10 richest countries in Africa in term of GDP per Capita (Source: snippets.com)
Bantu-speaking peoples, predominantly Fang, establish the majority of population of the Equatorial Guinea. Bantus have a proverb that deals with the common sense: “There are forty kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.” Based on how the Equatorial Guinea is currently governed it’s clear that the common sense stopped applying there long time ago violating the great historical and cultural traditions of the Bantu speakers who introduced Iron Age and an agriculture civilization into a surrounding Neolithic hunting and gathering societies very early and probably around the sixth century BC.
The Equatorial Guinea, by far, in term of GDP per capita, is the richest country in Africa, and equal in it to the average for the European Union, exhibits at least five lunacies which replace the common sense in all the Five Principles of Good Governance (see table below): by illegitimizing the voice of its population – rigging elections is a norm, providing imbalanced direction of its internal development, grossly misusing public resources, showing no executive, legislative or judicial accountability, nor producing an evidence of basic social fairness, while remaining rated as “Worst of the Worst 2011″ in the human rights’ metrics. Let’s look closely.
From "Principles for Good Governance in the 21st Century", Institute on Governance (IOG), Ottawa, Canada
Spanish Guinea, as it was then called, gained independence from Spain in 1968. From the outset, President Francisco Macías Nguema, began a brutal reign, destroying the economy and abusing human rights to become one of the worst despots in African history. In 1971, the U.S. State Department reported that his regime was “characterized by abandonment of all government functions except internal security, which was accomplished by terror. That approach led to the death or exile of up to one-third of the population.” In 1979, Nguema was overthrown and executed by his nephew, Lieut. Col. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.In spite Teodoro Obiang appeared like a revolutionary savior he retained many of his uncle’s dictatorial practices.
Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s only Spanish-speaking country, with the area twice size of the State of Connecticut, and with a population of less than 3/4 of a million. Equatorial Guinea’s economic boom first began in 1995 through discovery of oil and establishing oil export. Since then, the oil based economy grew nearly 130 times, making Equatorial Guinea the 7th largest producer of oil in Africa, while remaining only the Africa’s 6th smallest population. U.S. imports are up to a hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from the country, steering high interest of large oil companies, and others, whose least concern remains the political corruption and misgovernment.
Shady deals are what Obiang regime specializes in. As per The New York Times, these includes:
• U.S.-based military contractor Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), a Virginia based company headed up by former Donald Rumsfeld’s aide Bantz Craddock, hired for training Equatorial Guinea’s security forces. Former Democratic lobbyist and Clinton administration official Lanny Davis, a recipient of a $1 million per year contract with Equatorial Guinea until earlier this year;
• Qorvis Communications which represents Obiang in Washington and receives a lucrative $60,000 per month retainer in a contract which runs through August 2011, which listed the client’s contact address “3620 Sweetwater Mesa Road, Malibu, CA 90265”, which is the address of Teodoro’s $32 million Malibu mansion;
• Hess Oil, which was paid over $1.3 million to lobby on “education and dissemination of information that ration regarding registrant’s assets in Equatorial Guinea and Libya” in 2009 (Check this lesson). Marathon Oil which spent $1.08 million in the first quarter of 2011 lobbying on a number of foreign policy issues including “investment by Marathon Oil Corporation for developing energy resources in Equatorial Guinea” and “Equatorial Guinea – U.S. Engagement”;
• Exxon which was paid $6.6 million in 2008 for lobbying, and among other issues of concern, “discussions regarding background on business in Equatorial Guinea.”
Cartoon by Brandon Reynold (Source: africancartoon.com)
The political, economic and social game the Equatorial Guinea plays is conducted in a fashion similar to other oppressive regimes: besides conducting shady international business deals, the governing elite makes a constant efforts at, and allocates significant resources to, maintaining an appearance of legitimacy by financing the international public relations campaigns, while enforcing an internal constitutional and legal framework that works only on paper, with no evidence of any accountability process. Luckily, not everything goes right such as last year when a United Nation agency decided to suspend plans to award a life sciences prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea.
Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and freedoms:
…
- Freedom of expression;
- Equality before the law. …
- Freedom of movement and residence;
- Honour and good reputation; …
- The inviolability of the home and the privacy of all correspondence. …
- The right to speak;
- The right to a fair hearing before the courts;
- Freedom of association, of assembly and the right to strike;
- The deprival of liberty except in the cases and according to the manner determined by law;
- The right to hear the charges levied on him;
- The right to presume innocence until found guilty during hearing;
- No person shall arrogate to himself the right to do justice; …
- Shall not be condemned without proof, nor deprived of the right to defense; …Constitution of the Equitorial Guinea, Item 13 (fragments).
Although the constitution guarantees press freedom, the 1992 press law authorized government censorship forcing all journalists to register with the government. The state holds a near-monopoly on broadcast media, reportedly monitoring Internet communications, planting its own censored information posts such as Equatorial Guinea News on Blogspot.com while providing no access for the independent correspondents.
The constitution also seems to protect religious freedom, while official preference is given to the Roman Catholic Church and the Reform Church of Equatorial Guinea, the freedom of assembly and association is severely restricted, and official authorization for political gatherings is mandatory. There are no effective human rights organizations in the country, and international NGOs are prohibited from promoting or defending human rights. The constitution provides for the right to organize unions but there are solid legal barriers to collective bargaining.
Black Beach Prison
The judiciary is not independent, and the enforcement of the law is done through the security forces that generally act with impunity. Prison conditions, especially in the notorious Black Beach prison, are extremely harsh. The authorities have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture, detention of political opponents, and extrajudicial killings. In a manner similar to other totalitarian regimes all citizens are required to obtain exit visas to travel abroad, denying the opposition parties such visas. Constitutional and legal guarantees of equality for women are largely ignored, and violence against women is reportedly widespread.
Meanwhile, the president and his family still can use the country’s wealth as their personal ATM machine. Take the president’s son, Teodorin who acquired an impressive collection of luxury properties throughout the world. Back home, he’s the Minister of Forests and with his official income of about 4 thousand dollars a month and still was able to spend almost $44 million on mansions and luxury cars in the US and South Africa between 2004 and 2006. By comparison, the total education budget of the country was less about $43 million in 2005. His recent splurge includes his infamous yacht with a price tag of $380 million which is nearly triple what his country spends on health and education every year.
The lavish lifestyles of the ruling top persist while most people live in crushing poverty and international money laundering is aided by corrupted banks and remains a routine practice. For example, the president kept the country’s oil money at Riggs Bank in Washington DC, and Equatorial Guinea was the bank’s largest client. In 2004, Human Rights Watch helped expose the government’s lavish spending habits. After the US Senate investigation, Riggs received a total of $41 million in fines for failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws. Their dealings with the government of Equatorial Guinea ultimately ruined the bank’s reputation and led to a takeover but no official of Equatorial Guinea’s government was punished.
Equatoguinean President Obiang and Libyan leader Ghaddafi at an EU-African summit (Source: afrol.com)
Another example of lunacy related to PR campaign by Equatorial Guinea authorities is the fact that this month President Teodoro Obiang Nguema inaugurated the city of Sipopo. Sipopo development with the total cost of about $300 million consists 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, an artificial beach, a golf course and the French luxury hotel Sofitel that will be used when Obiang Nguema chairs the African Union and will host its summit for just 2 weeks, starting at the end of June, while the country’s population receives no sufficient social service attention and Equatorial Guinea exhibits the 18th highest infant death rate in Africa. The country will be the host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012 and more misappropriations are expected.
A poet may express the Equatorial Guinea’s lunacy the best. In the poem, titled “Delirium”, which comes from Marvin Lewis’s “An introduction to the literature of Equatorial Guinea: between colonialism and dictatorship”, the author writes:
Delirium
In the mirror of my past
there appear ghosts enmeshed
in a dark curtain, where my present
is shattered, and my future
crumbles in nothingness.Faces of shadows swarm
in my mirror!Your faces sketched by hunger
carry a stamp of misery as deep
as the revolving song of my sadness
that shouts at me to the depth of my bones
that I shall die like the offended Christ
who having been born in his time
those of his era did not recognize him.—by María Nsue Angüe
Equatorial Guinea is not an exception and other African countries have similar constitutions and proclaim a commitment to constitutional democracy and constitutionalism (a system of laws that must be obeyed by the rulers) in documents such as the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU, 2000), the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance (2002) and the Base Document of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM, 2003) adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD, 2001). Arguably, the absence of constitutional democracy, lack of respect for constitutionalism, and poor governance has been and still remains a significant cause of problems on the continent.
