From that point on, the Bubi felt the full force of his paternal care.
More than fifty thousand people were slaughtered, incarcerated, tortured to death, including all members of the opposition. Anyone who was able to fled abroad. And because Papa didn’t trust anyone, not even his own family, even the Fang became a target for the president. Over a third of the population was forced into exile or disappeared in camps, while hundreds of Cuban military advisors were given free rein to prowl around the country; after all, Moscow was a reliable friend. By the mid-seventies, Papa had managed to annihilate the local economy so thoroughly that he needed to bring Nigerian workers into the country. But they too soon take to their heels and flee. Without further ado, the country’s father enforces compulsory work for all, thereby unleashing a further mass exodus. Numerous schools are closed, something that doesn’t stop Papa from calling himself the Grand Master of the People’s Education, Knowledge and Traditional Culture. In his delusion of divinity, he also bolts up and barricades all the churches, proclaims atheism and devotes himself to the reinvigoration of magic rituals. The continent is now experiencing the heyday of dictatorship. Macías is referred to in the same breath as Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who also had himself crowned and was utterly convinced he was Jesus’ thirteenth apostle; he is likened to Idi Amin and the Cambodian Pol Pot.
* * *
‘At the end of the day, he was an even bigger criminal than Mayé,’ said Yoyo. ‘But no one cared. Papa didn’t have anything that would have been worth caring about. As a good patriot, he renamed everything that didn’t yet have an African name, and since then the mainland has been called Mbini, the island Bioko and the capital city Malabo. By the way, I also looked into Mayé’s native background. He’s from the Fang tribe.’
‘And what happened to this splendid Papa?’
Yoyo made a snipping motion with her fingers. ‘He was got rid of. A coup.’
‘With support from abroad?’
‘It seems not. Papa’s family values got out of hand; he even started to execute his close relatives. His own wife fled over the border in the dead of night. No one from his clan was safe any more, and in the end it became too much for one of them.’
* * *
In 1979, there was singing and dancing in Equatorial Guinea.
A man in a plain uniform stands in the entrance to a vault, where glowing ghosts dart over the walls and ceiling, generated by the crackling fire in the middle of the room. He is inconspicuousness personified. From time to time, he gives instructions under his breath, prompting the guards to give the dancers, who have been hopping around the fire and singing Papa’s praises in grotesque liveliness for hours, a helping hand with red-hot pokers. It smells of decadence and burnt flesh. Mosquitoes buzz around. In the gloomy corners and along the walls, the scene is mirrored in the eyes of rats. Anyone who tips over the brink into exhaustion is dragged up, beaten until they bleed and hauled outside. Almost all of them, apart from the uniformed men, are undernourished and dehydrated, many show signs of mistreatment, and others have yellow fever and malaria written on their gaunt faces.
Black Beach Party: just a normal day in Black Beach Prison, the infamous jail in Malabo that makes America’s Devil Island look like a relaxing spa resort.
The man watches for a while longer, then leaves the dance of death, his face filled with worry. His name is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, nephew of the president, Commander of the National Guard and Director of the Black Beach Institution. He is responsible for scenes like these, so highly valued by Papa – just as the president enjoys spending his birthdays shooting prisoners in the Malabo stadium with ‘Those Were the Days, My Friend’ blasting out at full volume. But Obiang’s concern wasn’t for the prisoners, most of whom would never get out of this shabby, car-park-like fortress alive. It was his own life he feared for, and he had every reason to do so. These days, everyone in Papa’s clan had to confront the possibility of suddenly falling victim to the president’s paranoia and being sent off into the eternal rainforests to a soundtrack of Mary Hopkin.
So even Obiang was afraid.
And yet his own family values weren’t very different from those of his cut-throat uncle. Macías’ fear of clans was part of his blood, a fear of the preferential politics which saw clans give their sons and daughters to other clans in order to stay in power. Papa himself felt the full force of it when Obiang staged a coup and chased the Unique Wonder out of office. Papa, deprived of his power, fled headlong into the jungle, but not before first burning the remaining local currency. More than one hundred million dollars go up in flames in his villa, literally the very last of the State money. By the time Obiang’s henchmen tracked down the weakened Macías amongst the huge ferns and piles of apeshit, Equatorial Guinea was as bare as a bone. They drive the man to Malabo, play him ‘Those Were the Days’ and bullet by bullet deliver him to the ghosts of his forefathers, a task taken care of by Moroccan soldiers – his own people are too afraid of the cannibal’s dark magic.
