A dictator, a R5bn-a-year oil boom, a rapper son... and Nick du Toit
The equatorial coup plot reads like 'dallas in africa'March 16, 2004 Edition -1
On the steamy shores of West Africa, oil seldom brings good tidings. Equatorial Guinea, the nugget-sized nation at the heart of last week's bungled apparent coup attempt, is no exception.
A despotic leader, his playboy-rapper son, scheming relatives and thousands of American oil men are the characters of a plot that reads like Dallas set in Africa.
And although attention has focused on 67 alleged mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe, a greater intrigue swirls around the dictatorial regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Obiang, who came to power by overthrowing his uncle, has survived 25 years in power by stuffing the government with relatives, torturing opponents and rigging elections. His would be a perfect banana republic, if it had bananas. Instead it has oil - lots of it.
Obiang's iron fist turned to gold in the mid-1990s when US oil firms made massive offshore discoveries. Overnight, the former Spanish colony shot from poverty-stricken obscurity to fabulous wealth.
Large oil companies, led by ExxonMobil, invested $6-billion (today worth about R39-billion) in operations that now pump 350 000 barrels of oil a day.
More than 3 000 US oil workers are manning the pumps, and business is so brisk there are direct flights from Houston to the island's capital, Malabo.
Equatorial Guinea is now Africa's third-largest oil producer, after Nigeria and Angola, and its fastest growing economy.
"The oil has been for us like the manna the Jews ate in the desert," Obiang said last year. Most Guineans, however, have yet to taste that sweet bread.
The majority of the state oil revenues - up to R4,6-billion this year - has been salted into foreign bank accounts. Many are controlled by Obiang. Most of the country's 500 000 people scrape by on about R15 a day, and human development indicators have barely budged since oil was struck.
"There is no evidence that any of the oil wealth has gone to the people," said Sarah Wykes of the lobby group Global Witness, which will this month release a report linking the Obiang regime to large-scale corruption and drug trafficking.
US oil companies appear unconcerned by the allegations. Last year, ExxonMobil threw a party in Washington in Obiang's honour - one year after he held presidential elections that gave him 97% of the vote. The result suggested a slight fall in popularity over the previous poll, in which he won 99,2%.
Western business has followed on the heels of the Texan oil men with gusto.
Only 15 years ago, Malabo had just one hotel with no electricity, food or running water. Two cars in the street was a traffic jam, and the phone book had just two pages.
Today, the French have built a cellphone network, sports utility vehicles whiz through the streets, and several international carriers service the smart new airport terminal.
Prostitutes clamour around several new hotels. The US re-opened its embassy in October, following an eight-year closure in protest at torture and other human rights abuses.
But a campaign against US involvement in Equatorial Guinea is building. The influential US news programme
60 Minutes criticised the pact between Obiang and the oil companies last year, and the latest US State Department human rights report catalogues an array of police torture, arbitrary arrest and detention.
In Washington, the FBI has started investigating a $700-million (about R4,6-billion) bank account at the Riggs Bank, of which Obiang is apparently the main signatory.
But the greatest threat to Obiang's dictatorial dominance comes from his own family. The president has been sick, reportedly from prostate cancer, and tensions have arisen over his apparent plans to hand over power to his son Teodorin - a government minister, rap music entrepreneur and international playboy.
The 30-something Teodorin parties in Rio, does business in Hollywood and lives at five-star hotels in Paris, where he drives Bentley and Lamborghini cars.
Some years ago he invested several hundred thousand dollars to start his own rap label, TNO Entertainment, standing for Teodorin Nguema Obiang. It apparently failed to release any records, but according to gossip he has had a relationship with American rap star Eve.
Teodorin is also a keen property investor, owning a
$6-million (about R40-million) mansion in Bel Air, California.
His frequent absences have called into question his ability to run the ministry of infrastructure and public works, although he did head up his father's extraordinarily successful 2002 election campaign.
