Three reasons the Gabon coup failed
The tiny but resource-rich country has remained a pseudo state that is still run from Paris
Military coup drums continue to beat on the African continent in 2019. At 4.30am on January 7, Lieutenant Kelly Odong Obiang, leader of the Patriotic Youth Movement of the Gabonese Defence and Security Forces, and a handful of soldiers stormed the TV and radio station in Libreville, Gabon, to announce the seizure of power “for the restoration of democracy”.
The event has similarities to the February 18 coup in 1967 against president Léon M’BA, also perceived to be pro-french by the rebelling soldiers at the time.
Obiang’s address cited “the national shame of the illegitimate government” while also disparaging President Ali Bongo’s New Year’s address, delivered from his convalescence residence in Rabat, Morocco, and called on the people to rise up.
Obiang’s understanding as to who is behind the crisis in Gabon is instructive when he asserted that: “Once again, one time too many, the wielders of power deceptively continue to instrumentalise the person of Ali Bongo Ondimba, a patient devoid of many of his physical and mental faculties.”
In the 2016 disputed election the opposition leader — Bongo’s brotherin-law, Jean Ping — called for the security forces “to defect and join the people” against “an unrepresentative family dynastic regime”.
On learning of the January coup bid, AU commissioner Moussa Faki Mahamat and France, the former colonial power, issued statements condemning the unconstitutional removal of the Gabon government.
About three hours later, reports indicated that four of the five soldiers who accompanied Obiang in his coup attempt lay dead. One was being pursued by the elite, rapidreaction Presidential Guard force.
But what explains this valiant attempt by the young soldiers? We need to reflect on the context and historical parallels to the coup attempt.
The constitutional legitimacy of the Gabonese government became questionable after Bongo collapsed in Saudi Arabia on October 24 last year. Libreville refused to invoke constitutional provisions that would have allowed the speaker of the National Assembly to become the interim leader, with a mandate to call elections within 45 days. At the behest of Prime Minister Emmanuel Issoze-ngondet, in a submission to Bongo’s mother-in-law and president of the Constitutional Court, Marie-madeleine Mborantsuo, an amendment to the Constitution was introduced, enabling Vice-president Pierre-claver Maganga Moussavou to assume control.
The fear to go down the constitutional and electoral route was informed by an August 2016 dispute, which Bongo only survived by producing a wafer-thin victory in his home province of Haut-ogooué.
The second historical parallel is the 1964 coup against M’BA by soldiers who backed Jean-hilaire Aubame. They seized power by opposing M’ba’s perceived “serving as a conduit to French interests in Gabon”. Soldiers incarcerated M’ba and his aides, including Cabinet secretary Albert Bongo, before coercing the president to announce that he had handed over power to the provisional government headed by Aubame.
The Élysée Palace instructed two generals leading 600 troops drawn from Dakar, Senegal and Congobrazzaville to fly to Libreville. M’ba’s administration was restored to power. He appointed Albert Bongo to work with the French contingent, which also protected 20 000 French nationals working for uranium mining, timber, iron and oil companies.
In 1967, the Constitution was amended to allow the vice-president to assume the presidency. M’ba died on November 27 and the next day Omar Bongo became president. When Omar died in 2009 he was succeeded by his son, Alain Bernard Bongo.
Successive coup attempts have failed because Gabon has remained a quasi-state with little or no domestic control. The country is important to France because it has a pliant political elite, whose primary role is to facilitate the exploitation of natural and mineral resources. The country enabled Paris’s objective to develop a nuclear capacity, relying on Gabon’s uranium, iron and manganese.
Michael Reed and Tony Charter state in their 1987 article, Gabon: A Neo-colonial Enclave of Enduring French Interests, that the country has remained a pseudo state “representing an extreme case, verging on caricature of a neo-colonial entity”.
The mandate of the resident military expeditionary force is to enforce the political control of the state and protect 8900 French nationals. The Presidential Guard falls under the ministry of defence, headed up by Bongo’s brother Frederico, and is led by his cousin, Grégoire Kouna.
Gabon’s comprador class continues to run the state while feeding off it, state-owned companies and associated commercial entities. Obiang and the 44 opposition parties have reason to believe that “the whole system has to be reformed” to restore democracy in Gabon.
This is an edited extract from Martin Revayi Rupiya forthcoming book: African Presidents: Sons of Thy Fathers — L’enfant Terrible & My Brother’s Keeper