We have had enough of the corrupt CEOs who sail towards offshore banks. We do not want to hear anymore about the prime ministers who attack and invade faraway countries. What we really want is to see real pirates. While those corsair and freebooter businessmen and politicians are well-known and still at large, you can confidently expect that the two detainees will spend a long time behind Spanish bars. Everyone knows that they are poor, black, Muslim and dared to attack a Spanish fishing boat.

PRISON PREFERABLE TO FREEDOM?

However, if you think twice, you might conclude that their future in prison is not so gloomy. First of all, they will enjoy three hot meals a day and they will see a doctor, probably for the first time in their lives. Besides, they will be spared the random bombing of their land by United States F-16s, and also the bullets shot by Ethiopians and Somalis working for imperialism.

In spite of the storytelling by NATO and European Union security high priests, who make a comfortable living out of sending troops to third world lands and seas like Somalia and the Indian Ocean, supposedly swamped by pirates on a rampage after European fishing boats, in the real world things are the other way round.

Perhaps Spanish fishers could forgive Somalis for not knowing the differences between the foreigners who approach their coasts in order to take away their fisheries, from those who land in order to impose a political regime, and both from those who just choose to dump their nuclear waste in the sea bed.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Somali fishermen live in one of the world’s poorest countries. Life expectancy is approximately 48 years. Around 60 per cent of the population is illiterate, while there is no compulsory basic education law. Close to 36 per cent of infants are underweight. There are half a million refugees and another million internally displaced. Hundred of thousands undergo similar living conditions. Almost everything is scarce, especially human rights.

Unicef announces that a Somali child’s chances of surviving to adulthood are among the lowest of children anywhere in the world. Add to this the fact that the odds of the child’s mother dying during pregnancy or in childbirth are also extremely high. These high death rates stem from the interaction of a number of causes set within a complex socio-political context, but are largely attributable to disease, dehydration, malnutrition, lack of safe water, and poor sanitation.’

GOOD PIRATE, BAD PIRATE

Perhaps Somalis could forgive Spanish fishers for not knowing the difference between illegally fishing in Somalia and in Norway, and not knowing the different ways each people has to protect their riches.

In 2005, a Norwegian Navy vessel seized a Galician boat illegally fishing halibut. The Navy communiqué says that ‘during the inspection we found out that the boat had big amounts of halibut hidden in its hold’. It also informs that ‘we ordered the boat to sail to Tromso (a north-western city), but the Spanish captain refused to comply with.’

Perhaps one could forgive the Norwegians for being so insistent. The very next day (20 November) they seized another Spanish fishing boat: ‘The Garoya is the second fishing boat captured in two days. It has been reported that it kept in the hold more than 100 tonnes of halibut, just like the Monte Meixueiro seized yesterday. Its captain has been charged with providing wrong information to the fishing authorities and tampering the books.’

Perhaps one could forgive Spanish mass media for not reporting these days about the story of the Spanish boats seized in the past, which took place in the seven seas. Boats have been captured by Norwegian, Moroccan, Irish, Canadian, South African, British patrol boats.

It is also rather ironic that the British engage today in chasing Spanish pirates, although they could be forgiven for this, since classical Spanish author Lope de Vega and Literature Nobel Prize winner Garcia Marquez – as well as various film directors – were inspired by Sir Francis Drake.

THE STATE OF SOMALIA

Somalia has not had a real government in the last fifteen years. During this period, the king of the seas (and indeed of the sky and the whole world), the greatest pirate of all times, ordered yet another military operation in Somalia.

Siad Barre, former Somalia president, was a client of the Soviets during the seventies, but this did not prevent the United States from supporting him during the eighties. When the White House decided to support the warlords in their war against the Islamists from 2000 on, the US president did not hesitate.

Westerners could be forgiven for remembering (and praising through a Hollywood film) the killing of 19 marines who took part in the Mogadishu military operation carried out by the United States in the early 90s, and forgetting the approximately 1000 Somalis that were killed in the attack.

This operation capped many years of US actions in Somalia. Somalis, like other lesser peoples, enjoyed US international aid, which mainly means shipping arms to a country in order for the beneficiaries to kill each other, and at the same time providing political support to justify the killing according to the motive in fashion: Communism, drug trafficking, Islamist terror, tribal fighting and so on.

One has to add the dumping of US-subsidised agricultural produce in Somalia, and other political and economic interventions related to oil and strategic interests, to produce a ravaged nation, physically and morally devastated.

Somali seas have not been spared foreign interventions. As Johann Hari writes, some Western countries have taken advantage of the lack of government in Somalia to dump their nuclear waste in its waters.² For Somalis, the consequences are as harmful as the consequences of war and long lasting.

To make matters worse, Somali fishers watch huge foreign ships taking away tons of fish while they barely manage to obtain some kilos with their skiffs.

Perhaps Somali fishers could be forgiven for dreaming of their sons and daughters enjoying the riches the foreigners take away for their children.

HOW THE WEST WINS

Spanish fishers fishing in the seas around Somalia and people who eat their produce back in Spain, could be forgiven for cherishing basic wishes: Working unmolested and ingesting fish proteins respectively. They could also be forgiven for electing politicians who guarantee the fulfillment of their wishes, no matter what price, other people’s life included.

These politicians could also be forgiven for setting up a Holy Alliance with their neighbours, in order to send war boats supported by war planes to compete for food with poor Somalis in the Indian Ocean, although they could negotiate fishing permits before fishing, or even pay fines if they are caught cheating, as it has happened many times in the past with Spanish vessels.