Assembled by Mark Bajkowski
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to people half his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of past-life memories.
]]>Tinariwen’s latest CD, Imidiwan: Companions, which came out in June 2009 was recorded on a portable studio equipment powered by an electric generator in various Malian village locations. It presents a mix of North African rhythms and a melodic richness of acoustic and electric sounds that often echos blues and even rock music; any Western rock music fan familiar with Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendrix will find some of the flicks comfortably familiar. The relentless and “unpolished” sound that Tinariwen delivers is more typical for a casual live performance, rather than for a typical “polished” studio recording, and adds to the honesty of their social and political message. Tinariwen’s multi-layered melodic presentation offers an unending musical feast to any careful listener. It’s only left to the imagination how much more main-stream and influential the Tinariwen would be in the West without the inherent language barrier their lyrics offer.
Tinariwen just keep on keepin’ on, relentless and brilliant as the Saharan sun.
The Guardian (UK)
The Imidiwan: Companions also won the 2009 Uncut Music Award for being “the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months”.
…the nearest thing the modern world provides to a real blues feel.
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
The group’s founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib (sitting front right on the photo), grew up in refugee camps in the deserts of southern Algeria. The political credentials of the group are well documented by the fact that the group’s founding member is said to have led armed rebels against Mali’s government. In the early 1960s, Mali threw off the yoke of French colonial rule and became an independent country, ruled from the capital Bamako. A thousand miles away in the northern desert regions, the nomadic Touareg or Kel Tamashek (‘The Tamashek speaking people’) had trouble recognizing the legitimacy of their new rulers or accepting their socialist laws and taxes, their alien ways and demands. In 1963 there was a Tuareg uprising which was brutally suppressed by the Malian army. In 1964, Ibrahim’s father was murdered by the Malian solders, reportedly for aiding rebels fighting against the government, and Ibrahim family’s possessions were destroyed and confiscated. Ibrahim, now forty-eight, eventually ended in Algeria where he started playing music.
I dreamed of avenging my father. I found solace playing guitars I made from sticks and oil cans.
Ibrahim Ag Alhabib
Tinariwen just completed its February 2010 tour of the five USA states with two performances in New York; the group performed in March in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, Canada. New York’s fans will have opportunity to appreciate Tinariwen again on June 26th, 2010, during the Central Park Summerstage.
The Tinariwen’s tour info and news can be found on their website – move mouse over page capture below to see their current RSS.
Written by Mark Bajkowski.
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to the people half of his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of multiple-life experiences. ]]>
Eritrea is on the threshold of a mining boom that is hoped to boost the mainly agriculture-based economy that has suffered from irregular rainfall. The United Nations last month voted to punish Eritrea for its alleged support of Islamic insurgents in Somalia. The abundance of minerals, including gold that nearly quadrupled in price during the last 8 years, attracts many international investors disregarding the fact that the associated money may be tainted.
Gold price trend in last 10 years.
Apart from small-scale artisan mining and some minor extraction by Italians during the colonial era, Eritrea’s mining potential is not fully exploited. Bisha is currently Eritrea’s most advanced mining project. Its 27 million tonnes of ore are believed to contain 1 million ounces of gold, close to 800 million pounds of copper and 1 billion pounds of zinc. Production is expected to begin by the end of 2011.
More than a dozen foreign companies are now exploring, or about to begin the exploration plans. Before sanctions were imposed in December, the Canadian corporation Nevsun Resources Ltd, spent a record $21.7 million on its Bisha project in the third quarter of 2009.
Stanley Rogers, the head of the Bisha project for the Nevsun, implying an apparent lack of need for any social or political accountability of the inter-national corporations, said that the industry was not feeling the heat and that all eyes were on the movement of the price of gold. “For investors, the international price of gold is a more decisive factor than sanctions imposed on a single country. External perceptions of Eritrea are at odds with the internal reality. Internally, this is a stable place to do business. My view on this hasn’t changed,” he concluded.
Any ethical dilemmas? You be your own judge.
