Gabon Troops Crush Main Resistance in Oil City

Troops crushed most anti-government resistance in Gabon’s oil capital Wednesday, allowing vital oil production to return to normal, the army said.

It said one civilian was killed and six were wounded, two of them seriously, when soldiers moved into the streets of Port Gentil to quell weeklong protests against President Omar Bongo, who has ruled Gabon for 22 years.

But hospital sources said a second civilian was beaten to death, and unconfirmed reports said up to eight people were killed and scores wounded.

Bongo imposed a state of siege Monday in the Atlantic province of Ogooue-Maritime, which includes Port Gentil, center of operations for foreign oil companies including Elf-Aquitaine and the Anglo-Dutch Shell group.

Gabon earns $1 billion a year from oil, about 80% of its export earnings.

Gen. Paul Poncy, local commander of Gabonese troops who are backed by soldiers from France, the West African country’s former colonial ruler, said the state of siege in the city would remain in force for 12 days.

Port Gentil, with a population of 20,000, is 80 miles southwest of the capital, Libreville.

Residents said tanks destroyed barricades erected by insurgents during the night, but troops did not yet control the so-called African district, heart of the riots.

Poncy told reporters that more than 40 people, including three opposition leaders, had been arrested.

The violence, the most serious in Gabon since independence in 1960, was sparked by the death under mysterious circumstances of one of Bongo’s leading political opponents, Joseph Rendjambe, secretary general of the Gabonese Progress Party.

His body was found in a Libreville hotel room May 22, and supporters accuse Bongo of ordering his death.

Opposition sources in Libreville said party president Pierre-Louis Agondjo Okawe was taken from his home by soldiers Wednesday and his whereabouts was not known.

National Assembly speaker Augustin Mboumah, a former Cabinet minister, was also missing after troops detained him at his home Tuesday night, relatives said.

Dozens of Mboumah’s supporters gathered at sunset in front of the seaside presidential palace in Libreville to protest his disappearance.