However, it cannot be forgiven that Spanish and other Westerners – who know how Somalis are mercilessly being crushed – put the blame on Somalis and hunt them when they confront the real pirates.

Pirates have traditionally been well considered by the people, in novels and in films. How revolting they became when they took over governments and corporations.

1. Operation Atalanta is campaign of the European Union to stop the ‘piracy off the Somali coast’. The joint naval patrol includes vessels from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
   A Spanish frigate captured two of the bunch of ‘pirates’ who seized the Spanish fishing boat Alacrana, and both are now in a Spanish prison awaiting to be taken to court.
2. Johann Hari, ‘You Are Being Lied to About Pirates,’ The Independent, January 9th, 2009.

“In 1979, after the devastation of a decade under the tyrannical President Macias, then-Lieutenant Colonel Obiang took control of the government and was named President of the Supreme Military Council.”

What did Obiang do while working under Macias’ orders to stop the decade old devastation?

“In 1969 –the official history continues – Obiang becomes the National Guard Liuetenant, with all the forces and military quarters based in Malabo under his control.”

He became commander in chief of the Armed Forces in 1975, and “in 1979 a presidential decree made him vice-minister of the Popular Armed Forces.”

What did Obiang do in these 30 years to avoid another dictatorship?

In 1982, “Obiang became President of the Republic for an initial seven-year term. He was re-elected to additional terms in 1989, 1996 and 2003. (…) President Obiang won re-election once again in 1996. Infrastructure and housing is now being rebuilt more quickly as new water, sewage and drainage are being installed and hundreds of miles of new roadways are being built to connect all of Equatorial Guinea’s cities and towns. Healthcare and education also top the agenda as new, modern state-of-art hospitals and clinics are being built and staffed and teachers are being trained to better teach students.”

Buried under this mountain of promises about public works, lies one certain fact: Obiang wins election after election with more than 95% of the votes. In the 2002 presidential elections he got 97%, in the 2004 legislative and local elections he won 98 out of the 100 parliament seats plus 237 out of the 244 country’s municipalities. In the 2008 legislative elections he got 99 seats.

The main difference between the deposed president and the current one, is that Obiang knows how to read the signs of the times and to adapt himself accordingly. This has allowed him to hold on to power for thirty years, count on foreign support and enrich himself enormously thanks to the oil industry, also under his control.

The past thirty years can indeed be described as golden thirty years for Obiang, but not for the great majority of Equatorial Guinea’s inhabitants. Country reports published by the World Bank, the European Union and some of the United Nations agencies, let alone those by non governmental organisations, especially those devoted to human rights and human development, present a quite different reality.

Obiang is willing to play the democratic game in front of the international community, because in each game he marks the cards and keeps the best while deals the rest.

If appearances have to be kept up of regular elections, of honouring international treaties, of adhering to foreign initiatives on transparency, accountability and good governance, for Obiang this is no problem. He lets the opposition win a parliamentary seat, he signs international treaties only to honour them in the breach, and varnishes his masterwork with glowing propaganda about the government’s good works.

Obiang has many good friends who just happen to govern powerful countries. These convince public opinion that Obiang’s scam is legitimate and only needs a few tweaks and minor improvements. To that end, they offer technical assistance and cooperation, while making clear there is no great urgency. Since oil production started in Equatorial Guinea in the mid 90s, his friends have become even more reliable than ever, despite knowing the reality all too well:

The 2004 Department of State report on Equatorial Guinea accurately summarised its political situation: “Citizens did not have the ability to change their government peacefully.”

In 2009 the Department refers to the country as a “nominally multi-party Republic with strong domination by the executive branch.”

For his part, Obiang thinks it wise to take preventive measures. He sends soldiers and policemen to assassinate, kidnap and torture his “enemies”, and in general to make life difficult for political opponents.

In spite of this and of the fact that there is no shortage of people willing to get their share of the enormous oil cake in exchange for loyalty, some still remain who do not give up. Some of these string along with Obiang’s pretense of democracy. Others prefer to try and oust him.

Considering their actions so far, it can safely be said that Obiang has clearly defeated them all. He intimidates, persecutes and entertains members of the first group, according to his whims. He attacks members of the second whenever he can. These have managed to discomfit him once, but Obiang’s friends and luck have been on his side.

Neither group of the opposition can claim that their respective strategies have come anywhere close to achieving their goals. The reverse is true, as chances of success seem to be inversely proportional to the increase in their actions.

Playing Obiang’s democracy game is not an easy task. If a player does not perform as expected, other players will not take them seriously. Equatorial Guinea’s leader of the parliamentary opposition declares again and again to the international community, to the media, to various international political institutions, that his party plays by Obiang’s rules and also reassures the world that his party will only use non-violent means to achieve power.

But if the international community does not demand that Obiang play by internationally accepted rules to stay in power, why does the opposition think they have to do so? It seems the international community accepts opposition to Obiang as long as its leaders give up their people’s right to resist the Obiang regime’s human rights violations.

Philosophers dealt with the problem of using legitimate violence against an aggression many centuries ago. Since the 13th century it is accepted that “in the case of a deadly attack, there is more obligation to protect one’s own life than the attacker’s.”

If a political party which opposes a never ending dictatorship renounces legitimate defence against its violence, it is delegitimizing itself, because it actually helps the dictatorship it claims to oppose. When this party seeks support from international actors, despite their party’s poor record of resistance and even knowing full well their petition will be met with indifference, they are digging their own political grave.

It is true that a legitimate defence requires another condition, namely that there are reasonable chances of success. In this respect it has to be noted that it is all about not giving up the right to legitimate resistance. Further, there can be no likelihood of success if the possibility of resistance is totally abandoned.

