 Bongo won a seven-year term as president, receiving 79.2 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of his four challengers.[13] He was sworn in for another seven-year term on 19 January 2006[20] and remained president until his death in 2009

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