Gabon: Jean Ping and his supporters demand reparation.

While it claims to support the initiatives of the military in power, including the national dialogue announced for April, the Coalition for the New Republic (CNR) nevertheless believes that such discussions will only have a real impact if the Gabonese people obtain justice and reparations from the deposed regime led by the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG).

Formed around Jean Ping, a former opponent of Ali Bongo, the Coalition for the New Republic (CNR) advocates, like several others, for the postponement of the Inclusive National Dialogue announced for the entire month of April. It believes that before opening such discussions which may resemble “another smokescreen and a preordained failure of the ongoing transition,” it is necessary first to address two of the most urgent expectations of the Gabonese people, according to it: the restoration of institutions and the redress of wrongs inflicted on the population by the deposed regime in August 2023. Through Vincent Moulengui Boukossou, its president of the executive board, the political platform seeks a real “national reconciliation.”.

But the CNR warns: “national reconciliation is a multi-step process and not a staged scene behind closed doors.” Therefore, it expects the new authorities to engage in a “process of restoring relationships that have been broken by the deviant acts of the Bongo/PDG regime against the national community.” “This regime has had inhumane behaviors towards the Gabonese people, thus causing total aversion towards it,” it judges in a statement made on March 19th in Libreville, ensuring that today, “the Gabonese people first need truth, justice, reparations to reach forgiveness so that national reconciliation can be achieved.”

For those who were part of the hardline opposition to Ali Bongo less than 7 months ago, “there can be no national reconciliation in Gabon if the crimes of 2009 and 2016 are not acknowledged, if the perpetrators of these acts are not identified, if the perpetrators do not ask for forgiveness.” They therefore demand the establishment of a “Truth-Justice-Reparation-Reconciliation Commission” to be enacted by the future discussions they want to be sovereign.

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