Open Letter To
Distinguished Guests of New York Forum Africa
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
Recognized
for your genius and your ethics that you defend to the point that you are incarning
them; for your commitment, your efforts and sacrifices in order to implement
values to be to left to posterity for a better world, you have been invited to
participate in the New York Forum Africa. According to Richard Attias,
organizer of this forum, "Gabon has a unique business model and I really
think that it is winner one. Its political and economic stability makes it an
ideal haven. "
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
This
unique business model, Gabonese do not want it. The pretext of the Cold War to
keep African (negro) kings in power to ensure "stability" for
networks of racketeers is no longer valid. Are also more of our time the spirit
and letter of the recent constitutional reform that strengthens the powers of
the president of a military-police state by granting him the exclusive
prerogatives of security and defense, and, therefore, the absolute sovereignty
in the definition of well-worn concept of "disturbing public order"
or "respect for institutions." Thus, since the accession to power of
Ali Bongo, peaceful marches are banned because they disrupt public order, the
independent press and all forms of dissent are routinely punished for (so
called) attempting to destabilize the state. When, moreover, the report of the
Court of Auditors is classified top secret in our last bastion of «Françafrique»
(France-Africa), doubt is no longer allowed on the nature of that state. This
economic model, Gabonese do not want it.
For
over fifty years, international organizations and the international community
protect a patrimonicide clan, against the interests of the Gabonese people.
Therefore, patriots from all social bodies gathered in the «Outraged Front», to
reclaim their sovereignty and assert their claim to be their fundamental rights
and freedoms. This claim, we are determined to express it during the communication
operation/strategy that the New York Forum Africa 2012 represents.
When
the forces of repression and coercion will strike against us, which side will
you be? Side of the family who has been running our country for 45 years, to the
point of considering that the state (of Gabon) is the family, or the side of
those who aspire to a democratic state, with the weakness to believe that the
alternation in power is fundamental in that it revitalizes/renews ideas and not
making public assets/goods a family heritage and to bequeath them to designated
successors?
Which
side will you be? Will you be on the side of the President of the National
Assembly who can not justify where more than 10 billion francs CFA (about $US
20 million) of public money (supposedly) spent on the construction of an annex
to the National Assembly went, since the money is nowhere to be found, or will
you side with the student sent to prison for calling for the construction of
classrooms and new training materials and for protesting against the imposition
of an age limit to get the state scholarships in middle of the school year?
Who
will you support? Special Forces for anti-terrorism or their targetted medical
professionals guilty of claiming better equipment to treat patients who die
daily before their eyes from minor illnesses, while political leaders are given
all means to go get health care abroad, their cynicism pushing them to prefer
to die at great expense in prestigious hospitals abroad than in plebeians
hospices, being public health centers of Gabon?
Which
side will you be? Will you side with the special intervention forces or with
the hundreds of officials whose salaries have been suppressed for years for
crimes of opinion?
Which
side will you be? Will you side with an oligarchy that has been laundering, for
months, the embezzled money that was supposed to be used for providing water to
neighbourhoods of Libreville (capital city), expropriating the poor people of
their land to build their real estate empire, or will you side with those who
fight at the cost of their lives to defend the land of their ancestors?
Which
side will you be? Will you be alongside those who transform agricultural lands
of poor farmers in rubber and oil palm plantations or side with farmers who
claim the right to their land?
This
umpteenth forum, realy another communication operation of an oppressive regime,
yet will cost taxpayers of Gabon huge sums of money that could be used to
improve infrastructure at the University of Libreville for instance. Will you
be in the camp of gendarmes who routinely violate the academic freedom to
conduct «rat hunts type police operation» or the side of students, determined
to fight till the end for their legitimate claims?
Are
intellectuals that you are going to defend noble causes of people of Gabon or
simply their fees or bonuses? Distinguished economists, will you defend the
business put up for stability by police’s baton or will you defend the rights
of our people, ensuring lasting stability and calm? Will the Nobel prize
winners defend ethic or will they legitimize a corrupt government prosecuted in
France in the case of ill-gotten gains and that has also been identified,
following an investigation of a US Senate Committee on corruption, as perpetuating
activities of money laundering?
Your
reputation has made you models for humanity. You are free to scramble this
prestigious image by showing close relations with dictatorial regimes as the
one in power in Gabon.
By «Outraged of Gabon»
Libreville, May 28, 2012
Press Contacts: Tel: (+241) 06 24 61 57 -
(+241) 07 29 41 40 - (+241) 05 37 90 46
(Translated from french by CLG)
