Oil Slick
The Obiang regime tries to spin the Riggs scandal.
By Dave Gilson
December 20, 2004
So far, the Senate investigation that revealed Teodoro Obiang's
questionable dealings with the Riggs Bank and American oil companies
has caused relatively little fallout for his regime. It has moved its
money to accounts outside the jurisdiction of U.S. regulators, and it
continues to do business with the same firms that made millions of
dollars worth of unorthodox payments to Obiang's family and
associates.
Yet Equatorial Guinea's strongman did not completely brush off last
summer's brief P.R. hit. In September, his government issued a
statement condemning the investigation and its findings. As detailed
in its indignant 82-point rebuttal, the Equatoguinean government
claimed the Senate investigators not only got their facts horribly
wrong, but that they did so with the "clear intention of denigrating"
its image.
But the document does not dispute the Senate investigation's main
finding, namely, that Equatoguinean officials freely moved hundreds
of millions of dollars through Riggs Bank and blurred the line
between public and private monies. It maintains, however, that these
transactions were entirely legal, transparent, and not related to
money laundering or corruption. The Senate, it contends, overstepped
its authority and littered its report with "conceptual confusions,"
"repeated imprecisions," and "unfounded extrapolations." And even if
the Senate was onto something, Equatorial Guinea says it was under no
obligation to "answer questions as regards the observance, or
otherwise" of American banking laws.
Such stridency is typical of the Obiang regime's response to
international scrutiny. Understandably, a leader who is accustomed to
being hailed as God's earthly agent on state radio does not readily
embrace criticism. In recent interviews, Obiang has branded his
opponents as "bad losers," and accused Amnesty International and the
United Nations of misrepresenting his human rights record.
Obiang also is not afraid to challenge the U.S. government directly.
During a personal visit to Washington, D.C. in March 2001, the
president tried to discredit a recent State Department report that
had detailed the torture and repression of political dissidents in
Equatorial Guinea. While conceding there had been "excesses of
behavior from some people in authority," he asserted that "there are
no abuses on human rights issues." Another Equatoguinean official
went further, claiming the incidents listed in the report "were old
stories from people who are not in the country," and suggesting,
enigmatically, that the report was "the work of one man."
This umbrageous and at times paranoid tone is echoed in the
Equatoguinean government's response to the Riggs investigation. If
your only impression of the country came from the response, you might
think that it is an unfairly beleaguered free-market democracy.
Politically, Equatorial Guinea, is portrayed as a smoothly
functioning multiparty state. "Indeed," the response boasts, "its
electoral system is superior to many others internationally."
Economically, the country is described as an even playing field.
"Many Equatorial Guineans," it states, "not just the President of the
Republic and his family," have gained substantial wealth due to their
"entrepreneurial flair." Financial conflicts of interest are
regulated by a decree that prohibits public servants from owning or
running companies. (This decree, however, was issued in February
2004, months after the events described in the Senate investigation
involving the Obiang clan's companies took place.)
In an bizarre twist, the document also offers a defense of Simon
Kareri, the Riggs Bank official who had handled the Equatoguinean
accounts and was accused of embezzlement in the Senate hearings. As
reported in the Senate report, Kareri transferred $1.2 million
dollars from Equatorial Guinea's accounts into his own. However,
according to the Obiang government, Kareri's unorthodox
million-dollar deposit was an authorized payment to a construction
company in Equatorial Guinea. Kareri took the Fifth during the
hearings.
If all this is true, then how did the Senate manage to misinterpret
Equatorial Guinea's financial dealings? It was, according to the
document, duped by "pressure groups" leading a disinformation
campaign against the country. "Equatorial Guinea and its Political
Institutions are the victims of a conspiracy of considerable and
major proportions," it claims. The figure behind this conspiracy is
identified as Severo Moto Nsa, an opposition leader who has been
convicted in absentia of trying to overthrow Obiang and now heads a
"government in exile" in Spain. A $40,000 contract between Moto and
an American lobbying firm "has come to light," the document reports,
implying that the firm influenced the Senate to target Equatorial
Guinea.
The response letter does not acknowledge that Equatorial Guinea also
retains American lobby shops to represent it in Washington. According
to records filed with the Justice Department, the Obiang regime has
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on P.R. and lobbying in the
past five years. Earlier in 2004, it paid C/R International $120,000
to coordinate meetings between Equatoguinean and American officials.
The firm also helped secure banking facilities for the country's
embassy-a task necessitated by the Riggs scandal, which had forced
Equatorial Guinea to take its money elsewhere. It also organized a
visit to the U.S. for Obiang in the summer of 2004, just as news of
the Riggs investigation was emerging. On June 17, Condoleezza Rice
accepted an award for international diplomacy in Washington,
exhorting the audience, "Americans must never excuse tyranny or
corruption in Africa." Sitting with Bill Clinton and the other guests
of honor was Teodoro Obiang.
In spite of its success cozying up to the Bush administration, the
Obiang regime realizes that it must clean up its image, if not its
behavior. After the Senate report came out, it signed a
$50,000-a-month contract with the New York-based Farragut Advisors to
help "improve the country's public image and reputation in the United
States." And in its written response to the Riggs investigation, it
insisted that it would "collaborate with any action aimed at
clarifying the matters dealt with in the report." Yet until now, most
of the glimpses into its inner workings have not come from its
promises of transparency, but rather the work of journalists, human
rights groups, and now, Senate investigators. As more unpleasant
details about Obiang's petroligarchy seep out, no doubt he will
continue to pump out more bluster and spin.
Dave Gilson is the research editor at Mother Jones.
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