The non-parliamentary opposition, made up of several small groups, has not renounced political violence. But its failure, too, is obvious and due mainly to lack of popular, militant support, to splits and internecine fighting and other shortcomings.

The option of a coup d’état has not yielded useful results. Nor is there much chance that it will. The lack of a popular militia and bad planning, along with the use of foreign mercenaries, explain the failure. Day after day, Obiang increases his own security, and he can count on foreign support. It seems that only a palace coup, like the one Obiang himself authored 30 years ago, is likely to succeed.

It can be said that the opposition too, like Obiang, have placed their hopes in foreign hands. The difference between the two camps is that European and North American Presidents and Prime Ministers prefer oil in their own countries to ensuring human rights in Equatorial Guinea.

The struggle carried out by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is illuminating. The oil plunder plus the damages it causes to the Delta physical conditions and to its inhabitants’ health, together with the government’s repression, are the reasons the MEND mentions to explain its attacks against the interests of the foreign companies that benefit from the oil industry with the consent of the government.

What is taking place in Nigeria, taking into account its much bigger size, is similar to what happens in Equatorial Guinea: “Since 1970, $350 billion in oil revenue has flowed to Nigeria, yet 75% of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day. (…) Nigerian governments have negotiated joint ventures with multinational companies for unregulated oil production since 1958. Over 50 years of exploitation in the Niger Delta has resulted in systematic human rights abuses and environmental devastation.”

Against this the MEND has declared its aims: reparations for environmental damage and also control of the Delta’s natural riches. It has also made public its means: “Leave our land while you can or die in it. Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil.”

In recent years, its achievements have been made known. The government, heeding a request by the big oil companies, sent the army to violently repress the Delta people protests, which resulted in thousands of dead, tortured and prisoners.

Popular resistance, however, kept up the struggle and the MEND was created. It has forced cuts in oil production from almost two and half million barrels per day to less than one and a half.

Unlike what is taking place in Equatorial Guinea, the Nigerian government does not despise the MEND. This is not a gift from the government –it maintains its military actions against the guerrillas- but the MEND, through its resistance, has placed itself in a position that deserves its enemy’s respect. Nowadays, both camps are holding conversations.

Meanwhile, Obiang represses the opposition parties that he so despises. At the same time, the only opposition leader with a seat in parliament, made public a communiqué after the attack against the president’s palace in Malabo that took place last February, the 17th, 2009, which was disingenuously attributed to the MEND by the government.

The party “congratulates the State Security and Armed Forces for their quick and efficient response and declares its support and solidarity with them.” It also reiterates once again “that (the party) rejects all movements aimed to achieve power through violence.”

While the Equatorial Guinea parliament unanimously declares the MEND “a terrorist group made up of mercenaries with evil intentions and recommends maximum repression,” Nigeria president has offer the MEND an amnesty. This offer is supported by many, including Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka.

Equatorial Guinea politicians, both in power and in opposition, might do well to pay attention to what Soyinka’s said about Nigerian politicians: “In tandem with his predecessor Olusegun, President Umaru Yar’Adua must be made to recognize that he shoulders a moral and political responsibility for failure to make a decisive breakthrough in the quest to terminate hostilities in the Delta region. Much of the toll of death and destruction could, and would have been avoided if only these two rulers had lived up to their charge.

These words, of course, are also relevant to those in Europe and North America who “accompany Obiang in his efforts to improve democracy in Equatorial Guinea” and to those who claim to support the opposition camp in its political activity.

When you approach the Erez frontier post to enter Gaza from the north, you notice a concentration camp straightaway even if you may never have seen one like the ones turned into museums or educational centres, or like the ones that appear in documentaries or photographs.

An observation balloon, innocently painted white, rocks gently to and fro in the air over the wall surrounding Gaza. It makes sure no unhappy soul moves beyond arbitrary limits set by the camp guards. The visitor is overwhelmed by the mammoth steel-reinforced wall. This imprisons a million and a half inmates inside an area approximately 38 kilometres long and 12 wide at its widest.

Apart from cases you can count on the fingers of one hand, Palestinians quite simply cannot pass through Erez. Full stop. Besides, they are not allowed out via the South, crossing into Egypt, nor via the West, since the Mediterranean Sea is barred to them, nor via the air, since that too is likewise barred, despite there being no boats or planes to travel in. In any case, the airport was destroyed by the bombs of Israel air power. Gazans are not allowed to exit by digging underground either.

Patrolling closely about the ten or so people waiting under a scorching sun before a guard post in the middle of open ground about a built-up area, various soldiers and plain clothes police, with state of the art machine guns at the ready, make very clear the people had better keep very still. At the end of a long wait, by loudspeaker, the soldier in the armed guard post lets them through into the built-up precinct. It is like a warehouse, unexpectedly high, air conditioned and with various control posts inside, although only one is in use, since not enough people go through to warrant operating the rest. One is subjected to more waiting despite the absence of movement.