And so the highest military council takes command of government business. Like all newly enthroned leaders, Obiang makes well-meaning promises to the people, proclaims a parliamentary democracy and, at the end of the eighties, even allows elections. Numerous candidates are suggested: but by him. Obiang wins, primarily because his Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial runs without competition, the representatives of which celebrate with a big party in Black Beach Prison. The government regrows like a lizard’s tail: the same blood, the same genes. Esangui-Fang even. It’s a family business. Anyone who criticises it will soon be dancing and singing around the fire, the only thing that’s changed is the wording. Obiang’s temper isn’t anywhere near as bad as Papa’s; he’s much more preoccupied with re-establishing trust abroad, making tentative links with the enduringly snubbed Spain and informing the Soviets that they are no longer friends. Equatorial Guinea begins to look more like a state again, and less like a subtropical Dachau. Money flows into the country. Annabon, Bioko’s sister island, is large and beautiful, ideal for the disposal of nuclear waste, something for which the First World is prepared to pay a pretty penny. The only problem is that Annabon is inhabited, but it won’t be for much longer. Illegal fishing, arms smuggling, the drugs trade and child labour: Obiang pulls out all the stops and transforms the green patch in the Gulf of Guinea into a lovely little gangsters’ paradise.
Foreign creditors put the pressure on. Democracy is a necessity. Obiang reluctantly accepts opposition parties, but despite using all his criminal talents, he is still 250 million dollars in the red. Then something inexplicable happens, something which gives the future a completely new shine overnight. First near Bioko, and then off the mainland coast. Something which makes the president round his lips reverently, as round as one needs to shape them in order to articulate a certain word.
* * *
‘Oil.’
‘Exactly, said Jericho. ‘The first sites were detected at the beginning of the nineties, and after that the race was on. There’s a constant stream of companies interested in the Gulf. Not one of them makes any more references to human rights. All of a sudden, mining licences are more popular topics of conversation.’
‘And Obiang cashes in.’
‘And cleans up, because of the low prices.’ Jericho pointed at his screen. ‘If you want to see the list of people who were imprisoned or murdered—’
‘Show me.’
‘Spain was the exception, I should add. Madrid clearly does get worked up about human rights infringements.’
‘Respect to them.’
‘No, it was motivated by frustration. Some opposition forces had found shelter in Spain and railed against Obiang’s clan, so he was a little reluctant to grant licences to Spanish companies. The Spanish government reacted bitterly and suspended foreign aid in protest. Heart-warming really, because Mobil opens up another oilfield near Malabo just a little later, and Equatorial Guinea’s economic growth shoots up by forty per cent. Then it’s
one after another: there are discoveries near Bioko, near Mbini, a building boom in Malabo; oil towns such as Luba and Bata spring up. Obiang has no more political opponents; he is the oil prince. His re-election in the mid-nineties turns into a farce. The only competitor who can be taken seriously, Severo Moto from the Progressive Party, is sentenced to a hundred years’ imprisonment for high treason and escapes to Spain by the skin of his teeth.’
‘Interesting.’ Yoyo looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And who held the most licences?’
‘America.’
‘What about China?’
‘Not at the time. The US companies took the lead. They were the quickest and forced outrageous treaties on Obiang; he had very little understanding of the trade and signed everything they put in front of him. The ethnic shambles between the Fang and Bubi reached a new peak. There were very few Bubi on the mainland, but they’re the majority on Bioko, where the coastline was suddenly spluttering with oil. They all used to be poor, and in theory this should have made them all rich, but Obiang only lined his own pockets. The protests started in 1998. The Bubi founded a movement, fighting for the independence of Bioko, and there’s no way Obiang was going to allow that.’
‘Soviet troops have hauled the tanks out of the garage for far lesser reasons than that.’
