Dan Gardner: World Wrongly Honors Equatorial Guinea'sTeodoro Obiang
On a June evening in 2004, Washington's elite gathered at the Marriott hotel for a black-tie dinner in honour of Condoleezza Rice, currently the U. S. Secretary of State but then the national security adviser to President George W. Bush. Rice was to receive the Leon H. Sullivan International Diplomacy Award, an honour named after the black American minister who fought for human rights in Africa and around the world.
As Senator Hillary Clinton and others looked on, Rice began her acceptance speech by thanking a list of "distinguished guests." First, was Rev. Sullivan's daughter. Second, "President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea."
The transcript does not record whether, at that moment, there were any gasps from the audience. Likely not. Few westerners have ever heard of Equatorial Guinea or its president, and those who have usually know it only as a tiny African nation with immense oil reserves that have attracted major oil companies, including ExxonMobil and Canada's Nexen.
But if those assembled had known even a little about the decade of near-genocidal horror that swallowed the tragic country after it gained independence in 1968, they would certainly have snapped to attention. And if they had known the role President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo personally played in that horror, as well as the atrocities and corruption he and his regime continue to inflict on the nation, they might well have gasped when Rice thanked the distinguished guest for attending a lavish Washington dinner in memory of a human rights defender.
"There is not really a government" in Equatorial Guinea, says John Bennett, who witnessed Obiang's operation up close when he served as U.S. ambassador to the tiny nation between 1991 and 1994. "There is an ongoing family criminal conspiracy. That's what runs the country."
The conspiracy began almost four decades ago, with a man named Francisco Macias Nguema Biyogo.
In the late 1960s, Spain came under pressure to relinquish Spanish Guinea, its sole colony in sub-Saharan Africa. Consisting of one big island -- now known as Bioko -- in the Gulf of Guinea, a scattering of small islands, and a small rectangle on mainland Africa, Spanish Guinea was an accident of European history that made little sense. But in 1968, this obscure backwater became a country.
In the first and only truly democratic election in Equatorial Guinea, an obscure civil servant, with a talent for saying what his audience wanted to hear, positioned himself as the leading nationalist and defeated a better-qualified candidate who advocated maintaining links with Spain. Francisco Macias became the first president of Equatorial Guinea.
...
Only in 1979, when the regime was visibly crumbling and the country looked less like a modern nation than the set of the movie Apocalypse Now, were condemnations issued by the United Nations and the European Commission.
The end came when a visibly deranged Macias executed members of his own family. The ruling clan was shocked. One lieutenant-colonel -- a nephew of Macias whose brother was among the executed -- organized a coup and on Aug. 3, 1979, Macias was overthrown. After a quick show trial, the Unique Miracle was shot.
The nephew who led the coup was Teodoro Obiang. Now aged 63, Obiang is still the president of Equatorial Guinea. In the last few years, the country's exploding oil wealth has drawn international media attention and stories about Obiang invariably mention that the president came to power by ousting his uncle. But these reports never mention what Obiang did prior to the coup, giving the impression that he had been an opponent of the regime.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer article. Please see the Ottawa Citizen for more.]
As Senator Hillary Clinton and others looked on, Rice began her acceptance speech by thanking a list of "distinguished guests." First, was Rev. Sullivan's daughter. Second, "President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea."
The transcript does not record whether, at that moment, there were any gasps from the audience. Likely not. Few westerners have ever heard of Equatorial Guinea or its president, and those who have usually know it only as a tiny African nation with immense oil reserves that have attracted major oil companies, including ExxonMobil and Canada's Nexen.
But if those assembled had known even a little about the decade of near-genocidal horror that swallowed the tragic country after it gained independence in 1968, they would certainly have snapped to attention. And if they had known the role President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo personally played in that horror, as well as the atrocities and corruption he and his regime continue to inflict on the nation, they might well have gasped when Rice thanked the distinguished guest for attending a lavish Washington dinner in memory of a human rights defender.
"There is not really a government" in Equatorial Guinea, says John Bennett, who witnessed Obiang's operation up close when he served as U.S. ambassador to the tiny nation between 1991 and 1994. "There is an ongoing family criminal conspiracy. That's what runs the country."
The conspiracy began almost four decades ago, with a man named Francisco Macias Nguema Biyogo.
In the late 1960s, Spain came under pressure to relinquish Spanish Guinea, its sole colony in sub-Saharan Africa. Consisting of one big island -- now known as Bioko -- in the Gulf of Guinea, a scattering of small islands, and a small rectangle on mainland Africa, Spanish Guinea was an accident of European history that made little sense. But in 1968, this obscure backwater became a country.
In the first and only truly democratic election in Equatorial Guinea, an obscure civil servant, with a talent for saying what his audience wanted to hear, positioned himself as the leading nationalist and defeated a better-qualified candidate who advocated maintaining links with Spain. Francisco Macias became the first president of Equatorial Guinea.
...
Only in 1979, when the regime was visibly crumbling and the country looked less like a modern nation than the set of the movie Apocalypse Now, were condemnations issued by the United Nations and the European Commission.
The end came when a visibly deranged Macias executed members of his own family. The ruling clan was shocked. One lieutenant-colonel -- a nephew of Macias whose brother was among the executed -- organized a coup and on Aug. 3, 1979, Macias was overthrown. After a quick show trial, the Unique Miracle was shot.
The nephew who led the coup was Teodoro Obiang. Now aged 63, Obiang is still the president of Equatorial Guinea. In the last few years, the country's exploding oil wealth has drawn international media attention and stories about Obiang invariably mention that the president came to power by ousting his uncle. But these reports never mention what Obiang did prior to the coup, giving the impression that he had been an opponent of the regime.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer article. Please see the Ottawa Citizen for more.]