A murderous dictator, his rapper son and a $700m-a-year oil boom

[bobthedrummer]

The grounding of a mystery plane, allegedly carrying mercenaries, has focused attention on the West African state of Equatorial Guinea and its despotic leader.
Declan Walsh reports on a would-be coup that sounds like a plot from "Dallas".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=501665

[bobthedrummer]

1. I find it intriguing that it was the Bush administration that reopened

the US embassy, given the human rights record of Equatorial Guinea.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Blind Eye On Africa Human Rights, Equatorial Guinea, And Oil

The Bush administration maintains reasonably friendly relations with the African nation of Equatorial Guinea despite the extreme human rights violations perpetrated by Equatorial Guinea’s government against its own people. America’s motive is to acquire oil from Equatorial Guinea’s vast reserves. U.S. news media have largely ignored human rights issues in that country, thus leaving U.S. citizens with little information for judging the actions of their own government and its failure to hold the Equatoguinean government responsible for its actions while claiming to have invaded Iraq, at least partly, for humanitarian reasons....

Obiang’s reaction comes as no shock. There is much evidence that his family spends huge amounts of money irresponsibly. Obiang’s son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang takes “business trips” to the United States including, according to Africa Confidential, “several weeks in Hollywood, where he bought a range of vehicles, looked for promising acts for promotion and made payments on his project (estimated cost, US $25 million) for a recording complex plus luxury apartments.” The son is also said to be “a party guy who comes in with fabulous chicks” (8). The family’s extravagant shopping sprees in Paris have also been reported (9). Obiang’s government has built lavish government villas for hosting oil executives to protect them from the oppressive equatorial heat. The villas’ occupants are also protected from the country’s citizens by walls and guard towers (5).



Given the modest population size of Equatorial Guinea, about half a million people, one might expect there to be plenty of money for everyone by way of revitalizing the economy and building up infrastructure. But most Equatoguineans are malnourished, typically with no running water or electricity. Malaria and yellow fever are rampant. The average life expectancy is 54. Sewage runs free on the streets of Malabo, the capital city, and there is no public transportation. Most citizens eke out a living, as best they can, farming rice, yams, and bananas (5, 10). It was not until July of 2003 that there was any serious talk of extending the range of television signals across the entire nation, even though the country is only about the size of Maryland (11). According to the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs’



“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” released last March, barter remains a major aspect of the economy. For 1998, the IMF, which Obiang stated will never learn how much money he takes in, calculated that Obiang’s government received $130 million in oil royalties. The government had only reported $34 million (9). This record of mismanagement of revenues has led the World Bank and the IMF to discontinue many aid programs since 1993 (12).

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=4054

[bobthedrummer]

3. Can you imagine what it must be like to live on two dollars a day?

Can any American fathom that?

BTW:hi: seemslikeadream, I'm pleased that you have continuously provided a lot of well researched info on the political economy of Africa, like Haiti, usually ignored.
Bob

[seemslikeadream]

4. Rent-a-Coup: Who's Who

Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)

March 12, 2004
Posted to the web March 12, 2004

Sam Sole And Stefaans Brümmer


The men behind the alleged Equatorial Guinea coup plot represent a who's who of South Africa's mercenary market - but key players also have links to the American and British security establishments.

In Harare, where 67 suspected mercenaries were arrested last Sunday, Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi claimed later in the week that Britain's MI6 intelligence service, the United States's CIA and the Spanish secret service had been involved.


This, Mohadi said, had been confessed by Simon Mann, one of the mission's principal planners. Mann was arrested in Harare alongside his "troops", who had arrived separately by Boeing 727 from South Africa.

Mohadi's claim should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the Zimbabwean government has made a habit of implicating the United Kingdom and the US in latter-day colonial plots. But it is intriguing that both Mann and his alleged principal co-conspirator, Nic du Toit, do have direct or indirect links with the security establishments in these countries.

Here are some of the key players:
Simon Mann

Mann has a long association with private military companies, including the trailblazer in the genre, South Africa's Executive Outcomes.

Nic du Toit

Du Toit is understood to be a former SADF special forces operator, who later also worked for Executive Outcomes.

Niel Steyl

Steyl was the pilot of the Boeing stopped in Harare, and is under arrest there.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200403120716.html

I'm just beginning to read "warbusiness"

very long but very good.

http://www.zwnews.com/warbusiness.doc

one tiny snip:

In April 2001, an MPRI representative met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Kwiatkowski also noted in her April memo that the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Obiang when he visited Washington early in 2001 was an assistant secretary of agriculture – that after French President Jacques Chirac had spared time to meet with him.

Despite concerns about Equatorial Guinea’s human rights record, Obiang’s currency rose dramatically after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he visited the United States as it marked the first anniversary of the attacks, Obiang was among 10 African leaders to meet with President George Bush for talks on the prospect of war with Iraq and peace and development on the African continent.


Thanks Bob for noticing, nice to talk with you again. :hi:

[bobthedrummer]

6. Halliburton is only one PMC/Private Military Company.

In the past I believe these were called CIA proprietaries, but what do I know?

Here is a PMC link about privatizing combat, or coups, or whatever you want-for a fee:puke:
http://www.icij.org/dtaweb/icij_bow.asp?Section=Chapter&ChapNum=2

[seemslikeadream]

7. Corporate Mercenaries - Executive Outcomes Leads to Bush

Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...

Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl <1>, Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.

Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.

Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.

