Equatorial Guinea has a long history of attempted coups against a dictator who recently styled himself “God” and was once said to eat his opponents’ testicles.
The tiny West African state, consisting of a few islands and a patch of mainland between Gabon and Cameroon, recently discovered vast oil reserves. As well as making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the oil boom is seen by many as the prime motive for a string of recent alleged coup attempts.
Equatorial Guinea’s first inhabitants were thought to be pygmies. The island of Bioko, which hosts the capital Malabo, was first discovered by a European in 1471 - the Portuguese explorer Fernao do Po. It became a Spanish colony in 1777 and gained independence in 1968, becoming known as The Republic of Equatorial Guinea.
Despite having less than half a million inhabitants, the country has two official languages (French and Spanish), three unofficial languages, and 15 registered political parties - of which only one actually counts.
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In an armed coup in 1979, the current President Teodoro Obiang Nguema M’basogo seized power from his bloodthirsty uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema. Mr Obiang reinforced his grip on the country with the help of the army and - in a demonstration of his own ruthlessness - he executed his uncle.
Severo Moto, an exiled opposition politician based in Spain, has testified to the continuing brutality of Mr Obiang’s regime. He reportedly described the President as an “authentic cannibal” who would eat his testicles if he returned to the country.
It was Mr Moto who, it is claimed, was due to be installed as head of state in an alleged planned coup earlier this year, which brought today’s arrest of Sir Mark Thatcher.
Mr Obiang was born in 1942 on the mainland and received military training in Spain. In July, one of his aides took to the airwaves on state-run radio to declare that the President was to be regarded as the country’s “God”.
According to BBC reports from the area, the broadcast said: “He can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, and who gives him this strength.”
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The Foreign Office describes the country’s human rights record as “poor” and international observers have repeatedly condemned the lack of effective democracy.
The Foreign Office website says: “The use of torture, arbitrary detention and restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly has been widespread and systematic.”
In 1998 Amnesty International reported that scores of people from the minority Bubi community had been rounded up - 15 were later sentenced to death.
In 2002, Mr Obiang’s regime apparently attempted to restrict political opposition ahead of the presidential elections. About 140 people, including opposition party leaders, were rounded up and tried in connection with an alleged coup attempt.
Many were thought to have been tortured and international observers condemned the trial. Mr Obiang’s officials said he won 99.2 per cent of the vote when the elections took place.
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In March this year Mr Obiang announced that 15 mercenaries had been arrested in connection with the alleged attempt to oust him from power. Mr Obiang’s Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) won overwhelming majorities in the parliamentary and municipal elections in April. The polls were again condemned by the international community.
With Equatorial Guinea’s huge rise in oil production - a more than tenfold increase since the mid-1990s - America has become the country’s biggest foreign investor. But despite the booming economy, little of the wealth generated appears to have filtered down through to its 500,000 ordinary inhabitants, many of whom still live in poverty.