LIBREVILLE, Gabon
Gabon's new strongman on Tuesday (Sep 5) met central Africa's mediator for the country and started to amnesty dissidents following a coup last week that brought the curtain down on the 55-year Bongo dynasty.
State TV said General Brice
Oligui Nguema met the Central African Republic's president, Faustin Archange
Touadera, in the aftermath of the August 30 putsch.
The Economic Community of
Central African States (ECCAS) has appointed Touadera "facilitator of the
political process" in Gabon.
He has been tasked with
meeting "all Gabonese actors and partners of the country" with the
goal of providing "a rapid return to constitutional order".
The oil-rich state joins Mali,
Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Niger among African countries that have
undergone coups in the last three years - a trend that has sounded alarm bells
in the continent and beyond.
The broadcast gave no details
of the talks, which came a day after ECCAS member Equatorial Guinea said Gabon
had been suspended from the 11-nation group.
ECCAS also ordered the
immediate transfer of its headquarters from Gabon's Libreville to the
Equatorial Guinea capital of Malabo, the country's vice president, Teodoro
Nguema Obiang Mangue, said on X, previously known as Twitter.
Touadera is expected to meet
ousted president Ali Bongo Ondimba later Tuesday, Touadera's spokesman Albert
Yaloke Mokpeme said in the CAR capital of Bangui.
Oligui, head of the elite
Republican Guard, was sworn in on Monday as interim president.
In a speech, he promised to
hold "free, transparent and credible elections" to restore civilian
rule, but he did not give a timeframe.
He also vowed to amnesty
"prisoners of opinion," a move that was followed on Tuesday by the
release of several individuals, said rights lawyer Anges Kevin Nzigou.
Among those freed, he said,
was one of his clients, Jean Remy Yama, a 59-year-old teacher and trade
unionist, who had been held since June 2022 on charges of embezzling public
funds - an accusation that the opposition said was bogus.
"It's a good signal to
start by addressing cases of injustice," Nzigou said, adding he hoped that
"more will follow."
Oligui also met late Monday
with Albert Ondo Ossa, the main opposition candidate in elections that
precipitated the coup, Ondo Ossa's spokesman said on Tuesday.
The meeting marks a further
step by Oligui to forge contacts with key figures after Wednesday's dramatic
events.
Ondo Ossa, 69, was the chief
rival to Bongo in fiercely disputed presidential elections on Aug 26.
Amid opposition claims of
fraud, Bongo was declared victor of the poll in the early hours of Aug 30 - but
moments later was detained by soldiers.
Monday night's meeting took
place at Ondo Ossa's home, said Guy-Pamphile Mba, in charge of the former
candidate's communications.
On Sunday, Oligui gave a warm
reception to leaders of Alternance 2023, the coalition that named Ondo Ossa as
its champion less than a week before the poll.
On Thursday and Friday, Oligui
met business chiefs, religious leaders, civil society and other interest
groups, spelling out his desire to clamp down on corruption and reform Gabon's
decrepit pension system, a bugbear for many people.
Bongo took office in 2009,
succeeding his father Omar, who ruled the country for some 41 years, gaining a
reputation for iron-fisted rule and kleptocracy.
He was re-elected in bitterly
disputed circumstances in 2016 but two years later suffered a stroke that
weakened his grip on power.
According to the official
disputed results, Bongo picked up 64.27 per cent of the vote against 30.77 per
cent for Ondo Ossa.
In the immediate aftermath of
the coup, Ondo Ossa urged Oligui to step aside, arguing that he had won the
elections but the outcome had now been "cancelled" by the military
takeover.
He also suggested that Oligui
and Bongo were connected by family ties, and that the event was less a coup
than a "palace revolution" that was now perpetuating what he called
the "Bongo system". - AFP
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