As many of you know, Gabon, holds a place in my heart - not only is it the country that my husband wrote a book about, but it's also where, when I went over, he asked me to marry him.

Anyway, the reason I am posting about this is because this past week there were elections held in Gabon. It didn't really make the news here, not that I really expected it to - but I thought that since Survivor filmed a season there that maybe there'd be some coverage...Here's an article I found about the results: here.

My husband and I have been following the election via email through his friends in Gabon and via twitter and youtube. this is a link to a flickr page with a video of protesters burning an effigy of the new president (that's Ali Ben Bongo's picture on the coffin that gets burned).

As much as political parties here might not get along, at least people aren't getting killed for protesting - there have been reports of at least 6 dead in an oil mining town in Gabon. A police station was taken over by protesters in the same town. And in the capital city of Libreville, all power, tv and telephones were cut for at least a day and there are mandatory curfews. It seems like things like this should make the international news - along with the idea of voter fraud over there, but sadly, it doesn't.

It's sad that it takes a mass genocide like Rwanda or Darfur to get people to pay attention to what's going on.