For the Zionist mentality everyone who does not cooperate with the system must pay a price. It is not even necessary to be one of their declared enemies. In this case, the visitors came from a State with good relations of all kinds with Israel, namely the Kingdom of Spain. Their documents were in order and they were unarmed. Matters had been prearranged with the Israeli authorities via the Spanish Consulate in Jerusalem. They also had a return ticket to their country, money for their stay and a stated humanitarian purpose for their visit, which would last exactly three days. The reason the Israeli frontier police at Erez waste the foreigners’ time, is because the Zionists are not enthusiastic about witnesses visiting the camp. Foreigners arriving at Erez intending to pass through, are indeed that, nothing else. Israelis are forbidden to enter. Israelis attempt to discourage visitors by many means. If the sight of the wall, the wandering machinegun-totting soldiers, the wait in the sun do not work, then visitors are subjected to hostile interrogation. From behind thick armoured glass, the seated interrogator addresses the standing interrogated person. The questions vary from the reasonable to the comical, “What are you doing in Gaza? Have you been to Israel before? Do you speak Russian? Do you have a driving license? How many passports do you have? What’s your boss called?” From the higher level floor above, cameras and guards record and observe the visitors without being seen. Afterwards people have to go individually through a narrow series of metal barriers which the service personnel can shut off at will, then another couple of armoured doors operated by remote control and – all the while under closed circuit TV cameras – one leaves the precinct to enter a metal corridor and finally cross through the concrete wall into the Palestinian side.

When returning from Gaza to Israel, the process is the same except that one is forced to enter a coffin-like cubicle that is adjusted to one’s body and in which you have to place yourself, legs apart, arms apart above your head. A kind of vertical electronic belt or ribbon goes around one’s body. It is a procedure as stupid as it is impressive since the soldiers know beforehand who the visitors are and why they are visiting Gaza.

Entering a devastated Gaza

Entering Gaza, the devastation is stark. In the suffocating heat one traverses the remains of bulldozed or partially damaged buildings, mass of tangled rusting steel rods, piles of debris, sand, dust everywhere. Buildings have been torn down at an arbitrary distance from the border. One sees leveled ruins of houses and buildings in an area stretching to the horizon, broken only by that imposing wall. One is not talking about a couple of houses that might have been in the way. Thousands of Palestinian houses and buildings have been razed in order to leave a way clear for military operations, in order to clear them for the so called security reasons.[1]

A taxi takes visitors to the refugee camp at Yabalia, seat of the first Intifada that began in December 7th 1987. After winding through the streets of various parts of the camp, covered in improvised houses, lacking infrastructure and sewage, transport, school or other facilities, one arrives at Al Awda hospital, whose name, perhaps ironically, means Return. There the hospital management meet you and tell about the health situation in the Strip generally and around the hospital in particular. Perhaps it is best not to visit the room with photographs of the wounded, mutilated and dead at the hands of the Israeli Occupation, it graphically documents the barbarism inflicted by what, according to Israeli hagiography, is “the most moral army in the world.”[2]

Living conditions in the Gaza concentration camp

Bassam Naim, Minister of Health for the Hamas government, receives visitors in his office. There he tells them of the problems caused by the international siege of the health system. Even so, the most interesting information for the non-healthcare specialist foreign visitors, is the political aspect. The Minister clarifies for visitors the confusion that exists in the West about the situation in the Gaza Strip. It is not correct to consider that Gaza is a prison, as some argue in Europe. Rather it is indeed a concentration camp, because the inmates of European prisons get enough food and adequate medical care. They are free from military attack and they are not denied other rights, like education. None of that happens in Israeli occupied Gaza.

The Minister offers a further important reflection: the international community, not just Israel, is responsible for this situation. Both rejected the results of the 2006 elections, regarded as free and fair by international observers, and furthermore the “international community” looked the other way when Israel committed serious violations of international law. And of course, the Minister is right in his accusation because according to the law the international community has adopted, every country has the obligation to obey it and make sure that other member countries obey it too.

On April 4th this year, the Israeli daily paper Ha’aretz published the following announcement from the World Health Organization, “Israel has refused transit to more sick Palestinians seeking treatment since Hamas took control of the Strip and several of them die unnecessarily every month.” According to World Health Organization statistics, in 2007, 1627 patients from Gaza had requests for treatment denied, an increase of 470 compared to requests rejected in 2006. As of August 4th this year, 225 sick Palestinians have died in Gaza since the siege began, either because they could not get the necessary medical supplies, since their importation is more controlled than ever, or because they were not allowed to travel to hospitals in the West Bank, Israel or Egypt for treatment unavailable in Gaza.

On August 1st this year, Ahmed Abu Amra, a three-month-old child, died of heart failure because her parents were denied permission to transfer him to a specialist hospital in Israel. Within 24 hours another four adults died, again because Israel denied permission to obtain treatment abroad. Since 21 June 2008 a tenuous ceasefire has been in place between Israel and Gaza, but despite the calmer situation access to medical treatment has not improved. The Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights recently stated: “Despite the agreement between Hamas and Israel. there has been no improvement towards patients in Gaza in Israeli policy, which seems even to have become worse. To the obstacles imposed by the general security service on people who want to leave Gaza for medical treatment, patients face more bureaucratic difficulties imposed by the army, which prevent them enjoying their right to health.” The entire Palestinian medical system is undermined by the siege; it ranges form the basic access to medical supplies to the impossibility of referring patients to specialized treatment.

Although health is not the only social sector seriously debilitated by the siege, it illustrates very well that in fact Israel is not defending itself against the Palestinians; in fact, what is in evidence is a clear policy intent on harming the overall population. Health is a fundamental right. If the Palestinians don’t get enough to eat; if their health needs are not adequately met; if the water purification plants do not work because there are no fuels or spare parts; if waste waters are not treated; if sanitary conditions deteriorate to such an extent, then life turns into mere survival. The shortages caused by the siege go beyond medical supplies. They cover food, water, building materials, spare parts for basic products, energy, educational materials, in fact everything.

