Demons in paradise

For those that don’t know me, my name is Fernando Gamboa. A few months ago I finished a new adventure novel entitled ‘Guinea’ which goes on sale through Ediciones El Andén this October.

The goal of this article is my wish to share with the greatest number of people possible – and not simply those likely to purchase the novel – all that I’ve learnt over the months of investigation prior to writing the book. What I detail below, for all that it may seem exaggerated or tendentious (when not simply incredible), is entirely true and can be verified by the sources I cite.

Few may be familiar with the name ‘Equatorial Guinea’, and very few would be able to locate it on a map of Africa. Fewer still would remember that, until exactly 40 years ago, Equatoguineans were Spanish citizens like anybody from Alicante or Cádiz. In those times Equatorial Guinea was a Spanish province found in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea; ‘the Pearl of Africa’, it was known as.

Today, four decades after its independence, under the dictatorial yoke of Obiang Nguema’s family and operating at the pleasure of great powers whose companies freely exploit its oil and timber resources, Equatorial Guinea has emerged as one of the most underdeveloped and corrupt countries in the world, with the Equatoguinean people one of the most terrorised at the hands of its own government.

With twenty-nine years in power following the assassination of the former president – his own uncle, no less – the current President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has systematically plundered, robbed and assassinated to inconceivable extremes, amassing a fortune that makes him one of the world’s richest men in one of Africa’s poorest countries. Host to one of the continent’s largest reserves of petrol resources, strictly speaking it could not be said that the country in itself is poor, with the benefits of this reserve going directly to the current regime in the form of thousands of millions of euros. The Obiang family pockets absolutely all of what foreign governments and oil companies pay (North American and Chinese above all) for extraction rights.

For all that this may seem untrue, in reality the Obiang family goes even further than seizing such huge sums of money, also dedicating itself to the theft of private property (the family has appropriated approximately half of the country’s constructible land without paying a single cent) and salaries (many workers pay a significant part of what they earn to the Obiang familiy). Many businesses are likewise obliged to pay the government or the Obiang family (which are effectively the same thing), whose boundless shame reaches the point of capriciously stripping impoverished compatriots of any asset with impunity and without any justification whatsoever.

Teodoro Obiang and his clan govern the country as though slave masters at a ranch. Equatorial Guinea’s citizens are in their eyes mere slaves at their beck and call, with the country a private estate to be plundered at will.

Despite the flow of money pulsing from this unhappy corner of Africa, the country’s inhabitants currently have no sanitation, education, security or justice. For example, in the face of any medical emergency the sole option is to attend the Hospital de Malabo, and only under the condition that one can provide payment for the stay and treatment in advance, as well as bringing everything necessary for said stay and treatment (and by everything, I mean everything: from syringes or whatever medication is required, to a mattress, sheets and food). Without carrying on too much, when I was in Equatorial Guinea a few years ago, in order to carry out a blood test for my partner the only means of extraction was a cut on the hand with a piece of crystal.

Shocking as it may be, this is really only the beginning, and certainly not the worst of it.

What has made Teodoro Obiang (known as ‘The Boss’ or ‘El Jefe’) and his acolytes not only robbers, if not dangerous criminals, is the politics of arbitrary detention, dubious imprisonment, torture and assassinations inflicted upon their own citizens. Over the course of its time in power, it has been calculated that the Teodoro Obiang government has exterminated no less than 10 per cent of the country’s population, while an undetermined number of people have simply disappeared or been illegally imprisoned without trial.

According to the most recent Amnesty International report, those detained by the police and the regime are systematically tortured with brutal methods such as mutilations, the breaking of bones, rape, electrical equipment attached to genitals, and – attention – sticking forks into the vaginas of female prisoners.

And for those with a taste for impartial figures and statistics, here are a few:

- Equatorial Guinea produces 400,000 barrels of oil each day.
- The country exports almost 1,000,000 cubic metres of tropical wood every year.
- While its per capita income puts it at no. 38 in the world ranking (higher than Kuwait or Saudi Arabia), it occupies no. 121 in the UN’s Human Development Index.
- The country is at 151 of 20,163 in corruption according to Transparency International.
- Life expectancy is only 43.3 years, according to Amnesty International.
- The governmental elite commands around 98 per cent of national income.
- 8 per cent of the population lives on less than 20 euros per month.
- The Obiang government has turned the country into the drug-trafficking centre of west Africa.
- Teodoro Obiang won the previous election with 99.5 per cent of the total vote. The 13 authorised political parties were formed by members of the government.
- In a recent visit to the US, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Obiang as a ‘good friend’.
- In July of 2003, state radio announced that ‘The president is a god in permanent contact with the almighty, and can kill without fear of going to hell as he is God himself.’

PERSONAL COMMENTS

What makes this shame even more painful for me personally is that the Equatoguinean people, one of the kindest, most hospitable and generous that I’ve known, has been, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, and integral part of the Spanish state. The hurried and careless process of decolonisation of the country overseen by the Spanish in 1968 is at the heart of the inadmissible suffering endured by today’s Equatoguineans and which we regard today with complete indifference and disaffection.

But it should be remembered that Equatoguineans don’t simply continue to speak Spanish, but also that many of their customs, celebrations and traditions remain the same as our own. Their children sing the same songs as ours at school, their jokes are the same, and even their swearwords are the same as ours. They are, simply speaking, our forgotten cousins and a part of our family that we have ignored and in whose unwarranted suffering we have been accomplices.

Because in all probability, as you read this article, an elderly women suffering from malaria will be calling out for a doctor that will never arrive, while a child asks about the whereabouts of his disappeared parents. While brutally raped and tortured in a police station, a woman will be imploring God to kill her.

And each day, Equatorial Guinea sinks a little further into darkness.

Each day, our ignorance leaves further culpable.

Each day matters.

Somebody once said that ‘The only thing evil needs to triumph is that the good do nothing.’

Perhaps this represents a good moment to find out the sort of men and women we are.

And I guess you’re saying to yourself: ‘Well alright, but what can I do? This is all far from me.’ The truth is that, unfortunately, you’re on the wrong track.

Equatorial Guinea is the victim of an oil curse, and as you can imagine, states like China, the US and France will do everything in their power to keep Obiang in their pocket and thus ensure a reliable supply of crude oil for their oil companies. So it will be very difficult to changes things quickly in the maltreated yet beautiful Guinea.

And yet, there is something we can do for these people: spread the word.

These dictators only sustain themselves thanks to the rest of the world’s ignorance of their actions. The more of us there are aware of what goes on and why, the greater the chance there is that one day in the not-too-distant future there will be a sufficient number of us to say ‘enough’. Only when both our own and others’ politicians feel the shame that comes from the murders perpetrated by Obiang, and discover that cuddling up to dictators who regard the most of basic human rights as a political cost to be paid by their voters, will we see things change and be able to expel once and for all these demons from paradise.

But this article is but a first step; now it is up to you to spread the word yet further. If you think that this struggle makes sense and want to deposit your grain of sand, send this message to all you know. Thank you for your time and your help.

* Fernando Gamboa is a Spanish writer whose latest novel 'Guinea' is published by Ediciones El Andén. This article was originally titled ‘Demonios en el Paraíso’.
* Translated from the Spanish by Alex Free.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.