Pope’s wishes for Gabon’s independence day celebrations

(August 20, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI extended ‘fervent good wishes of peace and happiness’ to Gabon on its 52nd anniversary of independence marked on Friday. In a message in French to the president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, the Pope said he ‘prayed to the Almighty to watch over all the inhabitants of Gabon that they always have the courage and desire to grow in solidarity between the different components of the nation.” Situated on the west coast of Central Africa, Gabon which was the last of the four territories which had formed French Equatorial Africa gained its independence from France on August 17, 1960, with Gabriel Léon M'Ba as its first president.