Gabon's new President Ali Bongo Ondimba visited on 21 October  offering to continue the mediation with dissidents that his father  President Omar Bongo Ondimba  once pursued  with mixed results...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	      The only visible sign of this threat to the regime during the transitional period which followed the death of President Omar Bongo Ondimba on 8 June was the arrest and disappearance of General Jean-Philippe Ntumpa Lebani...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	    '     A few weeks before the release  Calil told AC that there were some key questions about the plot raised in Mann's statements that needed answering: the role of Gabon's late President Omar Bongo Ondimba  whom Mann met in 2003 in the critical planning stages of the coup; the role of other business interests - aside from Calil and Thatcher - in financing the plot; and why the plotters carried on after they had received a clear warning from South African security services in late 2003 to abandon it...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
            Vol 50 No 22 | 
            - FRANCE
 - AFRICA
 
        
        
		
        
        
    
        
	
	     euros) of Presidents Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon  Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville that had been abruptly shut down (AC Vol 50 No 2)...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	    The face of the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba still figures large on posters along the main boulevards of Libreville...
  Omar Bongo used the PDG to balance the Fang against the smaller ethnic groups  such as the Nzébi  awarding the Prime Minister's post to a Fang but allowing the Nzebi representatives greater control over finances...
 In the post-Omar Bongo PDG there is an emerging alliance between the centre-south and the south-east...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
            Vol 50 No 13 | 
            - SOUTH AFRICA
 
        
        
		
        
        
    
        
	
	     Both were on good terms with another oil sheikh  the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon  and flew to Libreville for his funeral  a grand gathering of the African and Euro-African clans...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
            Vol 50 No 13 | 
            - GABON
 - FRANCE
 
        
        
		
        
        
    
        
	
	    On 16 June  Francophone leaders came to bury El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba  éminence grise of the occult Françafrique networks  and to keep alive the personalised relations between France and its former colonies...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     His will to rule seems unshaken by the death in March  at 45  of his eldest daughter  Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba  wife of Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba  who died this month (see Gabon)...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	    The death of El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba gives French President Nicolas Sarkozy the clearest chance to break with the opaque Françafrique networks  although he has avoided previous opportunities for change...
 Remembered internationally for the Elf oil scandal and his friendships on both left and right of France’s political spectrum  the late President has left the landscape littered with Omar Bongo Ondimba universities and little-used presidential palaces...
    Omar Bongo’s death complicates the ruling family’s life...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     Gabon’s Petrolin markets its own crude; its owner is local businessman Samuel Dossou-Aworet  a business ally of the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba and his family...