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Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbassogo - Dossier
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (born 5 June 1942) is the President of Equatorial Guinea,
having served since 1979, and the
Chairperson of the African Union.
Born into the Esangui clan in Acoacán, Obiang joined the military during the colonial period, and attended the Military Academy in Zaragoza, Spain. He achieved the rank of lieutenant upon the election of Francisco Macías Nguema. Under Macías, Obiang held various jobs, including governor of Bioko, head of the Black Beach Prison, and leader of the National Guard.
Presidency
He deposed Francisco Macías on 3 August 1979 in a bloody coup d'état. Macías was placed on trial for his activities over the previous decade and sentenced to death. His activities had included the genocide of the Bubi. He was executed on 29 September 1979 by firing squad.
Obiang declared that the new government would make a fresh start from Macías' brutal and repressive regime. He inherited a country with an empty treasury and a population that had dropped to a third of its 1968 level, with about 50% of the former 1.2 million inhabitants having moved either to Spain or to neighboring African countries, or being murdered during the dictatorship of Obiang's predecessor. He formally assumed the presidency in October 1979.
A new constitution was adopted in 1982; at the same time, Obiang was elected to a seven-year term as president.
He was reelected in 1989 as the only candidate. After other parties were permitted to organize,
he was reelected in 1996 and 2002 with 98 per cent of the vote in elections condemned as fraudulent by international observers. Again in 2009 he was elected with 97% of the vote amid accusations of fraud and intimidation
Obiang's regime retained clear authoritarian characteristics even after other parties were legalized in 1991. Although his rule was initially considered more humane than that of his uncle, by most accounts it has become more brutal over the years. Most domestic and international observers consider his regime to be
one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic states in the world. Equatorial Guinea is now essentially a single-party state, dominated by Obiang's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE,). In 2008 American journalist Peter Maass called Obiang Africa's worst dictator, worse than Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The constitution grants Obiang wide powers, including the power to rule by decree. All but one of the 100 members of the seat national parliament belong to the PDGE or are aligned with it. The opposition is severely hampered by the lack of a free press as a vehicle for their views. All of the broadcast media are either owned outright by the government or controlled by its allies (the one nominally private radio station, for instance, is owned by Obiang's son).
Abuses under Obiang have included
"unlawful killings by security forces; government-sanctioned kidnappings; systematic torture of prisoners and detainees by security forces; life threatening conditions in prisons and detention facilities; impunity; arbitrary arrest, detention, and incommunicado detention."
In July 2003, state-operated radio declared Obiang
to be a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell." He personally made similar comments in 1993. Despite these comments, he still claims that he is a devout Catholic and was invited to the Vatican by John Paul II and again by Benedict XVI. Macías had also proclaimed himself a god.
Obiang has encouraged his cult of personality by ensuring that public speeches end in well-wishing for himself rather than for the republic. Many important buildings have a presidential lodge, many towns and cities have streets commemorating Obiang's coup against Macías, and many people wear clothes with his face printed on them.
Like his predecessor and other African dictators such as Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seko, Obiang has assigned to himself several creative titles.
Among them are "gentleman of the great island of Bioko, Annobón and Río Muni." He also refers to himself as El Jefe (the boss).
In similar fashion to Idi Amin, Obiang has purportedly allowed rumors that he is a cannibal to circulate. Fictional rumors of cannibalism had been used for centuries among the Fang people of Central and West Africa, of whom Obiang is a descendant, to make opponents fear them. Many testimonies of former residents of Equatorial Guinea, before and during the civil unrest, indicate that cannibalism had been applied as a tool of psychological warfare.
Forbes magazine has said that he is one of the wealthiest heads of state, with a net worth of US$600 million. Official sources have complained that Forbes is wrongly counting state property as personal property.
In 2003, Obiang told his citizenry that he felt compelled to take full control of the national treasury in order to prevent civil servants from being tempted to engage in corrupt practices.
To avoid this corruption, Obiang deposited more than half a billion dollars into accounts controlled by Obiang and his family at Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., leading a U.S. federal court to fine the bank $16 million.
In 2004 an attempt to depose Obiang was thwarted. One of those involved was Mark Thatcher, son of the former UK Prime Minister.
-Wikipedia