John Ging, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, explains the situation as follows: “UNRWA receives barely 56% of the resources it needs to look after the refugees. It supplies 60% of their daily diet, which does not meet Western recommendations on personal nutrition.” School classes are so crowded they have to offer two classroom shifts a day, so as not to leave any child without basic schooling. Some children start at 8.00 and finish at midday. Others then enter and finish at 16.00. No space or facilities exist for extra-curricular activities, either sports or any other kind. Since the facilities are unavailable, there is an educational collapse; young people will not be minimally prepared. Not only are basic skills affected, but what they learn in the moral and political spheres is impinging upon future peaceful relations, democracy, human rights.

I asked Ging about his opinion of the role of the international community and he remarked: “I have invited Solana and Blair to visit Gaza and get to know personally the situation of the refugees, but they have declined the invitation.” The awful condition of 1.5 million Palestinians corralled in 360 sq.km, where they are deprived of basic human rights, is insufficient to prick the consciences of leading Western politicians. In the very least, the likes of Javier Solana or Tony Blair should demand respect for the freedom of movement of people.

John Ging’s blood seems almost to boil when relates that UNRWA has 10,000 employees and a budget of US$200 million for clinics, schools and housing. However, Israel will not even permit the agency to carry out its humanitarian mission, and they are not exempt from the effects of siege. He is a diplomat and can only present these facts while observing that Solana and Blair do not even answer his calls. John Ging is an Irishman straightforward and clear in his arguments. He does not let any visitor leave without obtaining an accurate idea of what is going on in the Gaza Strip and above all why it is happening. “The issue is one of justice, not of distributing food parcels and medicines to people in need. Without a system by which Israel is held to account for its actions, justice does not exist.”

Conclusion: Gaza is not just a prison and Israel is not its only guard

Listening to John Ging, one determines that the responsibility for the Palestinian humanitarian disaster does not just reside with Israel, but the international community certainly bears much responsibility. What makes this situation more galling is that the Palestinians had sought to obtain a negotiated solution and democratic elections of its leadership – hoops Israel and the United States demanded that the Palestinians should jump through. The consequence of this unending situation is obviously a growing sense of despair and violence among its victims.

The terrible history of the Nazi concentration camps does not seem to deter Israel in creating a concentration camp of its own in Gaza. Now, with the blessing and the money of the “international community”, the Erez crossing point has turned into the entrance to a concentration camp right now in the 21st Century. If blame, even if only moral blame, was cast on those who did nothing and looked the other way in times gone by, what judgment do the people deserve now who not only keep quiet about Israel’s actions in Gaza, but actually aid and abet them?

It is a disgrace that in Europe and the United States, stalwart defenders of women’s rights find space in the most influential newspapers and most watched television programmes to clamour against the use of the veil by Muslim women, but there is no clamour against the Israeli State for denying medical care in the Gaza strip, which means that hundreds of Gazans die due to medical neglect. Some women even have given birth right there in the control post, in the most shameful conditions, because they are not authorized to leave Gaza.

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Translation copyleft toni solo ©2008
The author thanks both toni solo and Paul de Rooij for their comments and suggestions.

Notes

[1] The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) announced on October 11th 2007 that the Israeli government had demolished 18,000 Palestinian houses since the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967. It concludes, “Israeli policies are designed to limit the number of Palestinians living in areas earmarked for settlements or in their vicinity”.
Amnesty International recalled on its web page of March 11th this year, “The Israeli authorities have for many years applied a discriminatory policy of house demolitions, permitting, on the one hand, many tens of Israeli settlements to be built on Occupied Palestinian territory in flagrant violation of international law at the same time as they confiscate Palestinian lands, forbidding the Palestinian population to build and destroying their houses. The cleared land is often used to build illegal Israeli settlements. International law prohibits occupying powers from building settlements for their own citizens on the territories they occupy.”
[2] Thousands of Palestinians with horrible mutilations, unimaginable wounds, bodies burned and disabled for life give the lie to the Israeli government version. They wait to be called as witnesses by an eventual court briefed to try crimes against humanity committed in Palestine, Lebanon and other countries.

That day, given the statistics of victims of Israeli attacks, there was no shortage of witnesses: 12,261 Palestinians have been wounded by the Israeli Occupation army just from the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada of September 29th 2000 up until May 2008. To get a total of the victims of Zionism, a figure very much higher, one would have to add the victims of the first Intifada and those from previous aggression in the form of actual attacks and wars.

The Palestine Centre for Human Rights, based in Gaza, offers abundant information about the long list of human rights violations by Israel in the Occupied Territories, including torture, arbitrary detention, destruction of Palestinian property, attacks on medical teams, extra-judicial executions, attacks on civilians not involved in hostilities and so on. See also data by B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, Defence for Children International – Israel Section, Machsom Watch – Women for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights, etc

Any action by Israel has to be sold to the world as action to preserve the peace, defend the security of Israel, fight against terrorism, strengthen the peace process: Mass marketing know-how applied once again to selling another, different genocide.

“In his 1965 autobiography, Edward Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933, ‘where Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. … Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign.’ ” Wikipedia.

While members of the opposition to President Teodoro Obiang’s regime are detained and tortured in prison merely for being in opposition, international human rights organizations are denied entry to Equatorial Guinea. While some are set free with neither charges nor trial or else pardoned after a lapse of time, subsequently they are fined and their movement restricted to their hometowns. While the supposed leader of a coup d’état, Severo Moto, is tried in absentia, a handful of associates are left to rely exclusively on the mercy of the court, their fate decided by the Chief Justice of the Nation, who, not by accident, presides over the trial (Art. 86 of Equatorial Guinea’s Fundamental Law).