The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue4/cw4f8.html

Executive Outcomes ties lead to London and Bush
Executive Intelligence Review January 31, 1997, pp. 42-43
by Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos

Exposes appearing on both sides of the Atlantic on the mercenary group Executive Outcomes, threaten to blow the lid off the British intelligence nexus already identified as responsible for the February 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and for the current cataclysmic destabilization of Africa on behalf of circles associated with the Queen of England's Privy Council and Sir George Bush.
The exposes appeared in the French daily {Le Figaro} on Jan. 16, the {London Observer} on Jan. 17, and the February issue of the American magazine {Harper's.}
Executive Outcomes is the mercenary arm of a vast
network of British-South African corporations dealing in gold, diamonds, and oil, primarily, but not exclusively, in Africa, that come under the umbrella of Strategic Resources Corporation, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa. Described universally as an ``advance guard of a corporate network that includes mining, oil, and construction companies,'' Executive Outcomes is active in 13 African countries, including Uganda. For its services, it demands a lien or franchise on the exportable raw resources, particularly mineral wealth, of the client country--in the same fashion as the British East India Company of the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn functioned as the ``advance guard'' of the British monarchy.
Executive Outcomes was incorporated offshore, on the Isle of Man, in 1993, by Anthony Buckingham, a British businessman, and Simon Mann, a former British officer, the {Observer} reported, based on a leak to it from British intelligence. Buckingham is also chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which in turn is linked to the Canadian firm Ranger Oil. Other firms operating out of the same headquarters in Chelsea Plaza 107, London, include Branch International Ltd. and Branch Mining Ltd.
Preliminary investigation by {EIR} has further determined that Executive Outcomes lies at the heart of the British monarch's raw materials cartels and secret intelligence operations, in conjunction with Bush's rogue apparat:
Through Sir David Steel, a former leader of the Liberal Party, Executive Outcomes and, presumably, its deployment, is a subsumed operation of the Queen's Privy Council. Steel is a close friend of EO's Buckingham, and is on the board of directors of EO's sister firm, Heritage Oil and Gas, according to {Le Figaro.} In 1977, Steel was inducted into the Privy Council, making him the youngest member of Britain's highest-level policy-making body.
The links between Executive Outcomes and Ranger Oil point to operational ties with the Bronfman family of Canada, whose scion, Edgar Bronfman of Toronto Broncorp, sits on the board of directors of Ranger. Recently, the Bronfman family merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold, whose senior advisory board includes Sir George Bush. Barrick Gold is deeply involved in northeastern Zaire, where it has purchased 83,000 square kilometers of land. Zairean sources report that the so-called Zairean rebel Laurent Kabila is no more than a mercenary for Barrick and Anglo American Corp., sponsored by the British Crown-backed Ugandan and Rwandan militaries. Executive Outcomes, {Le Figaro} and other sources further verify, is deeply entrenched in Uganda, the key British marcher-lord state in the region.

http://www.aboutsudan.com/action/geopolitical/executive_outcomes.htm

[AP]

5. The guy sounds like an ass, but I still wouldn't trust Western press

representation of what's going on there.

[mobuto]

8. You wouldn't?

Who would you trust? I wasn't aware that Equatorial Guinea was terribly controversial. Everybody - and that includes every single international human rights organization - agrees that its a repressive autocracy. Don't you?

[AP]

10. If neoliberals have their sites on this guy because he's not giving

enough money to the corporations, then I'm going to be skeptical.

I mean, look at the criticism they have of his son: "he likes women from other countries." He's from a tiny country in Africa and lives on a island when he's there. It's bad that he dates women from other countries?

It's very possible that this is just a smear to weaken resistence to the inevitable coup.

[mobuto]

11. Out of curiosity, AP

which dictators don't you support?

According to Amnesty International, the UN High Commission for Human Rights and just about every other authority on the subject, Equatorial Guinea has one of the very worst human rights records of any country on the planet.

[AP]

12. Neoliberal dictators, like George Bush, & his Pinkertons for capitalism.

Rule of thumb: I don't support the fascists and neocolonialsts and neoliberals.

I'll take Pinkertons for democracy over pinkertons for multinational corporations any day.

You tell me, which neoliberals don't you support?

Your rule of thumb seems to be if it's good for business, it's good for you.

[mobuto]

13. That's it?

[AP]

14. There's more...

Check my edit in that post. I had a question for you.

[AP]

15. Furthermore, I didn't say I supprort this dictator...

...I just said that I think the article is BS.

But that apparently set you off.

Don't question authority, eh?

[seemslikeadream]

16. Confusing, isn't it?

:shrug:

[AP]

17. Confusing to be skeptical of the media coverage of a country that

is the object of an attempted coup?

[seemslikeadream]

19. Did you read this?

The Bush administration maintains reasonably friendly relations with the African nation of Equatorial Guinea despite the extreme human rights violations perpetrated by Equatorial Guinea’s government against its own people. America’s motive is to acquire oil from Equatorial Guinea’s vast reserves. U.S. news media have largely ignored human rights issues in that country, thus leaving U.S. citizens with little information for judging the actions of their own government and its failure to hold the Equatoguinean government responsible for its actions while claiming to have invaded Iraq, at least partly, for humanitarian reasons....

Obiang’s reaction comes as no shock. There is much evidence that his family spends huge amounts of money irresponsibly. Obiang’s son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang takes “business trips” to the United States including, according to Africa Confidential, “several weeks in Hollywood, where he bought a range of vehicles, looked for promising acts for promotion and made payments on his project (estimated cost, US $25 million) for a recording complex plus luxury apartments.” The son is also said to be “a party guy who comes in with fabulous chicks” (8). The family’s extravagant shopping sprees in Paris have also been reported (9). Obiang’s government has built lavish government villas for hosting oil executives to protect them from the oppressive equatorial heat. The villas’ occupants are also protected from the country’s citizens by walls and guard towers (5).



Given the modest population size of Equatorial Guinea, about half a million people, one might expect there to be plenty of money for everyone by way of revitalizing the economy and building up infrastructure. But most Equatoguineans are malnourished, typically with no running water or electricity. Malaria and yellow fever are rampant. The average life expectancy is 54. Sewage runs free on the streets of Malabo, the capital city, and there is no public transportation. Most citizens eke out a living, as best they can, farming rice, yams, and bananas (5, 10). It was not until July of 2003 that there was any serious talk of extending the range of television signals across the entire nation, even though the country is only about the size of Maryland (11). According to the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs’



“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” released last March, barter remains a major aspect of the economy. For 1998, the IMF, which Obiang stated will never learn how much money he takes in, calculated that Obiang’s government received $130 million in oil royalties. The government had only reported $34 million (9). This record of mismanagement of revenues has led the World Bank and the IMF to discontinue many aid programs since 1993 (12).

