Now this is a more normal situation.
Hundreds of millions of buxx sloshing about, a dictator living it up, and the population wallowing in squalor and disease.
Theres only half a million of them too.
Hes a badass, but you won't invade and impose democracy, why should you, its not your country.
--------------------------------------------
Oil at any cost?
America
Published: 18-Nov-2003
By: Lindsey Hilsum
While George W Bush focuses on London, his fellow Texas oilmen have a much more obscure country on their minds: Equatorial Guinea.
This week sees a major investment conference in Houston and all the big oil companies will be present.
Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country in West Africa, incorporating a slice of the mainland and five islands with less than half a million inhabitants.
Vast oil reserves have been found off shore, and its GDP shot up 60 per cent last year.
The US already gets 15 per cent of its oil from West Africa - they hope that will soon increase to 25 per cent.
Equatorial Guinea is at the centre of the American oil strategy, despite evidence of corruption and a human rights record amongst the worst in Africa.
Our Diplomatic Correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has been to Equatorial Guinea to investigate:
Sometimes you wonder how the heavens can hold so much rain.
It floods the gutters and the pot-holed streets. It brings diarrhoea and dysentery to the children. It is falling on the luckiest people in Africa. They live in the capital of Equatorial Guinea, the world's fastest growing economy. Their President says this is a time of plenty. But so far the people have been left out in the rain.
In the jungle beyond the city the rain has cleared. They're hacking back the rainforest to build a deep water port for the offshore oil industry. As yet, it can take only a couple of ships. But they have a vision for Equatorial Guinea.
Gordon Paton, Luba Freeport:
"In future, between five, seven,ten years, this place could be another Kuwait or Singapore, and it will happen, it's already starting to happen."
The oil reserves are deep beneath the ocean. The plan is for Luba to be the regional hub. Giant American oil companies like Exxon Mobil, Amarada Hess and Marathon will unload offshore rig equipment, and store some crude oil here. The initial investment was $82m. The potential is enormous, because the reserves are untapped and the Bush administration has a strategic interest in West African oil.
Gordon Paton:
"We're only touching the tip of it at the moment, and there are huge reserves out there that we've not started taking. I think America's keen on investing here because it wants to diversify away from the Middle East and not have their oil reserves purely dependent on the Middle East. This is a far safer haven for them."
In Luba town, the only source of running water is the river or the rain. Electricity is intermittent. The people need the oil companies and the government to plough back the oil profits to bring lights and clean water.
Lindsey Hilsum:
"Is there big money to be made here?"
Gordon Paton:
"Absolutely! (laughs) Yes is the answer and I'd like to think that a lot of that is to be ploughed back in."
But will it? The sole hospital in the capital Malabo was built half a century ago when the country was a Spanish colony. The wards are full of children with malaria and respiratory diseases - illnesses bred by poverty and poor sanitation.
Dr Isabel Jones, director of Malabo Hospital:
"In the rainy season you a lot of cases of diarrhoea. A lot. A lot. A lot. In the dry season, mostly malaria. Most of the time you see children with more than one problem - malaria, intestinal worms, malnutrition. More than one thing."
No electricity in the maternity wing this morning. A recent International Monetary Fund report shows a drop in the proportion of the budget spent on health from six to just over one per cent.
We flew from the capital on the island to the mainland part of Guinea. Condensation pouring from the air conditioning on the ancient Russian aircraft. We sped through the rainforest, trying to catch up with President Teodoro Nguema Obiang who has ruled since he overthrew and executed his uncle 24 years ago.
He was expected at the village of Anisok.
The people of this village are waiting for the President to arrive, and they're still waiting to see the real benefit of the petro-dollars as well. Yes, there are a few new buildings, a new road but the Equatorial Guineans are still amongst the poorest people in Africa. As for education and freedom of speech, in the whole country there's no daily newspaper, no bookshop, not even a public library.
