Stefanie Rumple/02/08/2008/9:02AM/Global Crime/Mann Extradited
A cult of personality combined with terrorist and dictatorial tactics has become the traditional way to acquire and keep control of the government in Equatorial Guinea. Since independence from Spanish rule was achieved in 1968, two men have characterized this nation’s government with some of the cruelest and most corrupt regimes in the world. Till he was overthrown and then executed in 1979, Francisco Macías Nguema, the first and only person elected by vote to the Presidency of Equatorial Guinea following independance, ruled without successful opposition. This was due to the terror he inspired in his people by committing countless human rights violations including the killing of more than 100,000 of his own people. He referred to himself as “the Unique Miracle” as well as by other grandiose titles, and is said to have regularly taken hallucinogens. Under his rule Equatorial Guinea was nicknamed “the Auschwitz of Africa”.
His “nephew”, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, actually related only distantly through their Fang tribal membership, overthrew Nguema in a bloody coup in 1979. Obiang has been re-elected every seven years, the term of their presidency, since then, often running unopposed in an electoral system condemned by the world as systemically fraudulent. He purportedly carries on his predecessor’s tradition of cannibalism of his enemies, although how much of this is true and how much is hype is hard to discern. The country to this day lacks any formal courtroom, what to speak of a just court system, and has been accused of allowing the proliferation of human trafficking within its borders. Equatorial Guinea also boasts the famed Black Beach prison, notorious for human rights abuses such as denying medical care and providing inadequate food rations, as well as utilizing torture as a standard treatment for prisoners.
This is the country to which Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe has extradited a prisoner. On March 9th, 2004, a group of men were arrested in Zimbabwe under charges of arranging a coup to overthrow Obiang. Obiang alleged that his exiled political rival, Severo Moto, was behind the failed attempt, but Moto denies this, and the credibility of the charge suffers from being one of many such allegations made by Obiang, often followed by imprisoning anyone he accuses of it without a trial. The group of some 64 men was multinational African with one exception. Ex-SAS officer Simon Mann was accused of being one of the leaders of the plot. He has been in prison in Zimbabwe since then where his attorneys have been fighting his extradition to Equatorial Guinea.
In the middle of the night on January 31st, 2008, Simon Mann was transported to Equatorial Guinea. His attorney first learned about it when he arrived the morning of February 1st to meet with Mann in order to discuss their new court motion attempting to keep him in Zimbabwe rather than be sent to Equatorial Guinea, even though Mann has alleged that he was bound and beaten repeatedly in the Zimbabwe prison. However, the attorney was too late to save him, and accuses Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government of kidnapping him and colluding with Obiang’s government to abrogate Mann’s legal and human rights. Mann has declared that he feared torture and that he would be “a dead man” if sent to Equatorial Guinea.
If you are wondering why the United States doesn’t do more to stop a regime that is characterized by such brutality and injustice, you should know that we actually support Obiang’s government. Our State Department’s official stance is that although human rights abuses are widespread in the country, the situation is “improving”. Condoleeza Rice called Obiang “a good friend” when she met with him in 2006 for the purpose of reopening the American embassy in that country, which had been closed for a decade. If one wonders why this can be the case, one has only to ask what is the principal export of Equatorial Guinea. It’s oil, and the U.S. is the largest foreign investor in that country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1023151.stm
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/?menuID=2&subID=1736
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7221948.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6366489.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/teodoro-obiang-nguema-a-brutal-bizarre-jailer-448575.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/07/wmann107.xml
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