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=4054

[AP]

22. As I said, they guy looks awful. But why an attemtped coup?

Apparently he wasn't doing enough for the corporations.

Also, I think the criticisms of his son were a little silly.

He dated Eve. He has Russian girlfriends.

I mean, if he was torturing the players on the national soccer team, that's pretty shitty. But trying to start a rap label? Well my gosh. We better send in the Pinkertons.

[seemslikeadream]

25. Did you read how the people live?

Did you read how much money he is stealing from them? That's the question.

U.S. Military Shows Interest in Africa
By: Ellen Knickmeyer
Associated Press Date: 02/24/2004

DAKAR, Senegal - Top U.S. generals are touching down across Africa in unusual back-to-back trips, U.S. European Command confirmed Tuesday, part of a change in military planning as U.S. interest grows in African terror links and African oil.
Trips by two top European Command generals follow last week's similarly low-profile Africa visit by the U.S. commander in Europe, Marine Gen. James L. Jones.

The generals are leaders in U.S. military proposals to shift from Cold War-era troop buildups in western Europe to smaller concentrations closer to the world's trouble spots.

Jones' trip included stops in Morocco and Cameroon and talks with leaders of the sub-Sahara's military giants, Nigeria and South Africa, European Command spokesmen in Stuttgart, Germany said.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/8028821.htm


Oil found off the coast of Gambia
By: Jeevan Vasagar
Guardian, The Date: 02/18/2004

The president of Gambia has announced the discovery of "large quantities" of oil in his tiny West African country, the latest revelation of petrochemical riches in sub-Saharan Africa. In a national broadcast Yahya Jammeh, who seized control of the former British colony in a military coup 10 years ago, said the offshore discovery by a western company would result in "a harvest of prosperity".
West Africa already supplies the US with 15% of its oil imports, and the share is expected to grow as the Bush administration seeks to reduce dependence on the Gulf.

The Gambian find follows the discovery of viable deposits of crude oil off São Tomé, in the Gulf of Guinea, where billions of barrels are believed to lie offshore.

Mr Jammeh did not name the company responsible for the study, but an Australian company, Fusion Oil and Gas, holds a licence to carry out deep-water exploration off the Gambian coast.

The Perth-based firm, which was unavailable for comment last night, describes itself as "a holding company for a group of companies whose business is oil and gas exploration in Africa".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1150369,00.html

U.S. Considers Building Port at Sao Tome to Protect Oil
By: Staff
Associated Press Date: 02/18/2004

DAKAR, Senegal - The United States is studying whether to build a deep-water port and new airport at Sao Tome, an island nation touted as a possible Navy base to protect growing Western oil interests in West Africa.

Ambassador Kenneth Moorefield and Sao Tome ministers signed the $800,000 study agreement at Sao Tome's current international airport, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency said in a statement.

Sao Tome, off oil-rich Nigeria, is one of the lead nations in an oil boom in West Africa as the United States, Asia and Europe look for alternatives to Mideast oil.

West Africa's Gulf of Guinea supplies the United States with 15 percent of its oil, a figure projected to grow to 25 percent by 2015.

The study on expanding Sao Tome's port and airport is in line with a U.S. agreement to "evaluate opportunities for technical assistance" to Sao Tome, the U.S. statement said.

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5769&fcategory_desc...

US opens new front in war on terror beefing up border in Sahara
By: Rory Carroll
Guardian, The Date: 01/14/2004

The US is sending troops and defence contractors to the Sahara desert of west Africa to open what it calls a new front in the war on terror. A small vanguard force arrived this week in Mauritania to pave the way for a $100m (£54m) plan to bolster the security forces and border controls of Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger.
The US Pan-Sahel Initiative, as it is named, will provide 60 days of training to military units, including tips on desert navigation and infantry tactics, and furnish equipment such as Toyota Land Cruisers, radios and uniforms.

The reinforcement of America's defences in a remote, poorly patrolled region came on a day when US police forces gained important powers in the homeland to conduct searches.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1122704,00.html

Repost: African Black Gold
By: Simon Robinson
Time Magazine Date: 10/28/2002


The sleepy tropical island city of Malabo had hardly changed in years. The capital of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation of fewer than 500,000 people, consisted of little more than some moldering Spanish colonial buildings, a few palm-lined plazas and the tightly packed shanty towns which encircle most African settlements. Its one claim to fame was that novelist Frederick Forsyth lived there while he wrote his military thriller The Dogs of War. But over the past three years, Malabo has been transformed. Office buildings have shot up, hotels and banks have opened, and foreigners — once a novelty in Malabo — now cram the town's fancy new restaurants. There's so much construction, joke the locals, that if you open your mouth and stick out your tongue someone is likely to build on it.
The source of this economic boom can be found buried beneath the nearby ocean floor. Over the past decade, foreign oil companies have found at least 500 million barrels of high-grade crude oil in the country's waters. Production has jumped from just 17,000 barrels per day in 1996 to more than 220,000 and could grow another 50% within three years. The oil boom has fueled fantastic economic growth — 65% last year, down to an estimated 25% this year — and pushed annual per capita GDP from $800 seven years ago to more than $2,000 today. The bonanza in Equatorial Guinea is being repeated across the region. Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, will soon start pumping more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day through a $3.7 billion, 1,070-km pipeline — Africa's biggest-ever infrastructure project — that transverses Cameroon.

The island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, which sits on perhaps 4 billion barrels of crude, is also attracting foreign oilmen. These upstart countries join such established giants as Nigeria, which plans to increase its output from its current 1.9 million barrels per day to more than 3 million; Angola, which wants to double its almost 1 million daily output; and Gabon, which is encouraging more deepwater exploration to prop up declining production. All the action makes the waters off West Africa one of the hottest places for oil exploration in the world. On a global scale, the numbers may seem modest; total proven reserves in the Gulf of Guinea sit at 40 billion barrels, less than one-sixth of Saudi Arabia's 261 billion. But Africa is just getting started. Says Al Stanton, an Edinburgh-based oil analyst with Deutsche Bank: "The opportunities for expansion are tremendous."

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901021028-366...