If someone were to bet 100 Euros that this account referred to events taking place in June 2008 they would lose. The events in question took place in 1997, eleven years ago. An Amnesty International Release on Equatorial Guinea (AI INDEX: AFR 24/07/97), published on October 14th 1997 gives a complete account of the events in question.

It seems the long decade since those events has changed nothing. The failed coup has been repeated with the same protagonist, the regime continues imprisoning and torturing, Obiang continues in power and Amnesty International never fails to publish similar reports year in, year out. However a couple of changes have in fact taken place and for the moment one can say that the first of them is for the worse.

This first change is that Obiang’s political acuity has sharpened. However much one dislikes the fact, he is smarter than one might want to admit. He toys with his equals around the world and with his rivals at home. Without counting the high official posts he held during the precious regime of his uncle Francisco Macias, Obiang has been in power for 30 years. In this time, he has made himself immensely rich and has enriched his family. He occupies an accepted place in the international community. He has wiped out the meagre opposition and the only doubts relating to his future stem from his health and his succession, neither of which are completely under his control.

Amnesty International denounced in their 1997 report that the denial of access for international human rights organizations to the country “contradicts the policy of openness in relation to human rights issues publicly promised by President Obiang in February 1997.”

While Obiang’s policy of broken promises has lasted for more than 10 years, his policy on torture is much older. In 1978 Amnesty International regarded it as a systematic practice to the point that in its March Bulletin of that year it defined Equatorial Guinea as “a huge torture camp whose only exit is the cemetery.” A report published in 1990 with the title Tortures in Equatorial Guinea, collected information for the twenty years from 1968 to 1988.

The Spanish Socialist Workers Party government: the democracy of never-too-much dialogue

Obiang only fools people who let themselves be fooled. Pronouncements made from time by Spain’s Foreign Minister Moratinos on “helping, accompanying, offering incentives and motivating a country like Equatorial Guinea to move forward the process of democratization and defence of Human Rights”, once more display the Kingdom of Spain as a dummy State led by the interests of others and in contradiction to the aspirations of its Constitution.

For years Moratinos has travelled to Equatorial Guinea or received Obiang in Spain. Still, his opinion on “advances in the democratization process” is as valuable today as those of the US entertainment magazine Parade which also observes some progress. It rates Obiang thirteenth in the list of the world’s worst dictators after having placed him eleventh in 2007 and tenth in 2006.

The main difference is that the magazine describes Obiang outright as a dictator and does not propose dialogue about it. Meanwhile, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party seems to be waiting for another decade to pass just so as to be completely sure before uttering the word. Maybe for that reason the magazine has a circulation of 42 million while the Minister’s Press releases are not even read by his own advisors. Nothing else explains really the publication of his “somewhat impassioned” opinion on Obiang’s last visit to Spain.

Obiang has got to where he is by administering dose after dose of broken promises wherever necessary, wrapped up in oil contracts. The result has been murder, torture and other serious human rights violations, but still Moratinos gets all impassioned when he and Obiang meet up. It is true that his counterparts in the US receive Obiang as a “good friend” and in China and other countries they greet him with the red carpet, but that does not make Obiang any less a criminal. Rather it turns those hosts of his into aiders, abettors and accomplices of his barbarism.

If Obiang’s declarations no longer fool Foreign Ministers and Presidents, those of Moratinos fool no one either. Who, outside the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, believes that government policy towards Equatorial Guinea is adequate in the light of the last thirty years? Nonetheless, on May 29th this year, shortly after the rigged elections held in Equatorial Guinea, the government again presented in the Congress of Deputies its routine litany: “our only remedy is to continue insisting on a constructive dialogue”.

The opposition: still waiting for news on Nkrumah, Mandela, Lumumba and Biko

The second change has taken place in the political opposition. The leaders of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) that held two seats in Equatorial Guinea’s 100-seat parliament — the remainder being taken up by Obiang’s party members — are going through moments of political and personal anguish. Not surprisingly, since they ended up with just one seat, continue to be harassed as usual and have been abandoned by the international community, which prefers oil in the hand to democracy on the wing.

The opposition has shown its desperation and fury via various communiqués from its National Executive over the last month. These offer a mixture of denunciations, laments, meditations after the fact on what happened, vague accusations, unattainable proposals and reflections lacking self-criticism.

The CPDS denounces that “the electoral process of Sunday May 4th 2008 in Equatorial Guinea surpassed all forecasts of the brutality of the fraud prepared by Obiang and his regime, marking a clear regression in the country’s political evolution.”

The CPDS laments the betrayal of the international community, especially Spain and the United States since the elections “were not held in conditions of liberty, transparency and equality as was expected by the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos or as the United States ambassador in the country intended.”

The European Union is not immune from the attacks since the release of funds (more than Euros 10m) intended for Equatorial Guinea assigned to the ninth European Development Fund to carry out projects in areas like human rights and good governance is regarded by the CPDS as “the strongest insult that could be received”.

The CPDS Executive pauses to meditate on “the unhappy history of Equatorial Guinea that repeats itself cyclically” because in 2002 “when Equatorial Guinea most needed the UN, this body decided to withdraw, as if by chance, the Special Representative for Equatorial Guinea, leaving the population defenceless and at the mercy of the arbitrary will of Obiang. Many of the people arbitrarily detained then have only just been pardoned in June.”

Finally, they offer a very negative judgement on the policy of dialogue. They consider that “the rapprochements (by its bilateral and multilateral partners) made towards the regime that governs Equatorial Guinea are made for other reasons, not expressed in public declarations, perhaps possibly the benefits obtained from the situation of a totalitarian and despotic regime, not respectful of people’s rights, reasons which favour the individuals, institutions or countries that make such rapprochements, which unscrupulously damage the legitimate interests of the people of Equatorial Guinea, their right to live in freedom and to benefit from their natural resources.”

