Nightmare In Gabon

Peru is investigating claims that a Peruvian beauty pageant contestant was lured to the West African nation of Gabon to become 67-year-old President Omar Bongo's lover - and was stranded for nearly two weeks after she refused.

A spokesman for Bongo, Vincent Mavoungou Bouyou, told The Associated Press on Wednesday by telephone from the capital, Libreville, that he was unaware of the allegations.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Ivette Santa Maria, a 22-year-old Miss Peru America contestant, was invited to Gabon to be a hostess for an alleged "Miss Humanity" pageant there.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry identified the contest's purported organizers as being from Argentina and Switzerland.

Contestant Santa Maria described the episode to The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday, saying she had been taken to Gabon's presidential palace hours after her Jan. 19 arrival with her boyfriend.

Gabon's president quickly joined her in a paneled room in the palace, Santa Maria said.

"He pressed a button and some sliding doors opened, revealing a large bed," she said. "I told him I was not a prostitute, that I was a Miss Peru. I started to cry and panicked."

Santa Maria said she fled the room and was running around the grounds of the palace when guards offered to drive her back to her hotel.

When she returned to the hotel, pageant organizers and government officials apologized for "any misunderstanding," Santa Maria said. Without money to pay the hotel bill, however, she was stranded in Gabon for 12 days until international women's groups and others intervened.

Santa Maria spoke to the AP in Bogota, Colombia, on her way home to Peru.

She denied reports she was held in Libreville by force, and said the Gabonese president never tried to force himself on her, once he realized she was not there for sex.

"He never touched me and didn't try to stop me from leaving," she said.

Santa Maria's parents had contacted Peru's Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday seeking help, the ministry said.

Peru's U.N. ambassador in New York contacted his Gabonese counterpart to express his country's "serious concern," the ministry said.

Bongo has kept a tight grip on power in this oil-rich former French colony since becoming president in 1967. He has faced similar allegations in the past.

In 1995, Italian fashion designer Francesco Smalto testified in Paris that he furnished Bongo with call girls, flying them regularly from France in 1992-1993.

At least two opposition newspapers were shut down and French newspapers were banned temporarily in Gabon after reporting on that alleged scandal.

By Todd Pitman and Kim Housego