Libreville--Gabon's government has condemned the burning down Sunday of Benin's embassy in Libreville and blamed the attack on a handful of people hired by ambitious politicians.
"The government expresses its regrets to the government of Benin and vehemently condemns the destruction," it announced in a statement late Monday, when the small west African country demanded an "official explanation".
Opposition supporters rampaged through Libreville on Sunday, setting fire to cars and buildings, including the embassy, as word spread of the death of Andre Mba Obame, a top opposition figure in the equatorial nation.
"Far from being the outcome of an instantaneous popular movement opposed to Benin's interests, these acts of vandalism and destruction were carried out by a few individuals in the pay of political figures with the ultimate ambition of coming to power by all means," Foreign Minister Emmanuel Issoze Ngondet said in the statement.
Mba Obame, who was aged 57 and plagued by serious health problems, died in Cameroon five and a half years after mounting a major challenge to Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba in elections in 2009.
The opposition leader that year rejected Bongo's victory, which was upheld by the Constitutional Court, and riots broke out in Port Gentil, the second city and oil terminal on the Atlantic coast, while Mba Obame declared himself elected head of state.
Some demonstrators on Sunday accused the regime of poisoning Mba Obame and in particular vented their wrath on Bongo's cabinet director, Maixent Accrombessi, who comes from Benin but has taken Gabonese nationality. The opposition believes Accrombessi has too much influence over the president.
"We're sounding the alarm to say that the situation in the country is explosive, the state of society is catastrophic, while the death of Andre Mba Obame could be the last straw that pushes people, so to speak, to run wild," Guilou Bitsusu-Gielessen, spokesman for an opposition coalition, told AFP.
AFP