Hunt for 'new' oil
By: Timothy Burn
Washington Times Date: 09/28/2003

U.S. oil companies have been drilling off the west coast of Africa for years, but as major players like ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil continue to strike massive oil deposits in these deep waters, the Bush administration has taken notice.
The United States has been scouring the planet for new sources of oil beyond the Middle East. The September 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq convinced the administration that the United States must move quickly to find new foreign oil partners.

What better place to look than an oil-rich region that lies just 4,500 miles from the East Coast, with an unobstructed sea route to U.S. ports, a region that could supply as much as a quarter of U.S. oil imports?

West Africa is rapidly emerging as a key strategic outpost for President Bush's twin policy goals of taking the war on terror far away from U.S. borders and breaking the Arab stranglehold on world oil prices.

http://washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20030928-123431-1449r.htm

Sept. 2003: U.S. donates ships to protect Nigeria oil
By: Dulue Mbachu
Associated Press Date: 09/05/2003

LAGOS, Nigeria -- The United States is donating several ships to Nigeria to help the West African nation protect its massive oil assets from gangs who steal an estimated 10 percent of oil profits daily, authorities said Friday.
The third of seven former U.S. Coast Guard ships to be delivered by year's end arrived at the port in Lagos on Thursday, a U.S. Embassy official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The first ship arrived in March.

Nigerian authorities plan to deploy the vessels in the troubled southern Niger Delta region, which produces almost all of Nigeria's oil output.

"Our national assets in the sea are worth billions of dollars and the arrival (of the ships) would help safeguard them," a Nigerian navy statement quoted Vice Adm. Samuel Afolayan as saying.

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=2376&fcategory_desc...

Aug 2002: US naval base to protect Sao Tome oil
By: Staff
BBC Date: 08/22/2002

The tiny island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, off the West African coast, has agreed to host a US naval base to protect its oil interests. The country holds a strategic position in the oil rich Gulf of Guinea from which the US could monitor the movement of oil tankers and guard oil platforms.
"Last week I received a call from the Pentagon to tell me that the issue is being studied," President Fradique De Menezes told Portugal's RTP Internacional TV.

"This will be good for Sao Tome as it will ensure the future of the country in relation to those that are ambitious and are looking to come to the country when oil is extracted from our waters," he said.

The former Portuguese colony has a very small army on which it spends only $1m a year.

The president was responding to rumours that the US planned to build a air force and naval base after a visit in July by a US General Carlton Fulford, deputy commander-in-chief, US European Command.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2210571.stm

Americans muscle in as 'big whities' flock to new El Dorado

Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent
Tuesday June 17, 2003
The Guardian

Step inside the air-conditioned lounge of the Viking Club and Luanda's squalor could be another universe. Here the oil executives and engineers sip beer and discuss geological reports, deals and money.
Beyond the shattered skyline of Angola's capital, buried beneath the Atlantic, is a vast store of oil, and their job is to extract it. The accents are British, Australian, French and, increasingly, American.

The "big whities", as the taxi drivers call them, have been coming for years but now the flights are fuller than ever: new offshore discoveries are expected to double output to 2 million barrels per day, prompting talk of a drilling El Dorado.

Angola's government, adept at playing off rival oil companies to maximise its revenue, expects an investment boom of $50bn (£30bn) in the next decade.

A US contractor will help build an oil refinery in Lobito harbour, 250 miles south of Luanda, to process the light crude suitable for American cars. Now that Washington wants west African oil to cut US dependency on the Gulf, its envoys are beating a path to the capital.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,979101,00.html

Scramble for Africa

Fear of corruption and chaos in oil rush

Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent
Tuesday June 17, 2003
The Guardian

Washington's determination to find an alternative energy source to the Middle East is leading to a new oil rush in sub-Saharan Africa which threatens to launch a fresh cycle of conflict, corruption and environmental degradation in the region, campaigners warn today.
The new scramble for Africa risks bringing more misery to the continent's impoverished citizens as western oil companies pour billions of dollars in secret payments into government coffers throughout the continent. Much of the money ends up in the hands of ruling elites or is squandered on grandiose projects and the military.

Tony Blair will today urge the oil industry to be more transparent in its dealings with Africa. Openness and accountability are essentials for stability and prosperity in the developing world, he will tell oil company executives and oil exporting countries at a meeting in Lancaster House in central London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,979053,00.html


Oil shocked

A desire to loosen Opec's stranglehold on petroleum prices lies behind Bush's interest in Africa and his plans for Iraq, writes Randeep Ramesh

Friday July 11, 2003

America's new world order appears founded on a declaration of independence. George Bush, an oil man from an oil state, wants America to wean itself off a dangerous addiction to faraway hydrocarbons.
As the president's national energy plan puts it, this is "a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have American interests at heart".

Although admirably blunt, this statement has haunted the Bush administration since it was made in May 2001 - months before the attacks of September 11. America's war on terrorism is often viewed as a scramble for black gold.

There is a logic to this. Getting gas out of the Caspian is a lot easier if you are faced with a pliant Afghanistan. If Iraq is not run by a dictator determined to use oil as a weapon of war - as Dick Cheney said " seek domination of the entire Middle East" - then Americans could sleep easier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,996305,00.html

Oil and terrorism drive the presidential tour

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday July 7, 2003
The Guardian

President Bush's trip to Africa this week signals a recent strategic decision to increase America's military presence to bolster what Washington now sees as two important national interests on the continent - the supply of oil and the struggle against terrorism.
On the eve of departure, General James Jones, the commander of the US European command with responsibility for African operations, said the US was trying to negotiate the long-term use of a "family" of military bases across the continent.

This would include big installations for up to 5,000-strong brigades "that could be robustly used for a significant military presence," Gen Jones told the New York Times. It would also involve smaller, lightly equipped bases available in times of crisis to special forces or marines.

The bases would not only be established in north African states such as Algeria, where Islamic extremism is already a potent force, but also in sub-Saharan African nations such as Mali.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,993022,00.html

US military wants to increase its presence in Africa
By Eric Schmitt in Washington
July 7 2003

The United States military is seeking to expand its presence in Africa through new basing agreements and training exercises aimed at combating a growing terrorist threat.

