Omar Bongo Ondimba (Le Grand Camarade)

It was a far cry from 2007 when Karim attended Bourgi’s investiture in France’s Légion d’Honneur as did the children of other presidents he had long counselled such as Omar Bongo Ondimba and Denis Sassou-Nguesso...

After the death of Gabon’s President Omar Bongo Ondimba in 2009 Compaoré took over as point man for Francophone Africa at least as far as the Paris government is concerned...

Jean Ping was a former finance minister mines minister and head of the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba’s office in Gabon in 1984-2000...

Vague attempts at ‘dialogue’ and ‘reconciliation’ were a principal tool of Ali Ben’s father the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba...

The case has benefitted from the successful appeal by TI and Sherpa in December against the dismissal by the Paris Prosecutor of the 'Biens mal acquis' (BMA ill gotten goods) case in which the NGOs tried to force a prosecution of three presidents - Gabon's late Omar Bongo Ondimba Congo-Brazzaville's Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - their families and entourages for embezzling state funds...

The credibility of any claim that the ruling Parti démocratique gabonais (PDG) represented all Gabon’s ethnic groups died along with President Omar Bongo Ondimba in June 2009...

Obame whom Omar Bongo treated as one of the family is Ali Bongo’s most dangerous opponent...

Lula was criticised for fostering ties with the late Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba although he drew the line at meeting President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea who was reported by the Brazilian press to have recently bought a penthouse at Ipanema the location of one of Rio de Janeiro’s most famous beaches...

President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba has maintained a dignified silence over the claim contained in a United States State Department cable of June 2009 and leaked by WikiLeaks that he and his father President Omar Bongo Ondimba personally benefitted from the fraudulent acquisition by Gabonese officials in the Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale of about US$36 million worth of CFA francs...

Three of the most important government buildings on Boulevard Triomphal Omar Bongo were built by Chinese contractors: complaints include broken air conditioning at Radiodiffusion Télévision Gabonaise leakages at the Senate building and shoddy building at the Assemblée Nationale...

Ali Ben Bongo’s father Omar Bongo Ondimba was President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in August 2009 and many Gabonese saw the son – with his privileged overseas upbringing globetrotting and French wife – as an outsider...