‘Chinese troops—’
‘—too.’ Yoyo rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I know. So how did Obiang react?’
‘He didn’t. He refused to enter into discussion. Radical Bubi mount attacks on police stations and military bases. They’re in despair, made to feel like second-class citizens every day. Which isn’t to say that the Fang are having a better time of it, but it hits the Bubi the hardest. And yet there’s technically enough money around for each person to build themselves a villa in the jungle. On the other hand—’
* * *
‘—there’s a hell in every heaven,’ as the people of Malabo said back at the beginning of the millennium, and by that they meant that heaven stands out against hell like a gold ingot swimming in a sea of shit.
Right before the boom, Equatorial Guinea topped the list of poorest countries. The coffee export industry collapsed in Bioko, and a number of coffee plantations along the coast disappeared under the chummy presence of all manner of weeds. Precious wood species are said to be profitable, so they start to fell obeche and bongossi trees and then just stare at the fallen trunks, because there are no machines to take them away, not to mention no transport routes. Malaria, the mistress of the jungle, conspires with the miserable healthcare to reduce the average life expectancy to forty-nine years, backed up by an up-and-coming epidemic called AIDS. All across the land, the only thing flourishing besides fame, orchids and bromeliads is corruption.
Four years later, the sweaty region in Africa’s armpit registers a yearly GDP growth of twenty-four per cent. The oil and dollars flow, but there is little change to the living conditions. Obiang suspects that he was taken to the cleaners during the negotiations for the licence contracts. Not even the sentencing of popular Bubi leaders to imprisonment and death improves his mood. It’s not that the president is struggling financially; after all, he gets rich while black Africa perishes of AIDS, signs a trade agreement with Nigeria for collaboration in oil mining and launches an attack on the exploitation of natural gas resources. It’s just that other dictators have made more lucrative deals. In 2002, a year before the elections, dozens of alleged rebels were arrested, including numerous opposition leaders, which has a wondrous influence on poll attendance. No one of clear mind had any doubt that Obiang would be re-elected – but the fact that he won 103 per cent of the votes amazed even the most hard-boiled analysts. Strengthened by experience and referendum, Obiang assigns licences under stricter conditions, and the coffers are finally rewarded. Teodorin, his eldest son and Forestry Minister, is able to jet around between Hollywood, Manhattan and Paris, buy Bentleys, Lamborghinis and luxury villas by the dozen and spends his time at champagne parties, dreaming of the day when his father will lose the battle against his prostate and hand the presidency over to him.
In the meantime, his father is given a helping hand by a bank in Washington, which discreetly reallocates thirty-five million dollars from the State account to private ones. When the whole thing gets blown open, the president acts offended, although not particularly bothered. You can have a good life with a ruined reputation in ‘Africa’s Kuwait’, as Equatorial Guinea has become known by then. The country is amongst the most significant oil producers in Africa and records the biggest economic growth in the world. The dictator almost lovingly nurtures his reputation for taking after his uncle in culinary matters, of not being averse to the crisply fried liver of an opponent if the right wine has been selected to accompany it. It’s all play-acting of course, but the impact is considerable. Human rights organisations are outraged, dedicating articles to him, and at home no one dares to pick an argument with Obiang. The idea of being tenderised and then devoured in Black Beach is not appealing.
Elsewhere, people are not so sickened. George W. Bush, usually less than fond of Africa on account of it being full of epidemics, fly-covered, starved faces and poisonous creatures, starts to change his mind. Profoundly upset by the attacks of 9/11, he is striving for independence from the oil of the Middle East, and more than a hundred billion barrels of the best petroleum are alleged to be stored in West Africa alone. Bush plans to cover twenty-five per cent of America’s needs from there by 2015. While Amnesty International gets overwhelmed, drowning in horrendous reports, Bush invites Obiang and other African kleptocrats to breakfast in the White House. Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice gives a press conference and publicly expresses solidarity: Obiang is described as ‘a good friend’, whose engagement for human rights is valued. The good friend smiles modestly, and Ms Rice smiles along with him. The other side of the cameras, the managers of Exxon, Chevron, Amerada Hess, Total and Marathon Oil, are smiling too. By 2004, Equatorial Guinea’s oil mining is entirely in US hands; the companies transfer seven hundred million dollars directly to Obiang’s accounts in Washington each year.