Even as military planners prepare options for US troops to join an international peacekeeping force to oversee a ceasefire in Liberia, the Pentagon wants to enhance military ties with allies such as Morocco and Tunisia.

It is also seeking to gain long-term access to bases in countries such as Mali and Algeria, which US forces could use for periodic training or to strike terrorists. And it aims to build on aircraft refuelling agreements in Senegal and Uganda, two countries that President George Bush is to visit on the five-nation swing through Africa that he begins tomorrow.

There were no plans to build permanent US bases in Africa, Pentagon officials said. Instead, the US European Command, which oversees military operations in most of Africa, wants troops now in Europe to rotate more often into bare-bones camps or airfields in Africa. Marines may spend more time sailing off West Africa.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/06/1057430078697.html

[mobuto]

27. Sao Tome is very interesting

it is a functioning democracy and it does have recent oil wealth, so the struggle of course is to see if it can remain democratic. Nigeria has been threatening its independence, and has been sponsoring coup attempts. If the US does establish a Navy Base there, we can guarantee its security, which would do much to help the people.

[seemslikeadream]

31. Democracy, Obiang Style

Soldiers are a common if not pervasive sight on the streets of Malabo, and security is tight, particularly as several coup plots, organized abroad by exile groups, have been busted up the past few years by authorities in Angola and Nigeria. The biggest threat to Obiang, though, comes from within his own clan, as infighting has erupted over who is to get the biggest share of the petroleum spoils. Lacking confidence in the loyalty of his own troops, Obiang depends for his primary protection on roughly 100 Moroccans, provided by the former king, Hassan, who serve as the regime's praetorian guard. When Obiang is at his office or the nearby presidential palace, the surrounding area is sealed off. One day, unaware that Musselman and John Hess were meeting with Obiang, I asked a cabdriver to take me to the church off the main square. When we got close, the driver spotted a group of armed men standing by a squadron of five SUVs, and he quickly turned tail.

Democracy appears to be spreading about as slowly as the oil wealth. Guineans can choose among two TV and two radio stations--in both cases the government operates one and Teodoro Obiang the other. There are no daily newspapers, and the few publications that do circulate offer fawning praise of the regime. La Gaceta de Guinea Ecuatorial, a glossy monthly, is filled with interviews with government officials and local businessmen. The ministry of information sells Ebano, a thin newsletter; the issue I bought, for about $1, hailed Teodoro as "the minister most loved by the people for his pragmatic, humanitarian and very dynamic character." Criticism of the government is rare but tolerated--one article in Ebano denounced official corruption and said some officials "consider themselves to have won the lottery"--but direct criticism of Obiang is forbidden.

Obiang did legalize political parties in the early 1990s, though by then many prominent opposition figures had fled abroad and remained fearful of returning. The government has also banned a number of parties, and others have waited years to be recognized. Of twelve authorized opposition parties that do function, eleven have aligned themselves with the Obiang regime, after receiving cash payoffs and other blandishments.

Rafael, a tall man with flecks of white in his beard, belongs to the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), the one opposition group that has refused to work with the government. Until a few years ago, he said, it was a crime to greet a member of the opposition. Obiang has lifted that law, as well as one that banned opposition members from owning a business or working (public-sector jobs and some private-sector positions still require ruling-party membership). "The government has taken some important steps," he says. "At least they are willing to talk to the opposition."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=6&s=silverstein

[AP]

33. In no way do I support this guy (he sounds like a thug). However,

what this exerpt you've pasted says is:

(1) because of coups, he has guards (reasonable), and

(2) democracy is weak because there are only two TV stations (huh?).

From the other article, we know that his son dated Eve.

I'm not saying the evidence of oppression isn't out there, but if this guy is worse than, say, Abacha, there should be evidence more compelling than this.

Did he execute any famous authors because Shell asked him to do it? Do they have roving bands of thugs who murder the people who own the land (or sea) where the oil is drilled?

Those are pretty good measures of oppression.

Not developing a nations fast enough isn't great, but I'm not sure it justifies a coup,

And the real story here is probably, why a coup?

[seemslikeadream]

38. 'The Land of the Future'

Across from the Pan Africa is a neatly painted health clinic operated by Spanish nuns. I know even before asking, because they provide most social services in the country, and the building is too well maintained to be run by the government. Dozens of people are standing outside, while in the waiting room mothers are changing their babies on long brown benches. A worker at the clinic, which is subsidized by Triton, says the nuns feed about forty malnourished children and see up to seventy patients daily.

After hailing a cab, I drive through the center of town. A pair of young barefoot boys are selling pica pica--skewers of meat--by a square with a monument of a soldier atop a pedestal that carries the words To Those Who Died for a Better Guinea, August 3, 1979--the date of Obiang's coup against Macias. Not far away, there's a crowd milling around a small auditorium. Inside, hundreds of people are sitting on folding chairs, all eyes focused on a small TV. Obiang, in a speech before government officials taped weeks earlier, is explaining why he found it necessary to rescind a 200 percent pay increase that had been announced for federal workers. There is silence in the audience of public employees but thunderous applause from the TV.

Heading away from the central part of the city, we enter an area of large mansions, including one that Teodoro is building atop a hill that offers a view of the area. His new estate--which will replace his current beachfront mansion--is so vast that the construction crew has brought a crane to the site to build it. I've been told that Teodoro has a following among the poor, whom he champions during his constant appearances on government news broadcasts, but it still comes as a shock when the driver says that the president's son "has a lot of love for the people." Descending the hilltop, we stop by the driver's home, which is in a slum far worse than any I saw in Malabo. Most people live in mud-and-wattle huts, and when we entered his shack--bare apart from a few old pieces of furniture and sacks of cement piled in a corner--his wife was sprawled on a shaggy couch while their three naked children, all with distended bellies, sat on the floor. Later that day I told a longtime foreign resident of Equatorial Guinea about my day. "The worst part about this," he replied, "is that with the riches this country has, Guineans could live better than people in Monaco. Instead they live worse than people in refugee camps."