Woe betide anyone who doesn't turn up. Attendance at Presidential speeches is compulsory; enthusiasm obligatory. The local dignitaries are all there. State radio recently declared that President Obiang was like God. He can kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell, it said. At last the big man arrived. The US State Department says there's little evidence that oil wealth is used for the public good but his people do not protest and if anyone did, the President's Moroccan bodyguards are always on hand to protect him.
Eventually I got to meet President Obiang. I was quite surprised at the picture of his country that he painted.
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea:
"I can assure you that there's no poverty in Guinea."
Lindsey Hilsum:
"Well, deprivation, then."
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea:
"No. There's no deprivation either. No. You have to understand the level we're at in Guinea. The first problem is the people's cultural level. The people are used to living in a very different way, which you people think is poverty. In Guinea what we have are shortages."
The President says his country's oil revenue is a state secret. The World Bank says it's about $700,000m this year. Campaigning groups like Global Witness are calling for more transparency but the oil companies are as resistant to change as the government. It's not illegal, but they're reported to pay up to $50m per month into a Washington bank account. The President is the sole signatory.
President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo:
"I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are a lot of problems of corruption, the diversion of money. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I'm responsible. That's why I'm a hundred per cent sure of all the oil revenue because the one who signs is me."
And the ones who benefit are his family. His son Teodorino - Minister of Forests - loves Paris. In a video shown on French TV a few years ago, he was seen cruising in one of his two Bentleys. He also has Rolls, a Ferrari, and a Lamborghini, and that's just in France. He was on a shopping spree, with the then Ambassador to Paris. He buys no less than 30 personally tailored suits. No protest from the national treasury, maybe because it's run by another relative, his brother-in-law.
Later, Teodorino decides not to buy a watch, because none are encrusted with enough diamonds. His father, the President, has recently spent $3.5m on two mansions near Washington, using mortgages from the same Washington bank where the oil revenue goes.
President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo:
"I think Equatorial Guinea's democracy is the most open, the most transparent. We are following a kind of democracy which fits the style and customs of Equatorial Guinea."
The cinema in the capital is special to Equatorial Guinea too. Last May they stopped showing films here and instead used it as a courtroom to try 68 people accused of attempting to overthrow the government. Lawyer Fabien Nguema was amongst those tried. he won't forget how a confession was extracted from him.
Fabien Nguema, human rights lawyer:
"Look at the marks. There are scars. Here as well. It was a cable. An electrical cable, with which they tied my elbows behind me. Then they tied my feet together and pulled them up to my elbows and I was hung like a slaughtered antelope. They inserted a stick between my hands and my feet and suspended me in-between two tables. I stayed there tied up. Then they began to beat me on the soles of my feet."
He was kept in this notorious prison called Black Beach. Some 30 others are still there.
Celestino Bacale shows me the photographs from last year when he ran for President. In place of his party leader who was in Black Beach at the time. He lost - President Obiang got 97 per cent of the vote. He's not sure that oil is such a blessing.
Celestino Bacale, Convergence For Social Democracy:
"It's a curse, because if it weren't for the oil I don't believe Obiang would still be in power. Because of the oil, he's receiving less pressure from the international community, because they know Obiang doesn't depend on foreign aid very much any more. If the oil companies let him do as he wants, we'll have Obiang for a while, then when he dies Obiang will hand over power to his son - one or other of his sons - and the country will go from bad to worse, and the probable result will be violence."
None of which deters the American companies. Marathon is building a new natural gas processing plant on this land which they lease from President Obiang - he says it's his personal property. They let us film but refused to talk, confident of their backing from the American administration, and mindful that they get a bigger share of the profits here than in other oil-producing African countries.
The president told me he wanted British business to come to Equatorial Guinea. The US has just reopened its embassy - he wants a British Embassy too.
In Malabo, the rains have been long and heavy this year. The hospital is full. To the children it's a game; they've never known any different. Unless the oil companies and the Bush administration exert more pressure on the government of Equatorial Guinea, they never will.
http://www.channel4.co.uk/news/2003/11/week_3/18_guinea.html
Hundreds of millions of buxx sloshing about, a dictator living it up, and the population wallowing in squalor and disease.
