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E0UAT0RIAL EUINEA _ MACIAS COUNTRY

THE FOFGOTTEN FEFUGEES

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An lnternational Univcrsity Exchange Fund ilUEF) Field Study on the Equatodal Guinea Befugee $ituation

CONTENTS

Page }{unb.er Foreword

Maps
1

t-1

Surmnry 1.

v
1

Introduetion
Baekground

2.L.
na

The Country The People

3 4
B

2.3. 2.4.
).
Macas

IIi s tory
Chronology

10 L4
15

3.1. 3.2.
J.J.

t Countrv The, State Apparatus

Economy

23
2B

Forced Labour
Law and Law Enforcement

3.4. 3.5.

32 39

Relations with Foreign Powers Macas, "The unigue Miracle" 'The Personality of Papa Macas 4,r. Macas and Religion +..
(

43 46 50 55 55 56

The Refugees

5.1.

Outflux

(,

Influx 5.2.I. Gabon 5 ,2.2. Cameroon 5.2,3. Nigeria 5.2,4. Spain and Other
European Countries

6I
64 66
66

6.

Solutions and Recommendat,ions Legal Recogniton 6.1. Rehabilitation 6 .2. Education 6.3. Sugges tions 6 .4.
Sources

69
70 7L 74 75 80
BZ

7"

8"

S.elected Bibliography Appendix Appendix Appendix

1

2
3

84 85
B7

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FORE TORD

By Lars-Gunnar Eriksson, Director, International University Exchange Fund (IUEF)

a number of occasions, the IUEF has commissioned studies on special refugee problems with a vier,v to devise prograrunes for assistance.
On

A refugee problem rhich has been preoccupying us for the last couple of years is that of the Equatorial Guneans. Their plight, as well as that of Lheir countrymen sti1l living under the brutal oppression of President Macast dictatorship, is litt1e known and hence the assistance provided Eo them is in no proportion to their needs.

I^lith the assistance of a grant from the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA), the IUEF decided to carry out a mission, combining a study of the situation in Equatorial Guinea itself with that of the refugees in neighbouring countries, as well as in Spain.

to provide information about The ob.jective was twofold: firstly, the situation of the refugees and to make proposals for programmes of assistance, particularly in the field of education and training; secondly, to provde firsthand information about the situation in Equatorial Guinea in order to facilitate assessment of the possibilities for repatriation.
were lucky to be able to benefit from the services of Dr. Robert af Klinteberg, a Swedish anthropologist with sixteen years of experience of refugee problems in Europe, Asia and Africa. After a very risky visit to the country itself , Dr. Kl inteberg spent four months living with r-he refugees n Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria and Spain. The ensuing report and its appendix are the result of this mission, which we hope will add to the knowledge about the refugees, as well as the situation inside Equatorial Guinea. Above all, we hope it rill contribute to increase the aid provided to the refugees.
I,rle

The views expressed in this report are those of Dr. Klinteberg not necessarily those of the IUEF.

and

Geneva, November 1978

P.

FERNANDO PO (MACIAS NGUEMA BIYOGO)

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SANTA ISABEL

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SUALA
SAKATO DEL ESTE

BASAKATO DEL

SAN CARLOS

NIGERIA
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Port Horcourl

CAMEROON

CEPCION

(RIABA)

Sonlo lsobel FERNANDO PO IS./ (MACIAS NGUEMA( /

BIYOGO)

GULF OF GU/NEA
principe ls,

ELOBEY CHICO, ELOBEY GRANDE

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lsrso Tomi

ANNOBON (PAGALU)
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LOCATION ON THE

WEST COAST OF AFRICA


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E Q U AT O R I A L

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SUMMARY

Equatorial Guinea consists of the island of Fernando Po situated is sandwiched rhe culf of Guinea and the mainland enclave of Rio Y"ii^tliih betweenGabonandCameroon.Thecountryissmall,2S,000km.,andhadan estimated population of 285,000 in L910'
in'
and A strategic position made it a valuable pa!n in colonial politics and spain' for nearly 300 y..r" it was dominated by Portugal, England the prospects rule I^lhen it reached independ.ence aftel 110 years of Spanish the best cocoa in the world, coffee and looked good. An economy based on good timber made the per capita income the highest in Black Africa' A prosperity promised even gl:eater infrastructure and a high 1evel of education for the future. of the In 1968, Francisco Macfas Nguema became the first President when he independenr Republic. The diffiulties began shortly afterr'iards 1972 saw him began to eliminate real or imagined political opponents. increasingly personal His rule has since become become President for 1ife. by political, religious and ethnic persecuion' and is characterised have contribSystematic terror and near total disintgration of the economyfrom the most uted to drive an estimated third of the population into exile regressive desPotism in Africa'