Eritrea is accused by the United Nations and others of fueling the chaos in Somalia — where 18,000 people have died in violence since the start of 2007 — by sending funds and arms to rebel groups battling the UN-backed transitional government. Sanctions include an arms embargo, travel bans and asset freezes but they do not target the interests of mining companies operating in Eritrea, where licenses are held by groups from Australia, Canada, China, Libya and the United Kingdom. But some observers argue there is now an ethical obligation on the part of these companies — some hailing from nations who were vocal supporters of the sanctions — not to put millions of dollars in the pockets of the Eritrean government.
“Absolutely not the case,” said Rogers, “External investment is up to the individual. We’re not forcing people to spend money in Eritrea. We’re not involved in the politics of the nation or internationally … people are still investing.”
International lobbying efforts of Eritrea are substantial and routine. For example, in 2006 Eritrea paid total of $390,000 to BGR LLC. The description of BRG Group LLC, provided by Spin Profiles, a project of SpinWatch is self-explanatory:
Barbour Griffith & Rogers, LLC (BGR) is a Washington, DC-based lobbying company, which was described as “all-Republican” in 2007.[1] It describes itself as “performance based” and that it can offer “a proactive, creative approach to solving problems and aggressively seeking results”. [2]; and as ‘a premier strategic consulting and government affairs firm in the United States and worldwide’[3].
John Sununu: Bush's Bad Cop
A further check on the Chairman of BGR Group, Mr. Rogers reveals that he has a direct plug to the Republican politicians such as John H. Sununu, the former White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush – a rather close connection to a source of things to be done in the US and abroad. Not by accident, Mr. Sununu was referred to as Bush’s Bad Cop by Time Magazine.
If there is a question why Eritrea came directly to the US government, instead dealing with the UN that is present in the region, the answer maybe found in this statement quoted from Eritrea: Independence Day call for a year of urgent human rights improvements by Amnesty International:
Such is the level of secrecy and intimidation inside Eritrea, which affects Eritreans in the diaspora too, that few confirmed details are available on new political detainees in the past year. They currently include 10 Eritrean staff of the UN Military Mission to Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) administering a buffer zone between the two countries, who were detained earlier this month as relations deteriorated further between Eritrea and the UN.
The accomplishments of Mr. Isaias Afewerki, president of Eritrea since 1993, in the area of human rights violations are evident as Eritrea has turned into one of the most totalitarian states in Africa. His early tactic was to ban multiple political parties and privately owned press, and simply expel foreign journalists who became too critical.
“What is a free press? There is no free press anywhere.”
- Isaias Afewerki
The international journalist watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked Eritrea’s press freedom as the worse on earth in 2009, behind North Korea and Turkmenistan. As if the complete suppression of political freedoms in Eritrea weren’t enough, Afewerki has found a remarkably “efficient” way to expand the size and scope of its government: a forceful servitude; he pays people about $50 a month to work as government employees, whether in an office or providing manual labor. Those not inclined to give up their former jobs, even if that actually provided enough money to support their families, were given another option: prison without trial. Afewerki’s scheme ran into snags when young Eritreans started fleeing to Sudan to avoid indentured servitude to their dictator. In turn, Afewerki ingeniously tackled the problem by simply jailing the families of people leaving the country to escape his state-mandated poverty. Finally, we can not omit the state sponsored persecution of religious minorities in Eritrea reported for years.
Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki standing with Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
It’s safe to presume that Afewerki will survive the latest round of fighting with Ethiopia, yet another source of problems in the troubled region. Afewerki’s decision to provide money and weapons to anti-Ethiopian militant groups may, however, backfire on him, as some experts expect.
With well orchestrated lobbying efforts of Afewerki any chance he will be resigning soon is unlikely. The latest assassination attempt on Afewerki was conducted in August, 2009. In this failed action, the president was barely able to escape death. The man who tried to kill the president though, a former freedom fighter, 43-year old First Lieutenant Daniel Habte Yihdego, after an exchange of fire with the president’s security, was shot to death.
I predict that President Afwerki’s complete disregard for the East-African wisdom stating that “Peace with justice is everything” and his attempt to apply his own wisdom will fail.
The latest about situation in Eritrea can be found at Asmarino Independent and Eritrea Daily websites.