Thus, an insecure government will want the oil reserves exhausted as quickly as possible"
As in Kaguta and company stealing as the Buganda would say " oliya mu Kavuyo" Matek �It depends on what production profile the government of the country wants, which is also determined by the security of the government,� Birley said in an interview with ICIJ. �Thus, an insecure government will want the oil reserves exhausted as quickly as possible.� The latest sign of insecurity � a March 2002 coup attempt that resulted in the arrest of 120 dissidents � has rattled the nerves of the multinational oil companies. Jose Luis Mbomio, community development manager of Hess Triton, told ICIJ that the oil companies compiled a report after the coup, assessing the security situation and detailing possible options if the country were to disintegrate into violence. The report looked at the risks to investment and possible security measures to put in place. Of major concern is how to secure the country�s three modest ports in Malabo, Luba and Bata. The bigger challenge will be the protection of offshore oil rigs and vessels. Some U.S. oil companies already include former U.S. military men in their security departments in Equatorial Guinea in what appears to be a strategic move to inject a greater level of protection into operations. Ritchie, who asked that his last name not be used, is an Earth satellite engineer who spent 10 years in the U.S. Navy and a couple of years in Nigeria working on government contracts and for oil multinationals before joining Marathon in Malabo. Another American engineer at Marathon, who gave his name only as Curtis, spent four years in the U.S. Army. Neither thinks much of the government or its military. �The troops are undisciplined, unprofessional and illiterate,� said Curtis. �They can also be very defiant.� Oil from troubled waters Equatorial Guinea was a Spanish colony, unique in sub-Saharan Africa, and has had a checkered political history since independence in 1968. During Christmas celebrations in 1975, dictator Francisco Macias Nguema ordered his militia to kill 150 political opponents in the Malabo stadium as loudspeakers blared, �Those were the days my friend.� By 1976, two-thirds of the elected assembly had disappeared and an estimated one-third of the population was either dead or in exile. In 1979, Nguema was tried and executed after his nephew, the current president Obiang, deposed him in a coup. The country has been a nominal constitutional democracy since 1991, but the 1996 presidential and the 1999 legislative elections were marred by fraud and other irregularities. Though no specific law prohibits public dissent, to speak against the president is widely regarded as a crime, and those who openly criticize the government often end up in jail. In April and May 2002, following the aborted coup, several key opposition figures were arrested for �breach of national security.� Lawyer Fabian Nseu Nguema of the opposition People�s Union, the country�s second major opposition party, was arrested on April 29 for �insulting the head of state� and, according to his wife, Elodia Nchama, suffered �physical and psychological torture� while in custody. Most of those detained are kept at Black Beach prison, a notorious interrogation and detention center. The U.S. State Department has routinely complained about the country�s human rights record, and Washington closed its embassy there in 1995. In 1999, the International Monetary Fund pulled the plug on any economic assistance to Equatorial Guinea because of government corruption. Oil money has exacerbated that corruption. The landscape in Malabo and Bata, the two major cities in Equatorial Guinea, is dotted with state-of-the-art buildings belonging to the president and senior members of his government that stand in stark contrast to the slums in which the majority of people live. In 2000, the president bought a house in the posh Washington, D.C., suburb of Potomac, Maryland, for $2.6 million and another one in nearby Rockville, Maryland, for $1.15 million. The president�s son, Teodoro N. Obiang, purchased a house in the ritzy celebrity haven of Bel Air, Los Angeles, in March 2001, for $5.8 million. Actress Farrah Fawcett lives across the street. The younger Obiang, who is also his country�s minister of Forests, Fishing and the Environment and is in the running to succeed his father as president, also owns a record label and publishing company in Los Angeles called TNO Entertainment, which specializes in rap records. The average Equatorial Guinean, by contrast, has seen little of the country�s oil wealth. A United Nations development report ranked the country�s per capita gross domestic product of $4,676 as 79th out of 149 countries in the world in 2001, but even this is barely reflected on the ground. In 2000, the World Bank reported that the average income per capita was a little over $2 a day. Despite Equatorial Guinea's oil wealth, most residents live in squalor (Grossman/AfricaPhotos.com) �After the oil is taken, the money will be taken away and shared,� said Rosa, a local restaurant operator, who has no expectations of benefiting from the country�s oil wealth. �This place is bad,� added David, a bulky Canadian oil field worker, sitting at the seaside Shangri-la bar in Malabo � pubs being about the only thriving local businesses in Equatorial Guinea. �I am here only because of the oil,� he added, asking that his last name not be used. Chantal Kengueleoua, the deputy U.N. Development Program representative in Malabo, warned of the consequences of the government�s failure to use its oil wealth to develop an economic infrastructure and provide for the education and well-being of its people. �The government and U.S. oil companies here must invest in the local economy or else we are creating the pre-conditions for conflict,� she said in an interview.
