Hundreds detained, 3 dead in Gabon election protests

Ping told Reuters in an interview that two people were killed and others wounded when the presidential guard assaulted his party headquarters overnight.

“They attacked around 01:00”.

Translation: My campaign headquarters is now under attack by the Republican Guard.

Around 1 a.m. Thursday, soldiers in green berets identifying them as the presidential guard shot live rounds during an attack on Ping’s opposition headquarters, injuring at least 20 people, according to Paul Marie Gondjout, an opposition electoral representative who was there.

Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet Boubeya said three people had been killed and up to 1,100 arrested across the West African country of 1.8 million, one of the continent’s top oil producers.

Ping said the election was fraudulent and “everybody knows” he won.

The U.S. Embassy called for all individual polling station results to be published after it said observers witnessed “many systemic flaws and irregularities” in the voting.

“We have said that the people of Gabon are in danger”.

Ping won in six out of nine provinces and disputes the result in one province which show a 99.93 per cent turnout and 95 per cent voted for Ali Bongo.

The US and European Union have also called for the results to be published, while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged calm.

However, government spokesman Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze told reporters the attack targeted “criminals” who had set fire to Gabon’s National Assembly.

Police and soldiers had been stationed along most roads and petrol stations in the capital in anticipation of the violence as tension mounted, days after Ping declared himself victor before CENAP gave the official tally, Eyewitness News reported.

The secretary-general is sending his special representative for central Africa, Abdoulaye Bathily, to Gabon to help in efforts to “calm the situation and to peacefully resolve the contentious issues emanating from the electoral process”, Dujarric said.

He called for global assistance to protect the population against what he described as “a rogue state”.

Police used tear gas to prevent crowds from gathering there again and arrested people as they emerged from remains of the building.

“It’s going to be hard to get people to accept these results”, one member of the electoral commission said, asking not to be named.

Bongo was elected in 2009 upon the death of his father Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon for 42 years.

Bongo, 57, campaigned under the slogan “Let’s change together”, playing up the roads and hospitals built during his first term and stressing the need to break with the bad old days of disappearing public funds and suspect management of oil revenues.