Inequality in Equatorial Guinea

By Beauregard Tromp

Doing business in Equatorial Guinea´s capital Malabo is a bit like getting into bed with an large family - that just happens to run the entire country.

From the president, Teodore Obiang Nguema who took over from his uncle in a coup to his globe-trotting playboy son, Teodorin, the Minister of Forestry and Environmental Affairs.

And they are always right; any dissenter is soon persuaded so through the ubiquitous barrel of the gun.

This is what two South African air cabin crew for Global Aviation (GAL). Leasing, Sechan Pillay and Ruwayda Kaldine, experienced when they were held for almost two months in the country.

Foreigners in Malabo are always there for business

Pillay, 24, and Kaldine, 18, were held hostage in the Equatorial Guinea capital of Malabo because of a commercial dispute between Getra, the national air company of the country, and local company Venatto Trading which acts as a broker for GAL.

Pillay and Kaldine unwittingly found themselves held as pawns in the R1,8-million dispute and had to evade attempts to prevent them from leaving their hotel, had their passports seized twice and where even put under surveillance.

They were running out of money in a country where people still remained highly suspicious of South Africans after a recent failed coup.

They were released last week only after the South African Department of Foreign Affairs intervened on their behalf.

Foreigners in Malabo are always there for business. There is no other reason to be there. The fact that the country is being run by a dictator who has been under investigation by the US government for embezzling funds does not deter the western world from paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Nguema and his family in government.

In Malabo, it is advisable to always carry your passport

The lure of quick profits is a motivation overriding niggling problems like human rights abuses and the lack of democracy.

To ensure that their employees do not get into any kind of trouble, the companies have built massive, totally self-sustaining compounds for their employees, ensuring that they should not be bereft of anything.

Because the country´s wealth is relatively new, the government of Equatorial Guinea has become the target of many get-rich-quick schemes with people wishing to sell everything from garbage trucks to weaponry to the increasingly paranoid government.

A sign of this paranoia is the fact that the president does not employ his own men to be his personal bodyguards. Instead this dubious honour falls to a group of Moroccans.

In Malabo, it is advisable to always carry your passport and never venture close to the presidential palace. In normal circumstances, one would be able to drive around the island in about four hours.

But because Malabo is in a constant state of emergency, it usually takes about 14 hours to drive around with roads outside the small inner-city in a total state of decay or simply absent.

All along the rooftops of the many shacks in the inner-city, armed soldiers and policemen keep a vigilant eye on all around them.
On one occasion I witnessed a young man carelessly veer across the road, ostensibly to avoid hitting another vehicle, and crash into a lamp post.

With a panicky look in his eyes he jumped out of the veh-icle, blood flowing from a gash in his head, his head whipping up and down the street, and then fled as soldiers came racing towards him.

For about ten minutes one could hear the gruff shouts of the soldiers and the loud bang of the AK-47´s they were wielding.

During one memorable drive outside of the city, a piece of string draped across the road, attached to a stick at one end and a barrel at the other, clearly denoted a roadblock.

The soldiers sitting in the shade of a verandah seemed to have a laborious discussion about who should attend to us in-between swigs from a dark brown bottle.

Eventually a female soldier came swaggering over to us. Presented with the necessary paperwork, including a note from a minister stating that we were allowed to leave the city, she entered into light banter, eliciting the obligatory bribe.

But no, she wanted more. A kiss from my compatriot, smooching her lips and closing her eyes as she brought her face to the window. I have seen the fear of men in warfare, but I must confess that I have never seen a man cringe as much as my friend on that day.

The Nguema family has embarked on a far-reaching project called Malabo 2, a revamp of the city which, in theory, should make it a world class city more fitting to the massive revenues generated by the recently discovered oil deposits.

But the people of Malabo live in abject poverty while the tiny ruling elite scoot around town in the latest Humvees or Mercedes Benz convertibles - despite there not being much road to scoot on.

The people are surprisingly placid, seemingly content to carry on with their menial existence. The discovery of oil has made no difference to their lives - it has only brought foreigners driving around in company bakkies and trucks.

Opposition to the iron-clad Nguema rule is virtually non-existent. A small rabble keeps talking revolution, but they are so divided nothing will come of it.

* This article was originally published on page 8 of The Daily News
on December 28, 2005

Daily News


Fuente: Daily News (South Africa)

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