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There has been a lot of talk recently on the wisdom of selling arms to non-democratic countries - and naturally much cursing the French. The following is an account of a trip I made to Gabon, another 'oil-dictatorship' in another part of world, where that lethal mixture of megalomania and petro-dollars has, happily, had less harmful consequences: its only victims two hapless Frenchmen, an hotel manager and his Maitre D'.

For years this former French colony in Central West Africa has been a sleepy and relatively prosperous backwater. Its huge areas of rainforest hide large oil and uranium deposits, providing a not insubstantial GNP for a small and predominantly coastal population of 1.1 million. The Gabonese will tell you different - c. 1.5 million, they maintain - but I’m told that this is a national conspiracy to qualify for larger amounts of French aid. It's all ruled over - in a seamless sort of way - by the iron hand of His Excellency El Hadj Omar Bongo, a canny gold-encrusted old dictator whose conversion to Islam soon after taking office was a masterful stroke of political opportunism on the wider African stage. He knew which way the wind was blowing.

His country is never in the news much. In the 80s we were treated to a summit meeting between Bongo and President Banana of Zimbabwe, an event which aroused much comment in the international press - but not, alas, on account of any visionary accords they might have signed. Then, in the early 90s, riots were reported in Port Gentil, or PG as it is inevitably known to the large community of ex-pats and moneyed Gabonese who live there. A vast oil terminal, it is also a model of gentility, as its name suggests: the streets are clean, the fish market picturesque, and extremely expensive air-conditioned bistros, run by people called Gerard and Albert, dot the seafront. Rioting in PG? Incroyable! But in due course the news fizzled out. Bongo must have reasserted control, quietly and firmly, and Gabon slipped back into its torpid prosperity.

It is not, of course, a country of great world significance. If its oil were cut off tomorrow, it would hardly cause a crash on Wall Street. A few points on the Paris Bourse at most. Nevertheless it is a dictatorship, and one with a number of dangerous elements. Its oil wealth arrived suddenly, and is due to peak and tail off during the early years of this century. And it has a dictator with megalomaniac tendencies. Moreover, until as recently as 50 years ago Gabon had the fiercest reputation for cannibalism of any region in Africa, with a population divided along tribal lines. Its tabloid-headline-grabbing potential is enormous. The problem, then, for the wily French, has been how to maintain their presence in this oil and uranium rich country, with the aid of Bongo, while at the same time controlling his natural self- aggrandizing ambitions. For some years ago he began to get frustrated.

Bongo’s problem was what to do next. His people were relatively prosperous- few of them starved. All the indications were that no one particularly wanted to invade his forested country, despite the uranium and the oil, so there was no cause to build up his armed forces. In any case the French had their own paratroops stationed in the capital, Libreville, and he had no reasonable excuse to ask them for an intercontinental ballistic missile. His relatives had all done well out of him: too well, some said. No, he had to find other ways to raise his international profile, and secure his popularity at home. And he had money to burn. Big time.

Then one day he had a brilliant idea. He would turn his home town into an international conference centre. Instead of an intercontinental ballistic missile, he would build an Intercontinental Hotel. African leaders would jet in and out, dual carriageways and rail links would sprout up, and his tribe would love him for ever. His home town was a corrugated iron shanty called Franceville, deep in the rainforest and miles from nowhere...

Bongo's Grand Design (or BDG as one Port Gentilian referred to it) consisted of several elements: a rail link to the capital, Libreville; accommodation for a thousand delegates; a new set of Government offices, including an imposing post office; -(no single feature has been more widely assimilated into the Third World from former colonial masters than the ubiquitous post-office) -a dual carriageway to link the Intercontinental with the centre of town; and an international airport capable of taking jumbo jets.

BDG suited the French perfectly. Here was a scheme well out of harm's way. But even they baulked at this last requirement. Had His Excellency any idea, they pointed out, of how much it would cost to carve a major international airport out of virgin rainforest? Let alone to maintain it. But Bongo was adamant. And here, the story goes, he had a stroke of luck. Way back in the dark days of apartheid the South Africans, who were looking for a place to refuel their Europe-bound jumbos, approached him with an offer: if they promised to refuel at the dead of night, as well as subsidize his airport, would Bongo break ranks and grant them the landing rights that the rest of Africa denied?

The El Hadj Ornar Bongo International Airport was born.

When I arrived at the airport soon after its fifth birthday the huge, echoing and deserted terminal building was presided over by a single dozing soldier,slumped over his semi-automatic. Mine was one of two 120 seater jets that touched down from Libreville each week. What had happened to the international jumbo jets and the South Africans, I asked my guide, Anatole? He offered two versions of the story: one has it that Bongo pulled off an almighty sting on the hapless South Africans, spending their money then annulling their landing rights. This version is the one most widely canvassed - and admired - in Gabon. The other has it that the South Africans started using longer range jets. Bongo was either very clever or very lucky. Either way, no Boers came, but neither did any other type of African. They preferred to hold their conferences, in Cairo, Dakar and Nairobi.

The town had evidently swelled considerably since Bongo was a lad. At its centre stood, proudly, the imposing Government offices. Queues of people were forming outside to make telephone calls. Unfortunately, five years on, they were suffering from that great African disease - neglect. The African, as a rule, has absolutely no concept of maintenance. Why should he? The place was falling down. As we drove past market stalls and dirt tracks, cows and goats, through endless corrugated iron, hemmed in on all sides by the dark green mass of the forest, I found it hard to believe that Anatole had booked us in to an Intercontinental Hotel. But shortly he pointed out to me a ten story building perched on top of the local hill, and he almost purred the words at me, in reverential French: "Voila! Eh bien! L'Intercontinentale."

