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Larger-than-life leader now longest-ruling
April 10, 2008
By Todd Pitman - LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) Behind the tall white walls of
a grandiose home belonging to the world's longest-ruling president,
ostriches, buffalo and camels roam neatly landscaped lawns -- part of a
vast, private complex said to include a crocodile wetland and lake
topped with lotus flowers.
In the poverty-stricken shell of a city outside, where the poorest
pick through garbage for scraps to eat, Omar Bongo's mustachioed face
is omnipresent: gazing solemnly from glass building facades, beaming
proudly from ubiquitous billboards, woven into the fabric of countless
shirts worn from the coast to the farthest reaches of the forested
interior.
He may be short in stature, but he is larger than life in the oil-rich
Central African nation that he has ruled for 40 years -- so long that
he's the only president most of his subdued 1.5 million people (life
expectancy: 53) have ever known.
Mr. Bongo became the longest-ruling head of state, not counting the
monarchs of Britain and Thailand, after Cuban leader Fidel Castro
resigned in February, ending 49 years in power.
While most Gabonese genuinely fear the 72-year-old autocrat, who has
little opposition, many accept his rule because he has kept his
country remarkably peaceful and governed without the sustained
brutality characteristic of many dictators.
"God brought him to us, and only God can call him away," said forestry
worker Ignasse Minaga, who was born the same year Mr. Bongo became
president, in 1967. "For us, there is only Bongo. He is
irreplaceable."
Mr. Minaga lives in the president's native Bongoville, a tiny village
rising out of jungle greenery at the end of a freshly paved road
complete with high-wattage, functioning light poles -- luxuries rare in
most of Gabon's undeveloped interior.
Struggling to stabilize after becoming independent of colonial rule in
the 1960s, Africa has suffered its share of "Big Men," many of whom
use fear, patronage and rigged elections to cling to power. A few are
still around, such as Libya's Moammar Gadhafi (38 years) and
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang and
Angola's Jose Eduardo dos Santos (28 years each).
Mr. Bongo has displayed plenty of dictatorial tendencies. His
government has jailed journalists who dared criticize him personally
and has cowed most of the rest into self-censorship. But Gabon's
prisons are not filled with political prisoners, and rivals don't
disappear or turn up mysteriously dead in the night.
Instead, he "attacks his opponents by bringing them into his fold,
offering them top posts, giving them a piece of the pie," said
Moussirou Mouyama, a linguistics professor at Libreville's Omar Bongo
University. "He's like a boa constrictor. He suffocates his prey until
it's weak, then swallows it."
Mr. Bongo's principal opponent in the 2005 election was Pierre
Mamboundou. After losing the vote by a landslide, Mr. Mamboundou asked
for and got $7 million a year later for development in his
parliamentary district. He insists that the transaction has not
defanged his criticism of Mr. Bongo. But Gabonese journalists say he
doesn't speak out much anymore.
The most vocal critics today are from a movement called "Bongo Must
Go," whose 40-year-old U.S.-based leader Daniel Mengara has called for
an armed rebellion.
Gabon today is "neither dictatorship nor democracy, neither paradise
nor hell," said Louis-Gaston Mayila, who heads a pro-Bongo political
party from an office featuring a framed photo of him whispering in the
president's ear. "We are something in between."
That "in-between" has put Gabon in first place among countries in
mainland sub-Saharan Africa on the U.N. Human Development Index, which
measures literacy, education and other markers of national well-being.
It puts Gabon ahead of Africa's richest economy, South Africa, and its
most respected democracy, Botswana.
But Gabon's wealth depends on dwindling oil reserves, and its
democracy is problematic.
Mr. Bongo took 26 years to introduce multiparty elections, and
elections since then have been marred by allegations of rigging and
some unrest. In 2003, parliament -- dominated by his supporters --
removed presidential term limits from the constitution.
Gabon is the fifth-biggest oil exporter in sub-Saharan Africa, and Mr.
Bongo has built a vast system of patronage, doling out largesse part
through salaries and benefits that come with Cabinet posts.
Mr. Bongo has also ensured the strategy covers the country's four main
ethnic groups, which sets Gabon apart from strife-torn Congo or
Kenya.
But oil dependency means the country has more oil pipeline (886 miles)
than paved roads (582 miles). Only 1 percent of its land is
cultivated, and Gabon produces virtually no food. Instead, basics such
as tomatoes are imported from France, the former colonial master, and
neighboring Cameroon, pushing prices so high that Libreville, the
capital, is the world's eighth-most expensive city, according to
Employment Conditions Abroad International.
Gabon once boasted world's highest champagne consumption per capita,
but with oil reserves due to run dry by 2030 and production down by 30
percent in the past decade to 250,000 barrels per day, the party is
largely over. Meanwhile, about 90 percent of the country's income goes
to the richest 20 percent the population, while the bottom 30 percent
lives on less than $1 a day.
At Libreville's main garbage dump, half a dozen scavengers assaulted a
pile of fresh trash. A man in a torn black beret plucked a tub of
curdled apricot yogurt from the rubbish and gulped it down. A 34-year-
old father found a broken clock that he hoped to sell -- to help put
his daughter through primary school.
Mr. Bongo, by contrast, has amassed a fortune that makes him one of
the world's richest men, according to Freedom House, a private
Washington-based democracy-watchdog organization. Nobody really knows
how much he is worth, but there have been clues.
French media have reported his family owns abundant real estate in
France -- at one time more Paris properties than any other foreign
leader. In 2003, an official of French oil giant Elf Aquitaine
testified that he had opened several Swiss bank accounts for Mr. Bongo
into which commissions were paid on multimillion-dollar oil deals. Mr.
Bongo has vigorously denied receiving any money through the accounts.
Mr. Bongo's daughter-in-law, married to his son, the defense minister,
appeared on the American TV reality show "Really Rich Real Estate" in
2006, shopping for a $25 million Beverly Hills mansion.
Born Albert Bernard Bongo, the youngest of 12 children on Dec. 30,
1935, Mr. Bongo served as a lieutenant in the French air force, then
climbed quickly through the civil service and assumed the presidency
on Dec. 2, 1967, after Gabon's first post-independence leader died.
Six years later, he converted to Islam and took the name Omar.
That Mr. Bongo is likely to remain in power for the foreseeable future
seems to be accepted by a population that regards him as the ultimate
village chief.
"Gabonese culture dictates that you respect your elders. You can't say
'no' to somebody older than you," said Mr. Mouyama.
Mr. Bongo is older than most, "so most people just suffer in silence,"
he said. "The problem is, Gabonese don't dream anymore, and when you
don't dream, your country is in trouble."
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