Gabon traders await compensation
2010-08-10 10:03
Port-Gentil - Amost a year after a rioting mob burned and ransacked shops and buildings in Gabon's oil capital, Port Gentil, traders and shopkeepers who lost their livelihoods still await compensation.
"I lost everything. The rioters looted and burned my three stores. I like Port-Gentil and I've undertaken this work without any help from the government," said Wora Nahle Chadin Kazem, 35.
Chadin Kazem has refurbished his shops in the second city of this central African country with his own funds and is waiting for government aid, while he displays pictures of his property in ruins.
On September 3 2009, violence erupted in Port-Gentil when Ali Bongo Ondimba, the son of the late president Omar Bongo, was declared winner of a presidential election held on August 30.
The southern town is a bastion of opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou, who came second in the poll, and had already in 1990 seen serious violence after the suspicious death of another opposition leader.
Last year, the army intervened and the authorities imposed a curfew to put the lid on the unrest, but the violence claimed three lives according to the government and at least five according to the opposition.
Anti-French feeling ran high, because the former colonial power was accused of helping Ali Bongo into power. The French consulate in Port Gentil was torched and buildings of French oil giant Total were targeted, but there were no victims among the roughly 2 000 French residents of the town.
Signs of the rioting are still evident, but in the hardest hit area most of the shops and stores have been done up and opened for business. Trading thrives around the Rue de Grand Marche (great market street).
Cases of damages
"We congratulate the traders who courageously undertook the work and filled their shelves, because otherwise there would have been a famine among the people," said civil servant Pierre Claver Moussavou Idoungou.
Behind the counter of a supermarket rebuilt with his own funds, Ngoye Houman Ahmed moans: "My insurance broker refused to pay for the damage on the grounds (...) that it doesn't cover losses and damages resulting from movements of a political nature."
"We have been advised to take legal action," he added, in line with the recommendations of the authorities.
An advisor at the ministry of the interior said an interministerial committee was following up cases of damages. "President Ali Bongo Ondimba has said that the state will pay in the name of solidarity. And the state will pay, but it will not pay alone.
"The files are in the hands of the judiciary. There are responsibilities to be established," the advisor said.
The amounts of some reported losses are considered too great and are subject to caution, according to several sources close to the case.
- SAPA