In mid-March, about ten days after I returned to the United States from Equatorial Guinea, security forces there seized dozens of people who were accused of plotting against the government. The Obiang regime refused to provide information on the whereabouts of the detainees--including a pregnant woman--though some were reportedly being held in the presidential palace in Bata. "The fact that the families are being denied access to their relatives and that nobody knows where they are currently held has led to fears that some of them may already have died under torture," Amnesty International said in a press release. Placido Mico was not arrested, but the government accused him and other party leaders of having ties to the detainees and warned that the CPDS could be outlawed.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=7&s=silverstein

[AP]

40. All bad stuff. But you know what Duvalier did to protect wealth?

They murdered people.

I'm not sure how greed alone justifies a coup.

It DEFINITELY warrants criticism. However, what do you think the coup plotters were going to do for these poor people?

[seemslikeadream]

41. U.S. Oil Politics in the 'Kuwait of Africa'

This article was prepared with a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, with additional support from the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

It helps that the companies active in Equatorial Guinea have close ties to the Bush Administration. In addition to political heavyweights like ExxonMobil and Chevron, those firms include CMS Energy (which recently sold its holdings in Equatorial Guinea to Marathon). CMS's CEO, William McCormick, gave $100,000 to the Bush-Cheney 2001 Presidential Inaugural Committee. Ocean Energy's consultant on its Malabo operations is Chester Norris, a former ambassador to Equatorial Guinea under George Bush Sr. Perhaps best connected of all is Triton, whose chairman, Tom Hicks, made Bush a millionaire fifteen times over when he bought the Texas Rangers in 1998. Hicks's leveraged buyout firm, Hicks Muse, is Bush's fourth-largest career financial patron, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Bush's decision to reopen the US Embassy was taken soon after he received a plea to do so from the oil industry. "It is important to underscore that most of the oil and gas concessions awarded in Equatorial Guinea to date, have been awarded to US firms," said a memo drafted on behalf of the oil companies and sent to Bush last year. "This is in stark contrast to neighboring countries in the region, where the United States has consistently lost out to French and other European and Asian competitors." Sisinio Mbana, first secretary at Equatorial Guinea's embassy in Washington, told me that at least four Bush Administration officials have consulted with Guinean leaders, including two from the State Department who have met discreetly with Obiang. "The oil companies have done a lot for us," Mbana said. "The State Department gets its information about Equatorial Guinea from them."

In addition to direct lobbying, the oil industry sought to improve Obiang's image by hiring the services of Bruce McColm, a former head of Freedom House who now runs the Institute for Democratic Strategies (IDS), a Virginia-based nonprofit whose stated mission is "strengthening democratic institutions." The Obiang regime's most tireless champion, McColm works closely with the government, which now pays him directly. (According to its latest nonprofit tax form, the IDS spent $223,000 in 2000, of which all but $10,000 went toward its Equatorial Guinea work.) In 2000 McColm sent a team of observers to monitor Equatorial Guinea's municipal elections, which it reported to be basically free and fair. "Electoral officials should be recognized for discharging their responsibilities in an effective and transparent manner," said an IDS press release at the time. "Observers generally felt that the positives of this election far outweighed the negatives." This was in marked contrast to a UN report that said the electoral campaign "was characterized by the omnipresence of the party, voting in public and the intimidating presence of the armed forces."

The oil companies have also worked through the Corporate Council on Africa, which represents companies with investments on the continent. Last year the council published a "Country Profile" of Equatorial Guinea, which was paid for by six oil companies and AfricaGlobal, a DC lobby shop that at the time represented Obiang. The guidebook not only promotes the country as a new investment hot spot but also claims that the Obiang regime "has taken significant measures to encourage political diversity and address human and worker rights issues." On February 8, the council sponsored a private luncheon for Obiang, who was visiting Washington with a small entourage. The event was held in the chandeliered dining room of downtown Washington's Army-Navy Club, and each of the roughly fifty guests in attendance received a biography of Obiang, prepared by McColm's IDS, that describes him as the country's "first democratically elected president" and a man who has "embarked on the total physical reconstruction of his country and the improvement of the welfare of all its citizens."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=4&s=silverstein

[AP]

43. You know the joke they tell in Latin America? Why is the US the

only country in the Americas which hasn't been the object of a coup? Because it's the only one without a US embassy.

[legin]

58. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, seemslikeadream

I knew this country sounded familiar. I recognise Bruce McColm, I googled him the last time this country came up.

I have been pulling my hair out over this.

The problem is I've taken in so much information, my brain is full, and the info is starting to turn into a foul smelling soup.

Great info on this subject.

On the subject: One possible theory is when the middle east started up as an oil producing region, the u.s. and britain supported the local friendly despots to make sure that the supply of oil was assured. These local despots are now very rich and powerful, and considered to be not that friendly certainly as far as the neo-cons are concerned.

Having been burnt once they are probably not that keen on making Obiang stinking rich, while the rest of the country remains poor. So they are getting rid of him at the beginning when it is easiest.

Against that theory is the property Obiang is buying in the u.s.. (His mansion in Maryland has got 7 bathrooms)

For it is the sheer arrogance with which Mann organised this attempted coup, it gives the impression that he thought he was safe to do whatever he wanted. Last sunday BBC1 at 10.55 were showing the film 'The Wild Geese' (Richard Burton, Richard Harris, etc, mercenaries in Africa film). I'm sure these schedules are done at least a couple of weeks in advance if not more, so it is either a really amazing co-incidence, especially as this was exactly the film i was thinking of when this story first broke, or they got tipped off.

[seemslikeadream]

45. U.S. Oil Politics in the 'Kuwait of Africa'

Spot any major new construction project or prominent business in Equatorial Guinea and it's almost certainly owned by or built for the benefit of Obiang and his cronies. The terminal at the Malabo International Airport is a dilapidated shack, yet a few hundred yards away sits a gleaming new presidential wing. On the road into town, soldiers guard two vast homes sitting across the road from each other: Obiang resides in one and the First Lady in the other. (Obiang has two wives; the second, who hails from São Tomé and has lesser status, lives in a large if less ostentatious home a short distance away.) Gabriel Obiang lives in a new mansion that sits across from Paraiso, a gaudy new restaurant and club for the elite that also boasts a swimming pool, weight room and disco. It is owned by one of the president's brothers, as is the Hotel Bahia, which offers Malabo's finest if decidedly humble lodging. (It's also where Frederick Forsyth wrote The Dogs of War, his 1974 book about a small band of mercenaries who overthrow a corrupt African regime.) Rich Guineans live in a few exclusive communities, like Pequenha Espanha--Little Spain--which has a hilltop view of the ocean. SUVs are parked in front of the neighborhood's homes, and satellite dishes shine from the roofs. Cleaning, gardening and guard duty are handled by slum dwellers....



