A Letter from East Africa

Omar Bongo, the president of the West African state of Gabon, was once famous on the continent for his fashionable clothes and colorful lifestyle. Bongo was never a model democrat, yet today the man is famous for freedom-sounding political remarks. He is the one who recently said the winds of democratic change from Eastern Europe were “shaking the coconut trees” of Africa.

The democratic winds may be shaking the coconut trees of Africa, but they are not dropping any fruit. ...