AU Chairman Obiang must uphold AU principles in Equatorial Guinea

The African Union’s decision to appoint Teodoro Obiang, the long-serving president of Equatorial Guinea, as its next chairperson places pressure on his government to fulfill its obligations to the African Union and other multilateral organisations regarding democracy, human rights, social justice, and corruption, EG Justice has said.

‘By the end of Mr. Obiang’s one year Chairmanship, we expect to see marked improvement in the Equatoguinean government’s application of the fundamental principles of the African Union,’ said Tutu Alicante, executive director of EG Justice. ‘If governed with respect for human freedoms, Equatorial Guinea could become a beacon of hope and an engine of growth for the entire African continent. In this way, Mr. Obiang would demonstrate his commitment to the African Union’s vision of peace, prosperity, and stability.’

Five key African Union principles remain unmet in Equatorial Guinea: fostering democracy, rule of law, and basic freedoms, promoting human rights, increasing investment in health and education, combating corruption, and protecting women’s rights. As Mr. Obiang prepares to take over leadership at the African Union, his government must demonstrate its commitment to the African Union and its principles by devoting the political will and resources necessary to ensure their application in Equatorial Guinea.
To guarantee press freedom and democracy, civil society organisations must be allowed to operate without interference and the government must allow journalists to freely distribute information. The government should investigate and prosecute all cases of torture and allow international organisations to aid in these efforts as a concrete step forward in the promotion of human rights in Equatorial Guinea.

Further, by increasing the amount of government expenditures for health and education, the government could fulfill its international commitments to expanding the social and economic rights of its citizens.

Effectively combating corruption requires the government to open its books, publish information on revenues and budgets, and ratify the African Union’s convention that aims to unite African countries in their struggle to eliminate the scourge of corruption. The government should also ratify the African Union’s protocols that promote women’s rights, and provide scholarships that are targeted specifically at promoting women’s education.
Through these concrete steps, the Equatoguinean government can fulfill its obligations and commitments to the African Union and international law.

Fostering Democracy, Rule of Law, and Basic Freedoms

AU Principle:

The Constitutive Act of the African Union mandates that African nations must ‘consolidate democratic institutions and foster a culture of democracy and ensure good governance and the rule of law.’ Additionally, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights requires that governments grant each individual ‘the right to receive information’ and ‘the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law’.

The Reality: Equatoguinean elections are routinely marred by widespread irregularities, with Mr. Obiang and his ruling party consistently winning more than 95 per cent of the vote. Freedom House gives Equatorial Guinea its lowest possible score for civil liberties and political rights, placing it alongside countries like Burma and North Korea. The only widely distributed local media outlets are owned by Mr. Obiang and his son Teodoro Nguema, and journalists are routinely censored and harassed.

Recommendations:

- Enact a Freedom of Information Law to grant access to and protect the dissemination of information.
- Eliminate restrictive press permit requirements that impede local and international journalists from reporting on news inside Equatorial Guinea.
- Eliminate all internal police roadblocks to protect the right of all Equatoguineans to travel freely within the country.
- Rescind all laws and cease police actions that restrict the abilities of Equatoguineans to form labour unions and civil society organisations and to hold meetings without government monitoring.

Promoting Human Rights

AU Principle:

The Constitutive Act of the African Union calls on all nations to ‘promote and protect human and peoples’ rights.’ The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights prohibits ‘torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment’, as well as arbitrary arrest and detention.

The Reality: The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment stated in January 2010 that torture, discrimination, and inhuman conditions are prevalent in Equatorial Guinea’s prisons. In 2010, the Equatoguinean government abducted, tortured, and executed four Equatoguinean refugees that had been living in Benin.

Recommendations:

- Cease the use of torture and fully investigate and prosecute any future cases of torture by agents of the government.
- Allow national and international human rights organisations unrestricted access to all detention facilities.
- Produce a comprehensive, publicly available registry of prisoners.

Investing in Health and Education

AU Principle:

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights stipulates that states must ‘take the necessary measures to protect the health of their people’. In addition, the Equatoguinean government agreed to implement several of the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review pertaining to health and education, including increasing its investment in these two critical areas.

The Reality: Most citizens still lack access to affordable, quality health care. Similarly, more than half of Equatoguineans lack access to adequate sanitation facilities and potable drinking water. Education faces similar challenges: according to the government’s own studies, less than half of first and second grade students have access to the textbooks used in their classes and the primary school repetition rate more than doubled between 1999 and 2007.

Recommendations:

- Increase government spending as a percentage of total government expenditure to the average spending rates for all African countries (9.6 per cent and 17.5 per cent for health and education respectively).
- Allocate the resources necessary to ensure 100 per cent access to primary and secondary school for all Equatoguinean children.
- Allocate sufficient resources and take all necessary measures to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary schools.
- Ensure that quality health care is promptly available and affordable to all Equatoguineans.

Combating Corruption

AU Principle:

The African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption requires governments to establish ‘the necessary conditions to foster transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs’, and to create an enabling environment that will allow civil society and the media to hold the government to the ‘highest levels of transparency and accountability’.

The Reality: Equatorial Guinea has not yet ratified the Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption. Corruption remains a deeply institutionalised practice in Equatorial Guinea. Transparency International ranked Equatorial Guinea168 out of 178 countries in its 2010 Corruption Perception Index. President Obiang and persons closely affiliated with him have been the subjects of several recent or ongoing criminal and regulatory investigations in the United States, France, and Spain, as well as a case before the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, suggesting a pattern of suspected money-laundering and other apparent acts of corruption. Lastly, the Equatoguinean government failed to fulfill the validation requirements of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and was delisted in April 2010.

Recommendations:

- Conduct annual audits of government bank accounts, including identifying the sizes and locations of foreign accounts, and make the results public and accessible online.
- Publish national and local government budgets and make these documents available online as well as in hard copy at the Parliament and municipal buildings in order to improve transparency and accountability in the use of public funds.
- Take the necessary steps to rejoin the EITI, including reforming the legal framework, in order to guarantee greater civil society autonomy and participation.
- Ratify the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.

Protecting Women’s Rights

AU Principle:

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights requires that all states ‘ensure the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and…ensure the protection of the rights of the woman… as stipulated in international declarations and conventions.’

The Reality: The Equatoguinean government has failed to ratify the Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Additionally, Equatoguinean women continue to have less access to education, work, and political positions.

Recommendations:

- Ratify the Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.
- Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
- Enact a law and allocate resources for compulsory primary and secondary education and to ensure access to reproductive healthcare for all Equatoguinean women.
- Enact laws - including gender quotas - and allocate resources to increase women’s economic and political participation.
- Enforce existing regulations that forbid domestic violence against women.

For more information, please contact: Tutu Alicante (English, French, Spanish): + 1 615 479 0207 (U.S. mobile), or [email][email protected]

About EG Justice: EG Justice is the only international non-governmental organisation solely dedicated to promoting human rights, the rule of law, transparency, and civil society participation in Equatorial Guinea. We work with Equatoguineans inside and abroad to push for reform and to build a just and transparent Equatorial Guinea. By working with local and international partners to engage in rigorous research and analysis, conduct international advocacy, and convene roundtable discussions on the most salient issues affecting Equatorial Guinea, we help build a new Equatorial Guinea. To learn more, visit www.egjustice.org

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