Few of the poor, who make up 90 percent of the population, would agree. I traveled through a good chunk of the poorer neighborhoods in Malabo and didn't see any sign of government investment. The oil companies pay extremely well by local standards--between $500 and $1,000 a month--but they have created relatively few jobs, as only a handful of Guineans have the training for the highly technical offshore work. Much of Malabo's population is unemployed, or they work as street vendors. In the Los Angeles neighborhood there's a huge open market where hundreds of sellers sit under stalls topped with corrugated metal and sell shriveled tomatoes, pineapples, bananas, papaya and okra, as well as dried fish, and chicken feet and necks. Homes here--tiny wooden shacks or stucco structures that run back-to-back along the dirt roads--don't have running water, so residents rise at 5 am to trudge to a well about a kilometer away.

Most people who live in Los Angeles can't afford electricity, so when the sun goes down, the shantytown is pitch dark apart from the candles and lanterns glowing behind windows. With the heat in the 80s even at night, just about everyone seeks relief outdoors. "Why look for work when there isn't any?" replied one 25-year-old woman sitting on a stool outside her home when I asked if she had a job. Her family--two kids and her husband, who drives a cab--eats a full meal once a day, typically a stew of yucca, plantains and malanga (a type of potato), with a sardine sauce. "There's only one way to find a better life, and that's to get out," says the woman, who hopes to join relatives who have left for neighboring African states or, better yet, a sister who married a German and moved to Frankfurt.

There's one paved road leading out of Malabo, and within twenty minutes you're traveling through lush forest. Conditions here and in other rural areas, where 70 percent of the population lives, are infinitely worse than in the city. Many villages don't have a school, and production of coffee, cocoa and other agricultural commodities has collapsed. People survive by hunting and gathering fruit in the woods, a state of affairs that has prompted a flood of migrants to move to the slums of Malabo in the remote but alluring hope of finding work with an oil company. In one roadside village of half a dozen houses, a few residents sell bunches of crabs hanging from wood posts, plantains and papayas. An old man returns from the forest carrying a basket full of snails over one shoulder and a bag filled with wild rats--killed by one well-placed whack to the ear with a machete--over the other. When I ask him how oil has changed life here, I get a blank face for an answer.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=5&s=silverstein

[AP]

47. So we replace Obiang with the president of Exxon, and that solves

all the problems?

[seemslikeadream]

48. You have put alot of words in my mouth

You assume way too much!

[AP]

49. I haven't put words in your mouth at all. I've asked a few questions,

I've told a joke, and I made a couple points.

But no words have been put in anyone's mouth or anywhere else.

[seemslikeadream]

50. Pardon me

Why do you keep asking me to justify a coup? I've never said I was for or against the overthrow of this government. Just pointing out who would be playing the game, PMCs funded by American and British security establishments.

[Just Me]

51. Can we talk about alternatives,...

,...in addressing/apprehending those who are clearly, demonstrably oppressive leaderships? Is a stronger ICC the answer, along with a NATO prepared to execute a summons and arrest? Is focusing upon building a stronger populace and basic infrastructure the answer? Is an international investigative agency the answer?

[AP]

53. I'm for all those things...

...except I'm not sure why NATO should be executing summons and arrests.

Inevitably these people, if committing crimes, will step inot a jurisdiction in which a police officer will be able to execute a warrant.

But I just want to note as well, that all the criticisms enumerate in this thread (with the emphasis on THIS THREAD -- not sure what other evidence is out there) has basically described a country where they've had a windfall of profits in a very short period, and the ruler has horded most of it. The crimes, beyond greed, aren't clear.

Compare this to what Nigeria, for example, does to realized their greedy aims. They use the miliatry as a Pinkerton force for shell and they go out and murder people in Ogoniland.

I can totally envision a situation where an arrest warrant can be exectuted on a Nigerian involved in a government which does that.

I'm not sure that anything described here constitutes a crime. So, can we look for real crimes before we start talking about arresting people? And can we not try to ever justify coups that are carried out on behalf of capitalism and wealth.

[Just Me]

54. I agree that proof of crimes are pre-requisite,...

,...and that coups for the benefit of corporatism or power are simply unacceptable. There is entirely too many disadvantaged and innocent lives being victimized by such predatory offenses. It makes me sick and sad and angry and frustrated.

I was just thinking that, an exploration of all the other infinite possibilities of assisting this world instead of selfishly controlling it would be,...satisfying. I thought I'd throw a few suggestions out there with the hope that someone might exploit them (one of the only forms of exploitation I embrace,...exploitation of ideas).

[AP]

55. Proof is for trial. The key is probable cause and allegations that,

if true, constitute a crime.

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. Well, there's this from the original article:

Last month an American human rights lobby group put Mr Obiang at sixth place in its gallery of the world's 10 worst dictators. In 2002, for instance, he had more than 70 political opponents jailed. Some were hung in positions designed to break their bones, and at least two died. Those who have not fled into exile in Spain have been detained at the notorious Black Beach prison, where opponents say they have been tortured by Obiang family members. "If you've ever seen a person limp on both legs, you know you're in Equatorial Guinea," said the former US ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, John Bennett.
which is slightly expanded on by Amnesty in their 2002 report
Most of the people arrested because of alleged links with the FDR were tortured in pre-trial incommunicado detention to force them to make statements incriminating themselves and others in the alleged coup. Many of them were tied up with rope and hung from a bar in a position that meant that the bones in their forearms, and in some cases their legs, eventually broke. They were also beaten, some severely with sticks and whips. They were blindfolded for prolonged periods.

