Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Gabon actu
Published on 2024-04-09 12:57:35
Speaking as the president of the feminist movement ‘The Call of the Thousand and One’, Dr. Nicole Assélé calls out the organizers of the inclusive national dialogue for the “arrogant over-representation of men,” in her own words, at the Angondjé conference, where commission and sub-commission work actually started last Monday.
With magnifying glass in hand and pointing out, the activist and feminist leader from the early days reveals by way of illustration that in the ongoing discussions at Angondjé, there are 502 men compared to only 144 women. Continuing with her argument, she points out that in the participation quotas assigned to the 52 special communal delegations, there are 52 men for 2 women. And out of the 48 representatives of special departmental delegations, there are 45 men compared to only 3 women.
Even at the level of the wise, the female gender would not be wise enough in Gabon, in the eyes of the organizers, for only 3 of them have been included nationwide, compared to 15 elders out of the 18 sages and dignitaries called to the dialogue, according to the president of ‘The Call of the Thousand and One’.
“I allow myself to express here all my outrage and disapproval of this situation which constitutes a real setback, when Gabon has always been cited as an example in terms of promoting gender issues,” asserted this tireless defender of the noble cause of women’s rights, who readily reminds that “men will never defend women’s causes better than women themselves,” she believes.
Particularly bitter, Nicole Assélé also points out to deplore that the feminist movement ‘The Call of the Thousand and One’, one of the most historic and emblematic associations for the defense of women’s rights, has been royally ignored by the organizers of the inclusive national dialogue.
Transitional justice would be, from Nicole Assélé’s point of view, now wearing the hat of a member of one of the allied families of the Bongo Ondimba family, to be among the essential questions of the moment, in view of the “witch hunt against the Bongo Ondimba family, the allied clans and families, who are confusedly made guilty of all the words and woes that afflict Gabon,” she regrets.
“The Bongo Ondimba and allied families did not govern and manage this country alone from 1967 to August 30, 2023. Other actors, other families from all provinces of the country were involved in the management of Gabon, including those who give lessons and the well-meaning heads, now awkwardly draped in a cloak of virginity and innocence,” clarifies Nicole Assélé.
She therefore pleads for the immediate establishment of a “truth-reconciliation-justice-forgiveness and reparation commission so that all the light can be shed on the blood crimes, economic and financial crimes that we all deplore; so that everyone, individually or collectively, can assume their share of responsibility for the mistakes of the past,” she suggests.
Elliott Ana Merveille
Read the original article(French) on Gabon Actu