Despite admitting their desperate political situation they still “call on the international community, particularly the multilateral and bilateral partners represented in Equatorial Guinea to recognise that their silence at the repression and all the abuses perpetrated by Obiang and his regime on the people of Equatorial Guinea, along with all the arbitrary abuses inflicted on the opposition and on dissidents in the country seem to amount to complicity in the damage the regime thus inflicts on this people. The CPDS would like to see a pronouncement on what happened in this country on May 4th this year, as well as on the post-election harassment that followed.”

What the CPDS describes is correct. It even understates things. It has received the biggest blow in its history not only for having lost one of its two seats at the hands of its enemies but because it has been abandoned by those it considered its friends. But in that case, why go running to them once more?

It does not matter now that what happened was the chronicle of an abandonment foreseeable beforehand and warned of at the time. But what sense does it make to make new appeals that will themselves also be ignored? It hardly makes any difference now to point out that the international community is an accomplice of the regime against the country’s people. But more than anything, it does nothing to lift the population of Equatorial Guinea out of their shameful situation.

The May 2008 elections have confirmed, if any further confirmation was necessary, that the political game played so far with such poor cards by the CPDS against experienced criminals, bought judges and with an audience of observers watching out for their own interests, is over.

It is not the moment for lament or roundabout accusations. If the CPDS is not faithful to the logic of its own analysis of the situation and gets caught up in absurd reproaches and threats that show up its weakness even more, not only will it be finished but, as its own National Executive says of other actors involved, it runs the risk of being an accomplice in Obiang’s game.

The struggle for the rights of Africans in Africa has not been achieved mainly or even most importantly in the sessions of corrupt parliaments or in meetings in offices in Madrid or Washington with diplomats concerned about the people of Equatorial Guinea in words but not in fact. Nor, obviously, has the struggle advanced by repeating over and over again to people who have not the least idea of the suffering of people in Equatorial Guinea that “the CPDS is the only democratic opposition and seeks political change by peaceful means…”

The political strategy faced with murderers, their accomplices and look-outs cannot consist of touring Europe and the United States to complain to people without the least intention of losing their own benefits so as to promote the rights of others. Political action cannot base itself on making speeches day after day in a parliament lacking legitimacy to deputies who only heed to the person that pays them.

To design a new political action it is more useful to consider the pantheon of African leaders. Nkrumah based his political struggle on organizing the masses, which cost him repeated spells in detention. Mandela directed a political transition but not without first insisting on the right to self-defence of the oppressed (what Western politicians call violence) to the Supreme Court in Pretoria in 1964, for which he was condemned to life imprisonment. Lumumba was assassinated by the CIA, the armed wing of the United States government that specialises in murdering popular leaders the world over for their opposition to imperialism. Biko managed successfully to mobilise the inhabitants of South African cities before being assassinated in police custody.

Conclusion: Neither dialogue with Obiang nor political tours by the opposition will bring human rights to Equatorial Guinea

It is told that years ago an old Equatorial Guinean, unhappy at his country’s evolution on which a Spanish person was talking asked, “Hey, this independence stuff, how long does it last?” One has to suppose that the passage of time has given him the answer, although doubtless thousands of Equatorial Guineans are asking the same question now about this democracy stuff.

Democracy does not exist in Equatorial Guinea nor will it under the current dictatorial circumstances prolonged by external help from powerful economic interests in exchange for oil.

Once the political game is exhausted, or what is no more than the trappings of a democratic system, for Equatorial Guineans to be able to see human rights respected, requires a resistance struggle to be carried through against the individuals who violate people’s rights and those who abet them.

In other words, rights are taken, not given. That most likely means dropping certain useless friendships and support, working more in the street and in villages than in Parliament and abandoning the parody of democracy for the drama of popular struggle.

It is essential not to compromise the enduring right of peoples and individuals to a life of liberty, justice and peace via a political slogan to the liking of corrupt leaders like “a peaceful political alternative” — fine for the oppressor, not so great for the oppressed.

This new connection between Equatorial Guinea and the rest of the world beyond its closest African neighbors, joins those of Air France, Swiss International Air Lines, Royal Air Maroc, KLM, Spainair, Sonair, Jet Air and some others. Even flights from unspecified airports in Europe with airlines which are not IATA members — although they advertise as such — can be found on the Internet.

The airlines tell the public this intense activity is due to growing business opportunities and changes taking place in the African country: “Blessed by a growing economy in recent years, the country maintains numerous international trade relations, principally in the energy sector.”

Three men and a helicopter

However, seasoned travellers do not agree on this point. Simon Mann, a British mercenary once told the UK’s television Channel 4 that “things were very bad” in Equatorial Guinea and that “regime change was badly needed”. He added that “the regime was stumbling, the State was sinking”.

Mann is the model of the English gentleman. He studied in Eton, the world’s most elitist school, cradle of renowned travellers since its foundation in 1440. After graduating he spent the next 30 years travelling the world together with other gunmen, shooting to order or off his own bat in order to make money. His last trip for that purpose, began in South Africa in 2004 and has landed him in Malabo’s Black Beach jail, where he has just been imprisoned after being jailed for a time in Zimbabwe.

Many people learn at school that travelling is the best way to learn. Mann has certainly changed his opinions. A mere week at his Black Beach prison cell has led him to abandon his former negative image of Equatorial Guinea and to declare the country “has experienced an incredible change in four years”.