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president Maclast reign has a \^/eak po\,7er base. It functions because of a deliberate cultural regression not unlike that of Nazi Germany, which of has thrown the country and the people into a situation far below that of destloyed lhe strong traditions the pre-colonial period and has even village democracy. fni" is condoned by the foreign po!ers present'in the country, notably the USSR, Cuba and China' as \^7e11 as by ruthless captalist enterprises, particularly French. The United Nations' Development Prografrune tacitly (UNDP) and the European Economic Community (EEC) provide assistance' what accepting the regimL, while Spain and the Vatican remain silent aboutstrained a final rupture of very is going on in oid"r to avoid, at all costs, the relations. The silence perpetuates the terror, and the cost is paid by people of Equatorial Guinea'

official figures for refugees are: 60,000 in Gabon, 30,000 in cameroon' other 5,000 in Nigeriu:6,000 in spain, wirh smaller groups in a number of are in in Gabon and cameroon countries in Africa and Europe. The refugees an especially difficult posiiion. Agents provocateurs threaten their security. unemployrnent, poverty, tact< of education and medical facilities to make their combine with the language problLm and micro-political tensions situation increasingly worrying.
Maclas, persecutions have been directed against the intellectuals in particular. As a consequence, the refugees are probably among the best poses educated and most competent professionally in Africa, a fact ihich special problems for their social and economic rehabilitation.
Tn view of the current situation inside Equatorial Guinea' repatriacion

is not conceivable.

INTRODUCTION

This report deals with the situation of the refugees from Equatorial Guinea. For varous reasons they have remained almosttotally ignored and neglected. ft was thanks to the initiative of the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF), and the generous assistance of the S^edish International Development Authority (SIDA), that I had an opportunty to go on a f.act-fnding misson to Central Africa during four months in L978,
The fact-finding was planned with four major questions in mind:

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l{hat is the situation of the refugees? I,rlhat are the possibiltes of repatriation? lrlhat are the short-term and long-term needs of the refugees? Itlhat solutions should be suggested?
The first question required information about where the refugees are and in whar circumstances they find themselves, about health and nutrition, security, emplorment, relations with nationals and other micro-political considerations - all seen in the context of the general situation in the

country of asylum

The second was crucial in the sense that voluntary repatriation always remains the most desirable solution to a refugee problem, so much so that it is questionable if other forms of assistance should even be attempted if a return is a genuine possibility. An assessment of the situation required information about he economc situation inside Equatorial Guinea: employment, salaries and prices, economic plans and prospects, infrastructure, etc.; the health and nutrition status; macro- and micro-polirics, educaton and security. Information about these matters would also hopefully help in sorting out some of the rather disturbing contradictions which occurred as soon as one tried to understand the situaion
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There r^rere, for instance, the discrepancies betveen the sombre picture of Equatorial Guinea painted by the exiles and the rather more s)anpathetic descriptions given in certain Spanish and French media; the apparent ambivalence of the United Nations and the European Economic Community, both giving assistance while providing minimal information about their progrannes, an unusLlal policy for donor agencies. There \^iere also the conflieting appraisals of the reliability of rhe information abou the country. l,Iore specifically, if President Macas had his counLry under strong domination, must he not also have an equally strong po\,,rer base indicating that vast numbers of his subjects were in favour of the regime? If it \^/ere true that exiles returned voluntarily, must it not be assumed that Macfast rule r^ras much more benevolent than had been a1 leged? hlhy had the important Fang tribe, described as fierce \rarriors, not created an effective opposition to the President if they had really felt oppressed? Evidently these and oher questions had to be given satisfactory ansr/ers.

it became clear if large-scale repatriation was a realistic solution to the refugee problem, a preliminary need assessment would have to be presented, either'for a return to a counlry said to have lost much of its htunan resources and its infrastructure, or for continued lfe in exile.
Once

The question of repatriation reoccurred in the context of the needs of the refugees, especially in the field of education and training. If they vrere to go back to a country said to have lost much of its trained *"rrporlr and infrastructure, how could assistance best be used to alleviate the needs of Equatorial Guinea? If the refugees could not go back, how could they best be assisted to become useful residents in the countries

of

asylum?

Final1y, preliminary solutions would have to be suggested on the basis of these needs, to facilitate further discussions between the countries
and agencies concerned.

BACKGROUND

2.L.

TIIE

COUNTRY

Equatorial Guinea is among the least known countries in the or1d today. It is often confused with Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau, even with New Guinea in the Pacfic (1) or incorrecly referred to by ts old colonial
name, Spanish Guinea.