The president is reportedly worried about his son's partying and has appealed to confidants to help temper his wilder excesses - presumably to help pave the way for a leadership succession. This worries Obiang's relatives, who hold the top positions in the government and military. In particular it has bothered Obiang's brother, Armengol Ondo Nguema, the national security chief.
According to documents obtained by The Independent, Armengol has close links with Nick du Toit, the 48-year-old South African mercenary who last week admitted to helping plan the putative coup.
Both men are shareholders in Triple Options, a joint venture company established in October 2003 to provide "security services" to Obiang, but which the government now says is implicated in the coup plot.
Sleuths remain mystified about who is behind the plan - if there ever was one at all. Suspicions have been raised by Du Toit's appearance on Zimbabwe television to admit his complicity in the apparent coup, only hours after the plane of 67 mercenaries was held in Harare.
Appearing relaxed and composed, Du Toit said he planned to force Obiang into exile, allowing the opposition leader Severo Moto Nsa to seize power. Moto, who lives in exile in Spain, has denied any involvement in the plot.
The task of finding the culprit is complicated by the almost universal unpopularity of the Obiang regime. It is involved in high-profile border disputes with neighbouring Gabon and Cameroon over remote and possibly oil-rich areas, and most of the opposition is jailed or in exile.
Last month, an American human rights lobby group put Obiang at sixth place in its gallery of the world's 10 worst dictators. In 2002, for instance, he had more than 70 political opponents jailed. Some were hung in positions designed to break their bones, and at least two died.
Those who have not fled have been detained at Black Beach prison, where opponents say they have been tortured by Obiang family members. "If you've ever seen a person limp on both legs, you know you're in Equatorial Guinea," said the former US ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, John Bennett.
The government is also tainted by allegations of drug trafficking. In 1997, a former information minister, Santos Pasqual Bikomo, was arrested in Madrid with 14kg of heroin. Currently serving a nine-year sentence, he alleges that other government figures were involved in the drugs trade.
According to research by Global Witness, at least 10 Equatorial Guineans travelling on diplomatic passports have been arrested on drugs trafficking charges since the late 1980s.
The independent press has been beaten into silence and even the foreign press is not safe. And the state media bring greasy sycophancy to new depths. Obiang has "all power over men and things", state radio said last year, adding: "He can decide to kill ... because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, who gives him this strength".
US interest in censoring Obiang's abuses has waned in tandem with the flood of investment. For example, after the sham 2002 elections, the European Union issued a stern condemnation. In contrast, the US State Department's reaction was notably muted.
The US increasingly sees West Africa as a "safe" source of oil, far from the Muslim world and Opec price-controlling countries. Sub-Saharan African already supplies 15% of US imports, which the Bush administration hopes will rise to 25% in the coming decade.
Other countries have more mixed relations. President Thabo Mbeki recently strengthened relations, and Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio visited in November last year.
However, yesterday Equatorial Guinea threatened to recall its ambassador to Spain over claims that the Spanish government was behind the coup plot.
The 67 alleged mercenaries detained in Zimbabwe were due to make their first court appearance today.
Led by the former SAS commando Simon Mann, they are accused of acting like characters from the Frederick Forsyth novel, The Dogs of War - about a mining executive who hires mercenaries to overthrow an African government and install a puppet dictator so that he can mine platinum.
But the accused give a different explanation - that they were en route to the eastern DRC to protect an unnamed mine as part of a legitimate contract.
However, according the newsletter Africa Confidential, they had stopped to pick up weapons for a planned coup.
According to a quoted contract, the team had already paid R1,1-million to Zimbabwean army officers for a consignment of AK-47 guns, mortars and 30 000 rounds of ammunition.
Whatever the truth, when their plane landed in Harare, their plans went disastrously wrong. The trial may shed further light on their bizarre adventure and - just perhaps - on the intrigues of a tiny oil-rich yet fragile nation 3 200km away. - The Independent
