EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Concern over the plight of African immigrants
DOUALA/ ABIDJAN, 16 March (IRIN) - There was concern in various African capitals this week over
the fate of African migrants in Equatorial
Guinea, following reports that many had been detained by security forces in the aftermath of an alleged
coup plot.
Nigerian Information Minister Chukwuemeka Chikelu told IRIN on Tuesday that a meeting was being
held to put together a response to the situation in Equatorial Guinea. He said he expected the response to
encompass the safety and possible evacuation of Nigerians.
Also up for discussion is the possibility that Nigeria might provide military help to the government of
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, after a naval vessel had already been dispatched to the area.
In Ghana, President John Kufuor authorised the evacuation of Ghanaians
On Friday after the Ghanaian Consulate-General in Equatorial Guinea's capital, Malabo, reported that
migrants had been rounded up and detained.
The Ghanaian government has created a task force to organise the evacuations.
Ghanaian Air Force planes airlifted some evacuees between Saturday and Monday. On Monday, two
naval ships were sent to Malabo, according to Task force coordinator Frank Tsegah, a director of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Cameroon's government recalled its ambassador to Equatorial Guinea following the expulsion of over 500
of its citizens, according to a communiqué read on state radio on Tuesday by communication minister
Jacques Fame Ndongo.
The communiqué pointed out that many of the deportees were victims of atrocities. It added that the
government deplored the situation. The
Cameroonian government said it was closely monitoring the situation of Cameroonians that remained in
Equatorial Guinea.
Thousands more migrants from other African countries live in Equatorial Guinea, which has one of the
world's fastest-growing economies as a result of an oil bonanza that began in the mid-1990s.
Today, the country has a per capita gross domestic product of nearly US
$7,000 per year, according to the Bank of Central African States, though much of this wealth lies in the
hands of the few - namely the ruling elite.
Alleged mercenaries arrested
A purported crackdown on illegal immigrants that began around 7 March and involved the combined
security forces, coincided with reports linking foreign nationals to a plot to overthrow President Obiang
Nguema.
The plot reportedly involved 67 alleged mercenaries arrested on 7 March in Harare, when their plane
landed there. The arrested men were reportedly to have linked up with other soldiers of fortune, including
15 detainees arrested in Malabo, Equato-Guinean authorities announced on Tuesday.
The leader of the group detained in Malabo, Nick du Toit, said on state television in Equatorial Guinea
that the aim of the operation had been to overthrow Obiang Nguema and install exiled opposition leader
Severo
Moto in his place.
Moto, who recently established a government-in-exile in Spain, denied any involvement in the plot and
said he had never had dealings with Du
Toit.
Government crackdown
At a mass rally organised on Saturday in Malabo by the government,
Obiang Nguema said he would sever relations with Spain - the former colonial power - if it did not
extradite Moto, whom a court in Equatorial Guinea had sentenced in absentia to over 100 years in prison
for trying to mount a coup against Obiang in 1997 from Angola.
Thousands of people attended Saturday's rally. However, the main opposition Convergencia para la
Democracia Social (CPDS - Social
Democratic Rally) stayed away.
CPDS leader Placido Mico Abogo told IRIN on Monday that, "given the government's lack of credibility,
we cannot just believe that there was a coup plot because it's the government that has said this". At the
same time, however, the government's allegation also cannot be dismissed, he said.
Obiang Nguema said the alleged coup plotters would be tried and he urged the population to be on the
lookout for terrorists.
Immigrants targeted
Equato-Guineans, Cameroonian returnees said, had been instructed to help the authorities flush out 'illegal
aliens', and threatened with prosecution if they harbored any.
Sources said the operation was accompanied by widespread looting by both security forces and civilians,
along with arbitrary detentions.
Cameroonian, Yobo Fotso, a 32-year-old building contractor who said he employed about 200 people in
Malabo told IRIN in the southern
Cameroonian town of Limbe that police had stopped his car on Monday while he was on his way to take
food to fellow countrymen who had been detained the day before.
He said the police dragged him out of the vehicle, took away his documents, which were valid, seized his
cell phone and took him to a nearby police station, where he was kept for two days and deported.
