African presidents pay respects to Gabon's first lady

EDOU, Congo

Tens of thousands of people gathered in a remote village on Sunday to bury Edith Lucie Bongo, daughter of Republic of Congo's President Denis Sassou Nguesso and the wife of Africa's longest-serving leader.

Six African presidents paid their respects to Edith Bongo, who symbolised the ties between two veteran leaders who have dominated their countries and regional politics in oil-producing central Africa for much of its independence history.

"You will rest here with your people ... God will welcome you to his kingdom," Sassou-Nguesso said at a ceremony in his native village of Edou, 400 km (250 miles) north of his country's capital Brazzaville.

Edith Bongo, the 45-year-old wife of Gabonese President Omar Bongo, 73, died this month in a hospital in Morocco.

Authorities have said little about the cause of her death. Congolese Roman Catholic weekly "La Semaine Africaine" reported last week she had a brain tumour.

As well as Sassou-Nguesso and Bongo, in a black suit, Faure Gnassingbe of Togo, Francois Bozize of Central African Republic, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and Joseph Kabila of Democratic Republic of Congo attended the funeral.

Each laid a wreath of flowers before a coffin bedecked with the green, yellow and blue Gabonese flag, sheltered from the hot sun by a large straw roof. Later the coffin was taken for a private burial with only family and the visiting heads of state.

"Edith's death has been a big shock for us. She was a woman who did not like to see others suffer," said Nadege Kaya, a 32-year-old market trader in the nearby town of Oyo.

"Here in Oyo she built a new pilot school and paid for all the children's education," she said.

Powerful dynasties

The presidents attending Sunday's funeral represent some of the powerful dynasties that have ruled many African countries since independence from European colonial rule in the 1960s and 1970s, though all have consolidated their rule through elections.

Bongo is Africa's longest-serving head of state, having ruled oil-producing Gabon, one of Africa's richest countries on a per capita basis, since 1967.

Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea since overthrowing his own uncle in 1979. That same year Sassou-Nguesso came to power in Republic of Congo. He lost power in elections in 1992 but regained the presidency five years later after a civil war.

The rest have all come to power in the last decade, Bozize in a military coup, Kabila and Gnassingbe following the deaths in office of their fathers.

Bongo, Sassou-Nguesso and Obiang have all been targeted in French courts by anti-graft campaigners who say they have amassed personal property portfolios in France which could not have been funded through their official earnings. All three deny wrongdoing. (Reuters)