Theres only half a million of them too.
Hes a badass, but you won't invade and impose democracy, why should you, its not your country.
--------------------------------------------
Oil at any cost?
America
Published: 18-Nov-2003
By: Lindsey Hilsum
While George W Bush focuses on London, his fellow Texas oilmen have a much more obscure country on their minds: Equatorial Guinea.
This week sees a major investment conference in Houston and all the big oil companies will be present.
Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country in West Africa, incorporating a slice of the mainland and five islands with less than half a million inhabitants.
Vast oil reserves have been found off shore, and its GDP shot up 60 per cent last year.
The US already gets 15 per cent of its oil from West Africa - they hope that will soon increase to 25 per cent.
Equatorial Guinea is at the centre of the American oil strategy, despite evidence of corruption and a human rights record amongst the worst in Africa.
Our Diplomatic Correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has been to Equatorial Guinea to investigate:
Sometimes you wonder how the heavens can hold so much rain.
It floods the gutters and the pot-holed streets. It brings diarrhoea and dysentery to the children. It is falling on the luckiest people in Africa. They live in the capital of Equatorial Guinea, the world's fastest growing economy. Their President says this is a time of plenty. But so far the people have been left out in the rain.
In the jungle beyond the city the rain has cleared. They're hacking back the rainforest to build a deep water port for the offshore oil industry. As yet, it can take only a couple of ships. But they have a vision for Equatorial Guinea.
Gordon Paton, Luba Freeport:
"In future, between five, seven,ten years, this place could be another Kuwait or Singapore, and it will happen, it's already starting to happen."
The oil reserves are deep beneath the ocean. The plan is for Luba to be the regional hub. Giant American oil companies like Exxon Mobil, Amarada Hess and Marathon will unload offshore rig equipment, and store some crude oil here. The initial investment was $82m. The potential is enormous, because the reserves are untapped and the Bush administration has a strategic interest in West African oil.
Gordon Paton:
"We're only touching the tip of it at the moment, and there are huge reserves out there that we've not started taking. I think America's keen on investing here because it wants to diversify away from the Middle East and not have their oil reserves purely dependent on the Middle East. This is a far safer haven for them."
In Luba town, the only source of running water is the river or the rain. Electricity is intermittent. The people need the oil companies and the government to plough back the oil profits to bring lights and clean water.
Lindsey Hilsum:
"Is there big money to be made here?"
Gordon Paton:
"Absolutely! (laughs) Yes is the answer and I'd like to think that a lot of that is to be ploughed back in."
But will it? The sole hospital in the capital Malabo was built half a century ago when the country was a Spanish colony. The wards are full of children with malaria and respiratory diseases - illnesses bred by poverty and poor sanitation.
Dr Isabel Jones, director of Malabo Hospital:
"In the rainy season you a lot of cases of diarrhoea. A lot. A lot. A lot. In the dry season, mostly malaria. Most of the time you see children with more than one problem - malaria, intestinal worms, malnutrition. More than one thing."
No electricity in the maternity wing this morning. A recent International Monetary Fund report shows a drop in the proportion of the budget spent on health from six to just over one per cent.
We flew from the capital on the island to the mainland part of Guinea. Condensation pouring from the air conditioning on the ancient Russian aircraft. We sped through the rainforest, trying to catch up with President Teodoro Nguema Obiang who has ruled since he overthrew and executed his uncle 24 years ago.
He was expected at the village of Anisok.
The people of this village are waiting for the President to arrive, and they're still waiting to see the real benefit of the petro-dollars as well. Yes, there are a few new buildings, a new road but the Equatorial Guineans are still amongst the poorest people in Africa. As for education and freedom of speech, in the whole country there's no daily newspaper, no bookshop, not even a public library.
