Gabon's government puts down coup attempt, arrests plotters

Gabon's government has retained control of the West African country after an attempted military coup early Monday, the government said.

Five army officers who took over state radio in the coup attempt have been arrested, government spokesman Guy-Betrand Mapangou, told Radio France International.

Authorities have regained control of the state broadcasting offices and a major thoroughfare in the capital, Libreville, which were the only areas taken over by the officers, according to the spokesman.

Earlier Monday a soldier who identified himself as Lt. Obiang Ondo Kelly, commander of the Republican Guard, read out a statement saying the military had seized control of the government of this West African country.

He was flanked by two other soldiers holding weapons and all were dressed in camouflage uniforms and green berets. He had said they were taking over to "restore democracy."
"The African Union strongly condemns the coup attempt this morning in Gabon," the head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said on Twitter. "I reaffirm the AU's rejection of all anti-constitutional change."
"A difficult period," he called it, and a challenge that he surmounted "thanks to God."