African Union demands "immediate release" of Gabon's ousted president
The African Union (AU) on Friday demanded the "immediate release" of Gabon's ousted President Ali Bongo, who is under house arrest following Wednesday's coup d'état by the military.
In a statement issued from the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, the organisation's Peace and Security Council (PSC) demanded "the immediate release and the guarantee of the human rights, personal integrity, security and health of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, members of his family and members of his government".
Furthermore, the PSC condemned "any politically motivated detention in these circumstances" and stressed "the importance of ensuring that all political detainees are dealt with in the judicial system, as provided for in the country's legislation".
In the communiqué, which deals with the urgent meeting held on Thursday by the Council on the crisis in Gabon, the AU, as it said yesterday, stated that it has suspended Gabon as a member of the pan-African organisation "until the restoration of constitutional order".
In this regard, the PSC called for "the immediate restoration of constitutional order through the holding of free, fair, credible and transparent elections to be observed by the African Union and the Regional Election Observation Mission".
It also demanded that "the military immediately return to barracks and unconditionally return power to civilian authorities, respect their constitutional mandate and the principle of constitutionalism and refrain from any interference in Gabon's political process".
Otherwise, the AU warned that it could take "the necessary measures, including the imposition of targeted sanctions against the perpetrators of the coup d'état".
The PSC also asked the African Union Commission (secretariat) to deploy a high-level mission to Gabon "with a view to laying the groundwork for the immediate transfer of power to a civilian-led and democratically elected government", as AU sources told EFE on Thursday.
The pan-African organisation published this message after a group of Gabonese military seized power on Wednesday.
The coup leaders claimed that the controversial elections of the 26th - which gave Bongo victory but were questioned by the opposition - were not transparent, credible or inclusive, and accused the executive of governing "irresponsibly and unpredictably", thus deteriorating "social cohesion".
They also placed Bongo under house arrest for "high treason against state institutions" and "massive embezzlement of public funds", among other crimes, and announced the appointment of General Brice Oligui Nguema, commander of the Republican Guard, as the new "transitional president".
Bongo's family - who became president after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, in 2009 - has been in power since 1967.
The coup in Gabon, one of sub-Saharan Africa's oil powers, is the second to take place in just over a month in Africa, after the army seized power in Niger on 26 July.
Gabon joined the list of countries that have had successful coups in the last three years, which, in addition to Niger, includes Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Guinea-Conakry (September 2021), Sudan (October 2021) and Burkina Faso (January and September 2022).