Woe betide anyone who doesn't turn up. Attendance at Presidential speeches is compulsory; enthusiasm obligatory. The local dignitaries are all there. State radio recently declared that President Obiang was like God. He can kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell, it said. At last the big man arrived. The US State Department says there's little evidence that oil wealth is used for the public good but his people do not protest and if anyone did, the President's Moroccan bodyguards are always on hand to protect him.
Eventually I got to meet President Obiang. I was quite surprised at the picture of his country that he painted.
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea:
"I can assure you that there's no poverty in Guinea."
Lindsey Hilsum:
"Well, deprivation, then."
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea:
"No. There's no deprivation either. No. You have to understand the level we're at in Guinea. The first problem is the people's cultural level. The people are used to living in a very different way, which you people think is poverty. In Guinea what we have are shortages."
The President says his country's oil revenue is a state secret. The World Bank says it's about $700,000m this year. Campaigning groups like Global Witness are calling for more transparency but the oil companies are as resistant to change as the government. It's not illegal, but they're reported to pay up to $50m per month into a Washington bank account. The President is the sole signatory.
President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo:
"I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are a lot of problems of corruption, the diversion of money. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I'm responsible. That's why I'm a hundred per cent sure of all the oil revenue because the one who signs is me."
And the ones who benefit are his family. His son Teodorino - Minister of Forests - loves Paris. In a video shown on French TV a few years ago, he was seen cruising in one of his two Bentleys. He also has Rolls, a Ferrari, and a Lamborghini, and that's just in France. He was on a shopping spree, with the then Ambassador to Paris. He buys no less than 30 personally tailored suits. No protest from the national treasury, maybe because it's run by another relative, his brother-in-law.
Later, Teodorino decides not to buy a watch, because none are encrusted with enough diamonds. His father, the President, has recently spent $3.5m on two mansions near Washington, using mortgages from the same Washington bank where the oil revenue goes.
President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo:
"I think Equatorial Guinea's democracy is the most open, the most transparent. We are following a kind of democracy which fits the style and customs of Equatorial Guinea."
The cinema in the capital is special to Equatorial Guinea too. Last May they stopped showing films here and instead used it as a courtroom to try 68 people accused of attempting to overthrow the government. Lawyer Fabien Nguema was amongst those tried. he won't forget how a confession was extracted from him.
Fabien Nguema, human rights lawyer:
"Look at the marks. There are scars. Here as well. It was a cable. An electrical cable, with which they tied my elbows behind me. Then they tied my feet together and pulled them up to my elbows and I was hung like a slaughtered antelope. They inserted a stick between my hands and my feet and suspended me in-between two tables. I stayed there tied up. Then they began to beat me on the soles of my feet."
He was kept in this notorious prison called Black Beach. Some 30 others are still there.
Celestino Bacale shows me the photographs from last year when he ran for President. In place of his party leader who was in Black Beach at the time. He lost - President Obiang got 97 per cent of the vote. He's not sure that oil is such a blessing.
Celestino Bacale, Convergence For Social Democracy:
"It's a curse, because if it weren't for the oil I don't believe Obiang would still be in power. Because of the oil, he's receiving less pressure from the international community, because they know Obiang doesn't depend on foreign aid very much any more. If the oil companies let him do as he wants, we'll have Obiang for a while, then when he dies Obiang will hand over power to his son - one or other of his sons - and the country will go from bad to worse, and the probable result will be violence."
None of which deters the American companies. Marathon is building a new natural gas processing plant on this land which they lease from President Obiang - he says it's his personal property. They let us film but refused to talk, confident of their backing from the American administration, and mindful that they get a bigger share of the profits here than in other oil-producing African countries.
The president told me he wanted British business to come to Equatorial Guinea. The US has just reopened its embassy - he wants a British Embassy too.
In Malabo, the rains have been long and heavy this year. The hospital is full. To the children it's a game; they've never known any different. Unless the oil companies and the Bush administration exert more pressure on the government of Equatorial Guinea, they never will.
http://www.channel4.co.uk/news/2003/11/week_3/18_guinea.html