The dual carriageway approach up the hill was not very promising. Huge chunks of it had fallen down the hillside, the result, Anatole informed me, of a recent mudslide. Our car had to swerve several times, violently, to avoid going the same way. En route we passed forty or fifty spaciously arranged bungalows, some unfinished and others housing students of the army academy, luxury accommodation for the delegates who never came.

At last we arrived. I double took. Two young, smiling porters in peaked caps leapt out of the swing doors, underneath a sign which clearly said 'Intercontinental', and, saluting me, grabbed my case. It was large and yellow, and I remember vividly how well it matched their pink and grey livery. Inside, we were met by a whoosh of cool, air-conditioned air. Anatole beamed at me proudly. A white man, who I later found out to be the French manager, swept behind the check-in desk and, tapping his state-of-the-art computer (a sound I hadn't heard since leaving Charles de Gaulle Airport), checked us in. It was rather like checking onto the early morning plane to Paris -smoking or non-smoking, town view or forest view? All rooms were available.

Just one small thing, Monsieur, the Frenchman whispered to me as I prepared to go to my room. Would I be wanting to make any calls to Libreville? France, even? I hesitated. Because he was afraid, he went on, that all calls outside Franceville were unavailable at present. He leant closer and smiled conspirationally: but Monsieur could make all the local calls he needed, free of charge. I gazed towards the "Restaurant Panoramique", where I could just make out views of the bedraggled town and the encroaching forest beyond … I'm sorry to say I laughed. Upstairs Anatole explained to me that it had nothing to do with the telephone system, just that the hotel hadn't paid its telephone bill in six months. It belonged to the president's wife (what didn’t, I asked myself, except that which belonged to the president?) and they were having certain little marital difficulties. She had other, more important matters to attend to. The hotel had been cut off.

I walked along the empty floors in wonder. The walls and carpet were perfectly matched and spotless in pink, grey and blue. Maids padded silently past rows of empty and equally spotless bedrooms. It was as if the hotel was kept in readiness for the hordes of international delegates who might arrive at any time. My case was already in my room, my bed turned down, little boxes of sweet-smelling soap and phials of shampoo, made in France, placed invitingly in my gleaming bathroom. I could have been in Paris, Milan or New York. Outside the hermetically sealed window the rainforest stared blankly back under a leaden grey sky. I was in another world. It was, in fact, wholly surreal. Even down to the mouldy chocolate on my pillow, which looked as if it would bring me firmly down to an African earth, breaking the spell. It was not a chocolate at all. It was a black button. I could only surmise that it acted as a reminder to replenish the only perishable commodity in the room, as each new guest arrived. Either they'd run out, or else forgotten. Perhaps someone has a more interesting explanation.

Later that evening I sat down to dinner in the panoramic restaurant. Alone, as it happened, Anatole having excused himself for the evening to visit 'cousins' in the town. He was one of those men who have cousins in every port. In any case, even if I'd wanted company, there was none to be had. Piped orchestral music wafted from somewhere behind me across the immaculately laid out but deserted restaurant, a panorama in its own right. Lights from a number of camp fires on the opposite hillside twinkled outside in the darkness.

The menu was elaborate. I’ve always had difficulty choosing between the Magret de Canard and Steak Tartare, and that night was no exception. The second Frenchman of the evening, the Maitre d', approached respectfully and, I thought, a little apologetically. My hunch proved correct. Pretty nearly everything was off, down to the fact that the train from Libreville was overdue. Two days overdue, in fact. But he could run me up a mushroom omelette, he said, and still had some excellent Petits Fours left over from the last consignment. Omelette and petits fours? Why on earth not?

We got talking, and were soon joined by Francois the manager. They seldom saw Europeans, and the few that did pass through were generally rather dull mining types. Put myself in their position, they asked me. Let me imagine their predicament. Tied to a five year contarct, with two years left to run, a step, as they thought, up the Intercontinetal ladder, but Mon Dieu, what a posting! All in the knowledge that as soon as they left the place would go to wrack and ruin, swallowed up by the encroaching forest.

Eventually we repaired to the bar. I can't remember much else of what we talked about; only the colourful cocktails served up by the African barman, whose Christian name, Deo Datus sticks in my mind, pleased to be able to show off his skills to a new face. He and Francois, I noticed, had matching twinkles in their eyes, so perhaps here was a way to make the posting more bearable. I also distinctly remember the bar telephone -of which Deo Datus was inordinately proud -a transparent perspex number that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Milanese showroom. Apparently I tried to raise the local witch-doctor on it before finally being steered in the direction of my room.

My air-conditioned sleep that night was the best I'd had in that part of Africa. Anatole and I left the next day. As we drove down the hill, past the missing chunks of dual carriageway, through the shanty town, into the steaming forest, the Franceville Intercontinental began to take on the aspect of a dream. Could it really have existed? If Bongo's Grand Design had any victims, those two hapless Frenchmen were surely they. We underestimate the agony for a French Maitre d' of having to say that his piece de resistance is off.

And many times subsequently, when others might be day dreaming about how many people around the world are doing what they’re doing at that precise moment, or how many are eating a particular type of hershey bar, in an attempt to capture the synchronicity of life, I turn my imagination back to that hotel in the forest. Does the air-conditioning still whirr? Are the uniforms still as immaculate? And how many people are, at that very moment, settling down to dinner? Then, invariably, a voice surfaces from the past, an echo, perhaps, from the present: "I'm afraid the Steak au Poivre Vert is off tonight, Monsieur. May I recommend the Mushroom Omelette?"

But the five years are nearly up.

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