Omar Bongo’s France à fric

(c) intangiblearts

On June 8, whilst British newspapers were busy dealing with the fallout of the local and European elections, not to mention Roger Federer’s spectacular win at Roland Garros, President Omar Bongo of Gabon died on a hospital bed in Barcelona, where he had travelled for cancer treatment. The following day, reading the obituaries of Bongo that several quality papers carried, I was amazed that I had hitherto heard so little about a man who, at the time of his death, was the world’s longest-ruling head of state. More amazing was the fact that upon the President’s death the internet was shut down and the borders were closed for at least two days. These facts would have caused outrage had they occurred in China or Iran, but they barely featured in the articles on Gabon which, though on the whole condemnatory, couldn’t help but leave the reader feeling that Bongo, with his six election victories and an estimated 30 children, was really just a bit of a cad. Besides, as a political scientist at Libreville’s Omar Bongo University said: “after all, what did Bongo do that was so bad? Did he kill anyone? No.” Indeed, Bongo’s style was to avoid violence by magnanimously paying off all opposition to his autocracy.

Though he was accused of embezzlement by international corruption watchdog Transparency International, looking back at Bongo’s rule does far more than merely present us with a portrait of a corrupt African dictator; it also exposes the corruption and nepotism inherent in many of our democratic western ‘civilisations’. We can condemn Bongo for his unfair voting system and the contrast between his life of splendour and the squalor which much of his country live in, but in doing so we are placed face to face with the 45 homes and 66 bank accounts he held in France, along with his 19 luxury cars worth a total of almost £1 million. Bongo’s wealth came, in large part, from the French oil giant Elf who paid him the equivalent of 50 million US dollars per year to drain Gabon, which Bongo saw as his own personal stomping ground, of oil. Gabon has 900 miles of oil pipelines, and just 600 miles of paved roads. Omar Bongo, who stands as a clear symbol of “la Françafrique”, France’s practice of maintaining influence in its former colonies, was also accused of funding the presidential campaign of, amongst others, Jacques Chirac.

Bongo once famously said: “Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel.” More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy described Omar Bongo, on hearing of his death, as a “great and loyal friend of France.” Despite a recent rift between the two countries, which explains Bongo’s choice of Barcelona for his medical care, the ‘friendship’ is too beneficial to France and the Gabonese government to let it fall to the wayside.

It is not difficult to explain the media coverage of Gabon’s leadership ‘crisis’, which was hardly portrayed as such. It was a non-event because it is improbable that Bongo’s successor (likely to be one of his sons) will make any difference to Gabon’s approach to ‘diplomacy’, which has resulted in a country that on paper has one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa but in reality is plagued by poverty. And, as long as he, too, is a gentleman who plays the game, our own governments will always have other things to worry about.