On the same day in Madrid, where he lives as a Geneva Convention refugee, Severo Moto, president of Equatorial Guinea’s government in exile, said the opposite: “I am coming back home!” in order to bring freedom and democracy to the country.

Moto’s travelling experience is the opposite of Mann’s. The more he travels the world the further he gets from Equatorial Guinea. Seeking all kinds of support for his political return home, he has been to many different places. But none of them has taken him even half way to his apparent destination. What is worse, he has come close to losing both his life and his refugee status in Spain.

Mann and Moto are not alone in their plight. Since 2004, after a life of travel for pleasure, one of their main supporters, Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has some difficulty leaving Britain. Many countries refuse to grant him a visa precisely for his past involvement in adventures that were too big for him. How come his partners failed to notice that this true wet blanket has failed in virtually all the sports, business and financial projects he has undertaken?

Mann now complains that Moto and Ely Calil, another financial backer, cheated him. Thatcher says he thought the helicopter he rented for their botched plan, was meant to serve as an ambulance. Moto says he knows nothing at all about Mann’s coup d’état. Calil, who made his fortune in the oil business, has left his fancy residence in London’s Chelsea. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Notional coups, notional opposition

The only clear thing emerging from this Marx Brothers remake is the advisability of choosing one’s travel companions for a coup d’état with care. Opposition leaders inside the country know this all too well. That means cultivating relations with the most important foreign centres of political power. In other words: travelling from Malabo to the United States and European Union capitals.

Unfortunately, despite frequent invitations for these leaders to visit powerful countries with leverage over Equatorial Guinea, their visits have not borne fruit. On the eve of legislative elections due next May in Equatorial Guinea, Convergencia Para la Democracia Social (CPDS), an opposition party founded underground in 1990, today has two representatives in the national congress. The remaining 98 seats are held by supporters of Teodoro Obiang, President without a break since 1979.

One might say that the important thing is not the number of trips, but their quality. Up until now, it seems that CPDS secretary general, Placido Mico, has yet to learn what Moto knows: world governments are far more interested in Equatorial Guinea’a oil than in its people’s human rights. All those foreign trips have not taught Mico what Obiang and any other dictator who leans on US friendship knows: so long as they obey imperial policies, they will stay in power, unless their own people bring them down.

Mico never tires of declaring in every city he visits that CPDS “is a political party aiming to introduce changes in Equatorial Guinea once it gets power, which it will acquire by democratic means. For this, it works peacefully for the establishment of a democratic regime in Equatorial Guinea”. It may seem incredible, but he adds that he is confident that the United States government may change its current policies towards Equatorial Guinea.

This and similar statements are sweet music to Obiang and the world leaders who support him. So they are more than happy to pay for Mico’s air tickets and travel expenses. The Equatorial Guinea opposition leader gives them no trouble and above all guarantees that their corporations increasing investments and business in this small oil-rich African country are safe. Furthermore, this heavenly status quo means they can meet with Mico openly. So in the unlikely event that domestic public opinion questions Equatorial Guinea’s lack of democracy, they can say they are doing their share to support it.

Tyranny: good for business

No wonder more and more airlines are offering new connections to Malabo. International entrepeneurs have realised, as politicians have, that their businesses are not in peril with the current government or any other likely to succeed it. Such security does not apply to Equatorial Guinea’s people, whose human rights are violated on a daily basis. It seems corporation CEOs do not get news about Obiang’s policemen chasing after opposition leaders and sometimes torturing them to death. They also seem not to know that business is the preserve of the elite, that democracy is just a dream for the majority of the population either at home or in exile.

One learned observer of Equatorial Guinea who, oddly enough, does not travel there, explained last March 17 why businessmen choose this country for their activities:

“We have heard many times during the last years that Equatorial Guinea is changing. The truth is that real development has not taken place. What exists is an enormous development of Obiang’s entourage’s enterprises. These have made them incredibly rich while the majority of the population remains poor.”

He adds: “News coming from different parts of the country speak of little enthusiasm amongst the people entitled to register for the elections. They are tired of the same people governing all the time, no matter who the citizens vote for. Some reports also inform of irregularities.”

Travel: the great educator

In the meantime Obiang himself and his family also travel to Europe and the United States. On arrival he is greeted with flattery. In the April 12, 2006 press conference by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, she said: “Thank you very much for your presence here. You are a good friend and we welcome you.”

From time to time Obiang has to listen to “recommendations” and “suggestions” about governance and human rights on his trips abroad, but his bank accounts and properties keep on growing anyway. Neither do the admonitions affect the income of Western companies operating in Equatorial Guinea.

When criticism cuts him to the quick, he fights back and speaks his mind. He is right. Why the half-hearted criticism at the same time as they openly flatter him? This helps explain Obiang’s growing interest in China: a country he has visited five times in the last few years.

Obiang’s trips to Europe and the United States, generate new ones in their turn, from Western Prime Ministers and Foreign Affairs Ministers, from other high government officials and from big corporation CEOs. If two sandals and an ass were all it took Herodotus to write impressive reports of the political and social events he witnessed in his travels, what will these people write from their first class seats in an Airbus A330-300, equipped with “two meter long beds, wine cellar, 5-star chef, musical classics and video”?

Back home, after a two or three day visit to Equatorial Guinea, they declare the country has made important steps towards democracy, that the political situation has vastly improved, and last but not least, praise the outstanding environment for foreign investment. That is why people say travel broadens the mind. Maybe when Western airlines start giving seats to the thousands of people from Equatorial Guinea who have never flown with them, those people too will at last see the wonders of Equatorial Guinea so fulsomely described by foreign politicians and businessmen.

Moral: increase international air connections with Equatorial Guinea.