The torture and ill-treatment of the detainees continued during the trial. Some of the defendants who told the court they wished to retract earlier statements were subsequently tortured in prison, apparently in reprisal.

The wives of two prisoners who took food to their husbands were also beaten and tortured and one of them was raped by several soldiers, according to a statement made in court by her husband.

But at least he's not as bad as his predecessor uncle:
In 1975, over Christmas, he ordered his militia to kill 150 political prisoners in Malabo stadium as loudspeakers played Those Were the Days, My Friend. During his reign of terror a third of the population fled.
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/5013.html

[AP]

18. Out of curiousity, mobuto: do you like the royal family in Nepal?

Did you like mobuto?

[mobuto]

20. Not particularly,

but then I don't care much for Nepal's Maoist rebels either.

And no, I was not much of fan of murderous kleptocrat Mobutu Sese-Seko.

I'm pretty consistent in my support for democracy and human rights. Why aren't you?

[AP]

23. Being skeptical of the VZ opposition, being skeptical of the motivations

of those who criticize land reform in Zimbabwe, supporting Aristide, and being skeptical of the media is BAD?

Whatever.

[mobuto]

26. Land reform?

If Mugabe's thuggery is land reform, then what would you call the extraction of Jews' gold fillings? Wealth redistribution?

[AP]

29. You know next to nothing about colonialism, it seems.

And slightly less about development economics.

That, or you ignore the truth which you know because you've elevated the rights of corporations to make profits above all else.

[mobuto]

32. Rights of corporations?

Is that really what you think the struggles in Zimbabwe are all about?

Who is it who knows nothing?

[AP]

34. That's EXACTLY what it's about. The last 500 farms were owned by

corporations and were making huge profits selling produce to European markets.

It's all about neocolonialism and neoliberalism. Two issues which are obvioulsy extremely low on your list of concerns.

[mobuto]

36. Yup

I'm interested in things like human rights, democracy, living wages, environmental protections, access to health care and adequate nutrition and clean water and housing, and other things you apparently consider subordinate to the absolute ability of local dictators to oppress their people.

[AP]

37. How does always defending neoliberalism fit into that paradigm?

Neoliberalism doesn't have a record of being able to deliver any of those things.

[mobuto]

39. And Robert Mugabe does?

Get real.

[AP]

42. The MDC was running on a platform of ending land reform, and

continuing the system that allowed all the wealth of the country to flow to markets in Europe.

The choice in Zimbabwe isn't Mugabe or your list of concerns. It was Mugabe or a Zimbabwe run for the benefit of Europe.

Duh.

Do you really not know this, or are you know this and you advocate neoliberalism regardless of the truth?

[mobuto]

44. All the wealth of the country?

The farms were one of Zimbabwe's only sources of income.

Out of curiosity, are you aware of how well Zimbabwe's economy has performed SINCE Mugabe started his terror campaign?

Do you really not know that incomes and standards of living have fallen dramatically, or are you intentionally advocating oppressive dictatorships?

[AP]

46. The farms produced tobacco, sold abroad, and the profits went

into Swiss bank accounts.

The did not produce wealth for the people of Zimbabwe.

Here's what you don't understand about colonialism:

What did it take to get INTO the colonial system? Murder, ruined economies, destitution for its surviving victims.

What's it going to take to get out of it?

This isn't like Sweden picking a weekend over which to switch which side of the road the cars drive on.

It's going to take disruption, a few years of the economy not doing well, etc. But once the transition period ends, there will be a much more efficient economy.

Look at Argentina for an example of what happens when you transfer all the wealth of the nation abroad. You get some good years because you're living on a bublble. Then the cheque comes due. Either you tax the hell out of the citizens and turn them into wage slaves so that Wall St can continue get their 15-50% returns, or you say the hell with it, and you reinvest in your own country and you spread wealth down to the people in a way that would make FDR and Keynes smile. Usually they say to hell with it after Wall St pushes it to far. But they'll ALWAYS say to hell with it sooner or later, and the disruption necessary to break from of neocolonialism and neoliberalism will ALWAYS be worth it over the long term.

DUH!!!!

[htuttle]

21. Would you find it logical and consistent to support a process...

...as opposed to picking and choosing leaders according to whether I 'like' them this week or not?

Does international law deserve any respect whatsoever? If it does, then a despot in Equatorial Guinea should be dealt with via the UN. it doesn't really matter how 'bad' he is. If the US ignores the rule of law, it becomes a despotic regime itself, whatever it's 'true motives' may be.

In what cases would you support obeying the process of international law, out of curiosity?

ps. You know, it seems to me we've been over this before, but regarding a different country...

[mobuto]

24. ???

I didn't say anything about what I think should be done in Equatorial Guinea, largely because I don't have an answer to that. As a rule, I'm not generally a big fan of coups. My point was simply that Equatorial Guinea has become an extremely repressive hellhole, one of the most violent and authoritarian states on the planet.

[htuttle]

56. I'm delighted to hear that you aren't a big fan of coups

As far as I'm concerned, as long as you agree that international law should be followed, and that externally fostered coups are 'bad', then any opinion you have about one country or another is just fine. It's a free country.

I'm no fan of repressive, autocratic regimes either in Equatorial Guinea or elsewhere. That doesn't mean I want to see our government going around covertly and illegally toppling these regimes by force, however, and I'm glad to hear that you would agree.

[AP]

28. EXACTLY. Are we apologists for coups, or what?

How is it that you're more liberal if you favor the rights of corporations to engage in coups over the rule of law?

If you're for that, you might as well be against the principle that peopel are innocent until proven guilty, and that people are entitled to juries of their peers, and that conviction for a crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

[mobuto]

30. Who's for coups?

Am I missing something?

[AP]

35. What do you believe in, mobuto?

[bleedingheart]

9. Same old story... Greed , Greed, Greed

Meanwhile the people of EG are screwed over.

[demdave]

52. The U.N.'s response.....chirp....chirp....chirp

Does the U.N. even know where to find Equatorial Guinea , Rawanda or the Sudan for that matter?

[Uzybone]

57. As long as the oil money keeps rolling in

the west will coddle ANY dictator.