2023-09-09 14:57:30
Torn campaign posters of deposed Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), in Libreville, September 7, 2023. – / AFP
He didn’t know it yet, but Jean-Rémy Yama’s prison life ended on the night of August 30, before daybreak, around 4 a.m. Lying on the bed of his cell, in the central prison of Libreville, where he had been languishing for eighteen months, the leader of Dynamique unitaire, the main trade union organization in the country, then heard heavy weapons thundering in the distance. “I said to myself: gunshots at that hour, there is a nine out of ten chance that it was a coup d’état”, he says, a week later, in the basic and cramped premises of his union. He couldn’t imagine what happened next.
Shortly after these nocturnal detonations, “happy jailers” tell him the unthinkable. So improbable that the trade unionist deprived of radio and television would think of “a manipulation” : President Ali Bongo, the man who has held the country for fourteen years, succeeding forty-two years of reign of his father, Omar Bongo, was deposed by a military junta led by the head of the Republican Guard, General Brice Oligui Nguema.
On September 4, the new president of the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI) promised to provide amnesty for prisoners of conscience. Five days after waking up with a start, on the night of August 30, Jean-Rémy Yama was released.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Coup d’état in Gabon: General Oligui Nguema takes power and promises democracy
The most famous prisoner of conscience
Incarcerated since February, he was until then the most famous Gabonese prisoner of conscience. We cannot say that the jails of the country were filled with it, but over time, dozens of activists or political leaders have been there for more or less long periods. “Freedom of expression, association and assembly were systematically violated; civic and political space were locked down; justice riddled with corruption”lists Jeanne Clarisse Dilaba, national coordinator of the coalition of the network of human rights defenders in Central Africa.
Read also: Coup d’état in Gabon: General Brice Oligui Nguema, discreet head of the praetorian guard who overthrew Ali Bongo
In the eyes of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders – partner of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) – Mr. Yama was the victim of “arbitrary detention and judicial harassment”. The president of Dynamique unititaire (a confederation of some forty Gabonese trade union organizations) and active member of Tournons la page Gabon, an organization that denounces bad governance, was arrested on February 27, 2022 at Léon-Mba international airport, in Libreville. He was preparing to go to Paris, via Dakar, to have medical examinations. Taken to the premises of “B2”, the general directorate of counter-interference and military security, the former political police at the time of Omar Bongo, he learns that he is accused of breach of trust in a file, yet closed by the courts, linked to alleged real estate embezzlement dating back to the early 2000s.
“Legally, the crime of opinion does not exist in Gabonrecalls Jean-Rémy Yama who has always denied these accusations. The judges use an article among the hundreds of the penal code to put people at the expense, the objective is obviously not the demonstration of the truth but to silence an opinion leader. » The union leader is convinced that the prospect of the presidential election of August 26, 2023 motivated his questioning. “They didn’t know how long I was leaving for, or what I was going to do, they panicked,” he says. “At each election, they tried to silence me”he laughs.
Read also: Gabon: opponent Raymond Ndong Sima appointed transitional prime minister
Behind bars, already, in 2016
Shortly before the previous election, in 2016, won by dint of cheating by Ali Bongo Ondimba, the union leader close to the opposition had already found himself behind bars. Arrested on July 8, with two of his confederal secretaries, for having ” spear “ of the « cailloux » against police officers. What he has always denied. He will spend eighty-nine days in prison. “The power of the Attorney General of the Republic is such that he can arbitrarily keep anyone in pre-trial detention for two years, plus one year in pre-trial detention, without trial”adds the trade unionist.
In 2016, behind bars, Mr. Yama did not witness the bloody repression of the protest following the fraudulent re-election of Ali Bongo Ondimba. It ended in the death of dozens of people. A list of thirty-three dead in Libreville has been drawn up by human rights organisations. “There were between one hundred and three hundred deaths throughout the country, extrajudicial executions, mass graves…”supports Georges Mpaga, president of the Network of Free Civil Society Organizations in Gabon. “No one knows the exact toll, because the authorities never let us seriously investigate”, denounces the activist. He does not exclude that Ali Bongo will one day be held accountable before the courts for this. “The case is still pending at the International Criminal Court in The Hague”he recalls.
The Green Berets of the Republican Guard
However, a major obstacle stands in the way of justice. “This issue will move forward if the transitional authorities demonstrate the political will to shed light”, advances Marc Ona Essangui, figure of Gabonese civil society, defender of the environment and activist against corruption. Problem: the green berets of the Republican Guard (GR) were at the forefront of repression. They are notably responsible, on August 31, 2016, for the helicopter gunning and then the assault launched against the campaign headquarters of Jean Ping, the probable real winner of the 2016 presidential election.
Read the interview: Jean Ping: “May Ali Bongo stop killing the Gabonese people! »
Admittedly, the commanders of the unit responsible for presidential security are no longer the same. Frédéric Bongo Ondimba, in particular, left. In 2016, the half-brother of the former president was the boss of the general direction of special services (DGSS), the intelligence service of the GR. In this position, this Saint-Cyrien, colonel of the gendarmerie, will be replaced in 2019 by a certain Brice Oligui Nguema. The new strongman in Libreville will immediately become the commander-in-chief of the GR. “How can you imagine him attacking his own army corps? Might as well be harakiri! »slips a personality from civil society.
Partner service
Online English lessons with Gymglish
Learn English in 10 minutes a day with fun, personalized lessons
Discover
During their meetings with the new president of the transition, human rights organizations expressed the wish to establish a truth, reconciliation and reparations commission intended to examine the human rights violations committed during the previous regimes. “We were told that this is a long-term job to be undertaken once the transition is over”reports Georges Mpaga. “It’s a polite refusal”adds one of his colleagues.
#Gabon #human #rights #project