Martin Bongo (born July 4, 1940) is a

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

political figure and diplomat. He was the

Foreign Minister of Gabon The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Gabon is a government minister in charge of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Gabon, responsible for conducting foreign relations of the country. The following is a list of foreign ministers of Gabon since i ...

from 1976 to 1989. Bongo, a nephew of President

Omar Bongo El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was the second President of Gabon for 42 years, from 1967 until his death in 2009. Omar Bongo was promoted to key positions a ...

,James Franklin Barnes
''Gabon: Beyond the Colonial Legacy''
(1992), page 57. was born in Lekei, located in

Haut-Ogooué Province Haut-Ogooué is the southeasternmost of Gabon's nine provinces. It is named after the Ogooué River. It covers an area of . The provincial capital is Franceville. One of its primary industries is mining, with manganese, gold and uranium being ...

. In 1989, President Bongo appointed his son, Ali-Ben Bongo, to succeed Martin Bongo as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Bongo was the Special Representative of the

African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of member states of the African Union, 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling fo ...

to the

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

as of 2003."Kabila receives AU envoy"
Pana, October 17, 2003.

References

1940 births Living people Foreign ministers of Gabon 21st-century Gabonese people {{Gabon-politician-stub