Equatorial Guinea Hopes AU Summit Will Revamp Image

29 June 2011

Equatorial Guinea will host the African Union summit this week in a bid to refresh its image following allegations of human rights violations.

Its president Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the oil rich country since seizing power in a 1979 coup, was named the AU’s new chairman at a summit in Addis Ababa in January.

“In the past, no-one knew Equatorial Guinea. But now, everybody knows it. It was not a fortuitous decision (the choice of Obiang). It is because African leaders have faith and confidence in Equatorial Guinea,” the president said after his election.

Sipopo City

The full AU summit opens Wednesday in Sipopo City, a sprawling town built specially to host the summit near the capital Malabo, and will close on Friday.

Obiang inaugurated Sipopo three weeks ago, congratulating his government and construction firms involved for completing “such an emblematic city in a record two years.”

Sipopo boasts 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, an artificial beach, a golf course and the French luxury hotel Sofitel.

Africa Cup of Nations

The small West African country is sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest oil producer and has launched an ambitious construction programme financed by its petro-dollars. It will host the Africa Cup of Nations next year.

It is home to around 700,000 people, who are mostly poor despite the country’s oil wealth.

Human rights abuses

Obiang has long been accused of human right abuses.

A week ago, Amnesty International accused Malabo of clamping down on freedom of expression ahead of the AU summit, saying political opponents and around 100 students had been arrested and detained in recent months.

But Obiang has long maintained that there are no rights violations in his country, pointing out that he had signed an agreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross to monitor its rights record.

Negative for population

The country’s main dissident, Placido Mico, the secretary-general of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), said that despite the president’s effort to give “a positive image”, “the summit is totally negative for the population.”

“We spend the equivalent of 100 years of national education budget to build Sipopo, we shorten the school year by one month, we cut electricity to Malabo to light Sipopo and we arrested immigrants and Equatorial Guineans,” he added.

Meanwhile the president’s advisers routinely tell the media that a host of reforms are being implemented to fight poverty and allow more individual freedoms.

Source: AFP

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