Which is rather odd.
Because no one visiting Malabo will see any sign of this wealth. The four-lane Carretera del Aeropuerto which leads from the airport right into its colonial centre is still the only tarmacked road in the country. The old town, partly renovated, partly disintegrated, is ridden with brothels and drinking holes. Extravagant cross-country vehicles are parked in front of the air-conditioned and ugly government palace. The only hotel exudes all the charm of an emergency accommodation building. There’s no school anywhere worthy of the name. There are no daily papers, no smiles on the faces, no public voice. Here and there, scaffolding leans against scaffolding like drunk men huddling together, but only on constructions carried out for the Obiangs; apart from the villas of the kleptocracy, hardly any building work gets finished. Those are the only new structures: monuments of monstrous tastelessness, just like the warehouses and quarters for foreign oil workers which spring out of the ground overnight. As if embarrassed to be there, the American Embassy cowers between the surrounding houses, while a little further on, the other side of the cordoned-off Exxon grounds, the Chinese Embassy flaunts itself brazenly.
* * *
‘So they did start to court Obiang,’ said Yoyo. ‘Even though almost everything was owned by the Americans.’
‘They tried, anyway,’ said Jericho. ‘But they weren’t that successful to begin with. After all, Obiang’s new circle of friends didn’t just include the Bush dynasty. Even the EU Commission was eagerly rolling out the red carpet for him, especially the French. What did a ban on religion or torture matter? The fact that the only human rights organisation in the country was controlled by the government, along with the radio and television; they couldn’t care less. The fact that two-thirds of the population were living on less than two dollars a day; mei you ban fa, there was nothing that could be done. The region was of vital interest, anyone who comes too late loses out,
and the Chinese were just too slow.’
‘And how did the locals react to the oil workers being there?’
‘They didn’t. The workers were flown straight into sealed-off company grounds. Marathon built their own town not far from Malabo, around a gas-to-liquid plant, and at times there were more than four thousand people living there: a highly secured Green Zone with its own energy grid, water supply, restaurants, shops and cinemas. Do you know what the workers called it? Pleasantville.’
‘How sweet.’
‘Indeed. When a dictator gives you permission to plunder his mineral resources while his own people are butchering monkeys out of sheer hunger, you don’t exactly want to let those people catch sight of you. And they certainly don’t want to see you. But they aren’t even put in that awkward situation, because the companies are self-sufficient. The local private economy doesn’t benefit in the slightest from the fact that several thousand Americans are squatting just a few kilometres away. Most of the oil workers spent months in ghettos like those or on their rig, fucking AIDS-free girls from Cameroon, gobbling down piles of malaria tablets and making sure they arrived back home without having made any contact with the country. No one wanted contact. The main thing was that Obiang was firmly in the saddle, and, therefore, the American oil industry too.’
‘But something must have gone wrong. For the Yanks, I mean. By Mayé’s time they were practically out of the game.’
‘It did go wrong,’ said Jericho. ‘The decline began in 2004. But that was actually down to an Englishman. I’d hazard a guess that our story and the mess we’ve got mixed up in really started after the Wonga Coup.’
* * *
Wonga Coup. A Bantu term. Wonga meaning money, dosh, dough, moolah. A flippant way of describing one of the most ridiculous attempted coups of all time.
In March 2004, a rattling Boeing of prehistoric design lands in Harare Airport in Zimbabwe, packed full of mercenaries from South Africa, Angola and Namibia. The plan is to take weapons and ammunition on board, fly on to Malabo and meet up with a little group of fighters smuggled in ahead of them. Together, they plan to overthrow the government in a surprise attack, shoot down Obiang or throw him into his own prison, the main priority being a change of power. The day before, and as if by magic, the leader of the oppositional progressive party, Severo Moto, arrives in nearby Mali from his Madrid exile, thereby enabling him to get to Malabo within the hour to have his feet kissed by the grateful hordes.