HOT, fetid, dangerous and corrupt, Equatorial Guinea has long been shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
Composed of five tiny islands and a strip of mainland between Gabon and Cameroon in the malaria- ridden Bight of Benin — the “white man’s graveyard” — the country has rarely known anything but the very worst of mankind. From the slave trade to the discovery of huge oil reserves in the mid-1990s, greed and violence have dictated its history.
The few visitors to Malabo, its ramshackle capital, brought back astonishing tales of brutality and barbarism, including allegations of cannibalism by the current President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
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That may or not be true, but what is undeniable is Mr Obiang’s appetite for power and money. Mr Obiang — who is believed to have amassed a personal fortune of more than $3 billion (£1.7 billion) — seized power in 1979 by shooting dead his uncle, President Macias. He has since exercised a vicelike grip on power, torturing and killing opponents, rigging elections and rewarding relatives.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund gave up on the country in 1993, citing corruption and mismanagement. They closed a raft of aid programmes that had made no inroads into the grinding poverty faced by most of the country’s 500,000 population.
Whatever the truth behind the alleged coup attempt, a few facts are indisputable. Vast oil discoveries quickly turned impoverished Equatorial Guinea into Africa’s third-largest oil-producer with revenues of more than $750 million a year. American oil companies allegedly paid money directly into Mr Obiang’s private bank accounts in return for concessions.
Since September 11, US interest in non-Middle East oil has soared, making Equatorial Guinea even more desirable. Mr Obiang’s people, most of whom eke out a living on less than £1 a day, saw little of the new revenue, but he was re-elected in 2002 with 97 per cent of the vote.