26 sept 2006
SENATOR LEVIN.

Mr. President, last month, on August 10th, President Bush announced a new U.S. initiative to combat corruption around the world. He named it a “National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy.” In introducing this initiative, President Bush said:

“High-level corruption by senior government officials, or kleptocracy, is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values. It impedes our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism.”

I couldn’t agree more.

But lately, some of the President’s actions are at odds with his rhetoric. The first principle of the President’s initiative against corruption is to deny entry into the United States to kleptocrats, meaning high-level officials engaged in or benefitting from corruption. Yet in recent months the Administration has welcomed two of the world’s most notorious kleptocrats: Teodoro Obiang, the President of Equatorial Guinea, and Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan.

What do these two men have in common besides corrupt dictatorships? Oil. Both control their nations’ vast oil resources. Both supply oil to the United States. By welcoming these corrupt dictators into the United States, in contradiction to the anti-corruption principles articulated by the President in August, the Administration announces to the world that we’ll compromise our principles for a price: oil.

On April 12th of this year, at the State Department, Secretary Rice greeted the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, by saying: “Thank you very much for your presence here. You are a good friend and we welcome you.” In welcoming Mr. Obiang, she made no mention of the deeply troubling hallmarks of his regime. No mention of human rights abuses; no mention of election fraud; no mention of widespread and high level corruption. Instead, a photograph of Secretary Rice shaking Mr. Obiang’s hand and smiling broadly appeared in publications around the world. Mr. Obiang has undoubtedly used his visit, and that photograph, to legitimize his regime and demonstrate his favored status in the United States.

Secretary Rice says that her objective as Secretary of State is to conduct “transformational diplomacy” which, in her words, requires us to “work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people -- and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.” Under Mr. Obiang, Equatorial Guinea is nothing near democratic, well-governed, or responsive to its citizens.


Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. It currently exports about 360,000 barrels per day, with much more under development. U.S. companies have invested over $10 billion to develop those oil resources. But the development of Equatorial Guinea’s oil resources has not benefitted its deeply impoverished people. Though Equatorial Guinea’s oil money makes it, on a per capita basis, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the standard of living of its people is among the world’s poorest. Equatorial Guinea ranks 121st on the United Nations’ Human Development Index. According to a 2002 State Department report, there is “little evidence that the country´s oil wealth is being devoted to the public good.”

Mr. Obiang is a principal cause of his people’s misery. He took power by coup 30 years ago, his opponents have been jailed and tortured, and his most recent election was condemned by the State Department as “marred by extensive fraud and intimidation.” The 2005 State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices states, that in Equatorial Guinea, “Official corruption in all branches of the government remained a significant problem.” In its index of corruption, Transparency International ranks Equatorial Guinea 152 out of 159 nations. In other words, Equatorial Guinea is one of the most corrupt countries in the world today.

I became familiar with the Obiang regime through my role as Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. On July 15th 2004, the Subcommittee held a hearing entitled, “Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act.” That hearing and an accompanying report detailed how President Obiang and his family had been personally profiting from U.S. oil companies operating in his country, established offshore shell corporations to open bank accounts at Riggs Bank here in Washington, and made large deposits, including cash deposits of as much as $3 million at a time, in transactions suggesting strongly that the funds were the proceeds of foreign corruption. In addition, over $35 million in oil proceeds were transferred to suspect offshore accounts.

President Bush has stated that his intention is to “defeat high-level public corruption in all its forms and to deny corrupt officials access to the international financial system as a means of defrauding their people and hiding their ill-gotten gains.” And yet, after it was revealed that Mr. Obiang misused U.S. financial institutions to launder suspect funds, the State Department actually intervened on behalf of his regime, in order to convince U.S. banks to open accounts for the Equatorial Guinean government. That bears repeating: after it was shown how Mr. Obiang used Riggs Bank to deposit and transfer suspect funds, and after Riggs shut down the accounts used by him and his regime, the State Department approached reluctant U.S. banks and asked them to open accounts for the Obiang regime. So much for “denying corrupt officials access to our financial system.”

There’s more. A few months ago, in May, the Administration announced a new program directing the Defense Department to help 20 specified countries build up their military forces. One was Equatorial Guinea. Despite a terrible human rights record, a reputation for corruption, and their own oil wealth, the Administration proposed spending U.S. taxpayer dollars to build up the Obiang regime’s military. Indeed, President Bush asked for a provision in the DOD authorization bill approving the funding. A number of us objected, and Equatorial Guinea was removed from the provision in the Senate bill.

These and other actions taken by the Administration to court Mr. Obiang are more than misguided. They supply ammunition to critics of America who claim we don’t mean what we say and we don’t live up to our principles, especially when oil is at stake. On the issue of foreign corruption, the President needs to play it straight. What will it be? Will we avert our eyes from Mr. Obiang’s record of corruption and brutality so we can obtain Equatorial Guinea’s oil? Or will we demand an end to his corrupt ways?

The President’s courting of Mr. Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan is also disturbing. Mr. Nazarbayev is an iron-fisted dictator who imprisons his opponents, bans opposition parties, and controls the press. The State Department’s 2005 Kazakhstan Country Report on Human Rights Practices states that “the government’s human rights record remained poor,” and “corruption remained a serious problem.”

That’s not all. Several years ago, our Justice Department filed a criminal indictment alleging that Mr. Nazarbayev accepted tens-of-millions of dollars in bribes from an American businessman. The U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York is at this very moment preparing for trial in the case, U.S. v. Giffen. The indictment targets the American businessman, James Giffen, for paying $78 million in bribes to Mr. Nazarbayev and his cronies to gain access to an oil field in Kazakhstan. It does not charge Mr. Nazarbayev with a crime, despite alleging his acceptance of the bribes. It is a sad and sorry spectacle to observe that, despite this indictment, the Administration is welcoming Mr. Nazarbayev to the White House this week.

Talk about mixed messages. For paying the bribes, Mr. Giffen gets indicted for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion; for accepting the bribes Mr. Nazarbayev gets an invitation to the White House. The President has invited to the White House, a man who our very own Department of Justice accuses of accepting a $78 million bribe. Why? What could be the reason, the justification, for this White House invitation? Could it be that Kazakhstan exports one million barrels of oil per day?

The President has got to play it straight. The State Department says Mr. Nazarbayev is a dictator who imprisons opponents and disregards human rights. The Justice Department says he accepted $78 million in bribes from one U.S. businessman alone. The President says he is an honored guest. Which is it? Corrupt dictator or honored guest? Surely it can’t be both.

President Bush said that kleptocracy “threatens our national interest and violates our values.” He said high level foreign corruption “impedes our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism.” He’s right, which is exactly why his courtship of corrupt dictators like Mr. Obiang and Mr. Nazarbayev is so deeply regrettable. To compromise our battle against corruption to gain favor with oil-producing dictators is not only morally wrong, it hands a propaganda club to our critics, it sustains brutal and corrupt regimes, and it is ultimately destructive of our efforts, in the words of Secretary Rice, to “build and sustain democratic, well-governed states.”


Fuente: USA

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