EQUATORIAL GUINEA: The Dictator’s Achilles’ Heel

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jul 21 2004 (IPS) - Legal action in Spain and the United States taking aim at secret bank accounts of President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea could become a weapon to help put an end to his 25-year dictatorship, say opposition leaders and activists from the West African nation.

Legal action in Spain and the United States taking aim at secret bank accounts of President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea could become a weapon to help put an end to his 25-year dictatorship, say opposition leaders and activists from the West African nation.

The trials could mark the beginning of the end for a dictatorship "which has turned the country into one enormous prison," Celestino Okenve, head of the Madrid-based non-governmental group Equatorial Guinea Solidarity Forum (FSGE), which will be lodging a lawsuit in the Spanish courts, told IPS.

Prisons in Equatorial Guinea hold between 50 and 100 political prisoners to a cell, "and the entire national territory has been converted into a prison for the rest of the population" of around half a million people, he said.

There is no freedom of speech or movement in Equatorial Guinea, it is impossible to discuss politics, and there are police and military checkpoints every 20 to 30 kilometres, he added.

The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported last week that there were around 700 million dollars in bank accounts in the Washington-based Riggs Bank in the name of Obiang, his family and associates, with deposits or transfers coming in from U.S. oil companies.

Severo Moto, leader of the opposition Party for Progress of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE) and president of the Guinean government in exile, set up in Madrid, told IPS Obiang should stand down immediately.

But as that is not on the cards, the opposition should unite and support the legal action in order "to get rid of this heartless thief who fills his pockets and those of his associates while the people suffer hunger and destitution, even though our country is a very rich nation," he stated.

This tiny nation on Africa’s Atlantic coast was a Portuguese colony until 1778 and a Spanish enclave until independence in 1968. It underwent a radical change of fortune in the 1990s, when rich oil deposits were discovered.

Traditional exports of cacao, coffee and timber began to be surpassed by oil sales, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 71.2 percent in 1997, 22 percent in 1998 and 15 percent in 1999.

In 2001, natural gas was also discovered and a new economic upsurge began.

In 1998, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that Obiang "simply pocketed 96 million" of the total 136 million dollars in oil revenues, said Moto.

The important factor in the new court cases is that they are based on lawsuits brought by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like the FSGE, which means the dictator cannot argue that they amount to "retaliation by the opposition," he said.

The FSGE will bring a criminal prosecution in the Spanish courts, calling for investigation of Obiang’s bank accounts in Spain, "as U.S. investigations have already provided some leads," said Okenve.

Moto said the Apr. 25 legislative and municipal elections in Equatorial Guinea were fraudulent, and that the United Nations "left Obiang with a free hand to torture prisoners and submit them to farcical trials with no political guarantees," because no mechanisms were put in place to monitor human rights during the election process.

Plácido Micó, leader of the opposition Convergence Party for Social Democracy (CPDS), told IPS he hoped Madrid would begin an investigation along the lines of the U.S. probe to verify whether Obiang used Spanish banks to open accounts "within or outside Spain," in one of the world’s tax havens, for example.

Spain has the necessary mechanisms to undertake an investigation, and events in the United States prove "Obiang used oil money to benefit himself, his family and associates, rather than for developing the country," said Micó.

Obiang, meanwhile, is playing on his abundant oil reserves. The oil fields are currently exploited by French and U.S. companies, but their Spanish counterparts would like a share of the action.

Also, hundreds of Spanish missionaries work in Equatorial Guinea, mainly as teachers for marginalised populations. The NGOs and church groups that provide the volunteers say their lives could be endangered if Obiang feels harassed by Madrid and the Spanish courts.

In Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Minister of Information and government spokesman Alfonso Nsue Mokuy criticised the Spanish media Sunday, which provided coverage of the U.S. Senate report.

He said the Spanish media "always went out of their way to broadcast information that confused opinion at home and abroad with the single aim of destabilising the democratic political regime of Equatorial Guinea for hidden and undeclared interests."

Scant information enters the West African nation from abroad, and the little that does mainly comes through the international channel of the Spanish public station Televisión Española. "Obiang is now studying the forced removal of TV receiver antennae," said Okenve.

The Guinean government in exile is backed by a coalition of the Progress Party (PPGE), Popular Action of Equatorial Guinea (APGE) and the Liberal Party. Micó’s Convergence Party for Social Democracy (CPDS) is not included.

The West African country – where Spanish is the predominant language as well as the official language along with French – has been ruled by Obiang since 1979, when he led a coup that overthrew his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, who governed with an iron-fist since the declaration of independence in 1968.

Obiang has won all presidential elections since 1984 with nearly 100 percent of the vote. There is no secret ballot.

The opposition groups say the people live under a reign of terror, and demand that Obiang resign and that free elections be held.