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PORT-GENTIL, Gabon: Gabon's government threatened Sunday to impose emergency powers to quash unrest in its second city Port-Gentil after three people were killed in post-election violence.
Fearful inhabitants of Gabon's economic hub used canoes to flee to safety while airlines suspended flights to the peninsular seaport that has no road links to the rest of the nation.
Violence erupted Thursday when Ali Bongo, 50, was declared the winner of presidential elections to succeed his father Omar Bongo, who ruled this oil-rich West African nation for 41 years until his death in June.
Visiting Port-Gentil on Sunday, Interior Minister Jean-Francois Ndongou said three people had been killed, and that "not one death is due to the presence of the military". He made no mention of injuries or arrests.
Ndongou warned that the government could ask parliament for emergency powers that would impose a virtual lockdown on Port-Gentil, which is already under a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
"The president and the prime minister do not want to put Port-Gentil under a state of siege. We are not yet at that level," he told local officials.
"But if peace, order and harmony are not restored, we are going to solicit authorisation to do so from parliament."
But Prime Minister Paul Biyoghe Mba played down the need for emergency measures, telling France 24 television: "Calm is returning progressively."
"It is possible that, today or tomorrow, the curfew will be lifted. Therefore, we are very, very far from a state of siege."
Under the constitution, Gabon's president can, after cabinet discussion and consultation with parliament, decree a state of emergency or a state of siege, thus assuming "special powers under conditions set out by law".
The situation in Port-Gentil appeared calm on Sunday, after police used tear gas to disperse looters late Saturday with protesters also setting up barricades in some areas to stop police vehicles patrolling.
Bongo has appealed for calm and urged his rivals who allege election fraud to take their grievances to court.
"We are a nation of laws and therefore there are institutions in place for those who have complaints," he told Radio France Internationale on Saturday. "Calm must absolutely return to the entire territory."
Port-Gentil is a nerve centre of Gabon's opposition. It was hit by rioting and looting 19 years ago following the suspicious death of one of Bongo senior's opponents.
Large canoes with outboard motors carried dozens of people at a time away from the dockside in Port-Gentil's south, with some passengers complaining the cost of the trip had doubled from the equivalent of 15 to 30 euros.
"I prefer to leave Port-Gentil to get my family to safety," said a Gabonese man who asked not to be named.
AFP reporters in the city saw about 50 burned-out vehicles, as well as overturned kiosks and traces of burnt tyres.
In the Grand-Village market, grocer Justine Obame lost all her inventory in the unrest, leaving her to sell a few bananas and onions. "I have 13 children at home," she said. "I do not know how I am going to make do."
France, the former colonial power, evacuated most of its citizens out of Port-Gentil after the French consulate there was torched on Thursday. It warned French nationals elsewhere in Gabon to stay in their homes.
French oil giant Total moved its foreign staff and their families to Libreville after its social club in Port-Gentil was torched.
French consul general Pierre Blondel told AFP that the French nationals remaining in Port-Gentil feel well-protected.
"The French feel efficiently protected by Gabonese forces," he said, adding that they are not suffering from a lack of food or water supplies.
Ali Bongo was declared winner of the August 30 elections with 42 per cent of the vote. Former interior minister Andre Mba Obame was second with 26 per cent, followed by opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou with 25 per cent.
- AFP/yb
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