Fotso said he had been living in Equatorial Guinea for six years, and that his wife and infant child were still
there.
Back in Ghana, Tsegah told IRIN that some Equato-Guineans had ransacked the homes of Ghanaian
immigrants as soon as the troubles began.
"The authorities also declined to give the evacuees permits to go home and salvage whatever might be left
in their homes," the task force coordinator said, adding that the Foreign Ministry had authorized Ghana's
Consul-General to protest to the Guinean authorities against the manner in which Ghanaians had been
treated.
He said members of his task force had found 105 Ghanaians locked up in police and prison cells. The
task force's first priority, he said, was to airlift those nationals out "due to deteriorating and packed
conditions in the cells".
Two other groups of Ghanaians were located in Equatorial Guinea. Some
250 people who had sought shelter at the Consulate General, and more than 300 others were known to
be hiding in the bush.
"We have made contact with those hiding in the bush," Tsegah said. "The
Consul-General is currently asking the authorities to grant them safe passage to the port once our navy
ships arrive in Malabo."
The task force expected to complete the evacuation by Saturday, according to Tsegah, who said that
whether it would help other nationals stranded in Equatorial Guinea, such as Senegalese, Cameroonians
and Nigerians, would depend on the availability of space on the ships.
Anger for some deportees
Meanwhile, the deportations sparked an angry reaction in Cameroon. On
Saturday, about 50 people, mostly deportees, protested outside the consulate of Equatorial Guinea in
Douala, the economic capital, destroying vehicles purportedly belonging to consular officials. Riot police
prevented them from attacking the consulate itself as well as a hotel where some Equato-Guineans were
staying.
On Monday, the governor of Cameroon's Southern Province, Enow Abrams,
travelled to the border town of Kye-Ossi, where he told a group of some
150 deportees that the government would use diplomatic channels to seek compensation for their losses.
Nigeria could provide military assistance
In Nigeria, which has at least 5,000 nationals in Equatorial Guinea, military officials said on Monday that
the government had sent a naval ship to Malabo in a show of support for Obiang Nguema's government.
Navy spokesman, Capt. Shinebi Hungiapuko said the ship NNS Kyanwa, with a crew of 42, was
instructed to provide help to the government of
Equatorial Guinea if it was needed. The ship was among former Coastguard vessels that the United States
had given Nigeria over the past year to help Africa's biggest oil producer safeguard its resources in the
Gulf of Guinea against oil thieves and pirates.
Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea are the first and third largest oil producers in Africa.
"Since there's trouble in the area the ship will stand by in case our help is needed," Hungiapuko told IRIN.
"We'll not want a legitimate government to be toppled."
A tainted record
Obiang Nguema first came to power in a 1979 military coup that toppled his uncle Macias Nguema, who
was tried by a military court and then shot by a firing squad. He led a military government until 1982,
when he legitimized his hold on power with elections that granted him a seven year mandate.
In 1987, he founded the still ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial
Guinea(PDGE) that, until a constitutional amendment in 1991, was the only authorized political party.
Obiang was reelected in 1989, 1996 and 2002. However, opposition parties and international observers
have described successive elections as flawed.
The UN High Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and the
US State Department have expressed concern - in separate reports - about electoral fraud as well as the
arrest, arbitrary detention and torture of political opponents.
Opposition leader Placido Mico said the country's problems stemmed mainly from a lack of democracy
and corruption. He also described oil as a "curse", charging that it had led to the disorganisation of other
sectors of the economy - "since everyone now wants to be involved in the oil sector" and fuelled
corruption.
Moreover, the positive GDP growth statistics - 20 percent per year according to some sources - were
not reflected on the ground, he noted.
"I live in the capital," he said. "How can you explain the fact that a country that produces oil cannot even
provide its capital with electricity?"
Water and schools were not available to all, he noted, and other basic social needs remained unfulfilled
despite the oil boom. "There is no bookstore in Malabo," Placido Mico explained. [This was confirmed
by a diplomatic source.]
The international community should pay close attention to Equatorial
Guinea otherwise it might go down the same path as many other African countries, Placido Mico said in
an apparent reference to states which have had recent civil conflicts.
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