Geographically and administratively it consists of to parts, the province of Rio Muni plus the three coastal islets Corisco, Elobey mainland Grande andElobey Chieo; and the offshore islands Fernando Po and Annobn. These have now been renamed, respectively, Macas Nguema Biyogo and Pigal, but will be mentioned by their more familiar names in this report.
The official capital is Malabo, formerly Santa Isabel, on Fernando Po. The island is subdivided into the districrs of Malabo; Luba, ex-San Carlos; and Riaba, ex-Concepcion. Also included in Maclas Province is On the mainland the Rio Muni Annobn r^rhich constitutes a fourth district. Bata \,/ith the province capital, Ebebeyin, Province has twelve districts: Evinayong, I'ficomeseng, Bimbiles, Mongomo, Nyefang; Mbini, formerly Rio Benito; Kogo, Acurenen, Nsok and Rio Campo.

in the Gulf of Guinea, 33 km from the nearest part It is roughly 70 by 30 km, with a coastline of some of the 250 krn and an area of 2rOI7 km2, and consists of hree extinct volcanoes. The highest, Pico de Santa Isabel, is 3,007 meters and important for he possibilities it offers for electronic surveillance of sea and air traf.f.c along a strategically important part of the African coast. The Moka mountain, with its crater lake at 11800 meters, used to be economically important because of its livestock. A1l over, the volcanic soils contribute to exLremely fertile lands, and in Malabo a broken dor,n crater rim provides a good deepwater harbour some 700 meters in diameLer.
Fernando Po is Cameroon coast.

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South of the Equator and 600 km south-south-west of Malabo, it is 750 meters high, covers 17 km2 and, at the time of independence, had a population of 1,500. This has since been reduced by an uncontrolled cholera epidemic.
Naural reseurces abound in Equatorial Guinea. The agricultural potential is very high, particularly on volcanic soils and the differing altitudes allow the cultivation of practically anything. The sea and the rivers are rich in fish and other seafoods.

Annobn is the last of the chain of volcanoes which begins with Cameroon and continues through Fernando Po, Prncipe and Sao Tom.

On the other hand, there seem to be no mineral resources of any consequence. n the mainland, minute quantities of gold have been found near Evinayong, and there have been rumours about ttaniumriron-ore and coal. Prospecting for oil in the coastal sediments, inspired by the presence

(1)

Balandier, 1970, p.

1-7B.

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of oil in similar geological strata in Gabon, began in 1960' In spite of investment of US$ 15 million it has so far 1ed to nothing, but it cannot be excluded that future test-dri11ing might produce results'
cocoa, famous for its excellent quality; on second grade Robusta coffee; and on palmon timber, like Oukoum, walnut an different kinds of mahogany;

Duringthecolonialtime,theeconomywasbasedprimarilyon

oil.

Rio Muni is a rectangular enclave on the continent, bordering on Cameroon in the north and Gabon in the east and south, roughly 7?0 ^O^I . , of 2b'0UU Km' 140 km, with approximately 150 km of coastllne and wih an area Most of the boundaries have been drawn with a ruler on the colonial map'
Behind a narrorr coastal plain, the landscape begins to roll gently upwards, eventually reaching hills of 1,000 t 11200 meters in rhe eastern pra. Geological1y, it consists of ancient metamorphic rocks, like granite' gn.iss, diorites and gabbroes. This produces soils of mediocre quality, of but with an annual rainfall of 21300 mn or more, average temperaturegood and is very 862, the fertility hurnidity rangng around C rni forest rhe rain "lr"ttge stands lush and bundant - strikingly beautiful in its great variety, manifested in 140 different species of wood'
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Animal life in the forest \^7as sparse but rich in variety, with gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants' hippopotami, buffaloes' antelopes' now crocodiles, pythons and Gaboon vipers ' It would seem that it hasto hunt have forced people practicalty isappeared, as poLein shortages rh"t",r"t they have been able to calch with traps and dogs'

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In the Rio Tamboni estuary are the manglove-studded islets of kmZ' Corisco, Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico' respectlvety 1-5,2'34 and O'26 were that of Rio lfuni, the islands Being closer to the coast of Gabon than to the subject of conflicts betreen the two countries in 1912 and 1974' 2.2,
THE PEOPLE

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Ethnically,EquatorialGuineahasbeendominatedbytwogloups' ancent Bubi on Fernando po, and the increasingly powerful Fang on the the mainland. some of the history of the country is influenced by the animosity between them, which has been deliberaCely exploited in a divide-and-rule policy, both by the colonialists and by the present regime' TheslaveryperiodmusthavehurttheBubibadly,butquiteto decline v/hat exte"a ir unknown. Statements that they suffered from a ne\^/the pasr in around 1900 probably reflect exaggerated population estimates increased rather than an actual reduction brrt, since then, their number hasand other affected by sleeping sickness very slowly. Apparently they were to Bubi informants' also by a tendency rowards diseases and, paid part "".otairrg alcoholism which ras reinforced by Spanish plantation ovmers who of the vrages in low qualitY wine'

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of the population of Fernando Po.Inlg60,theymayhaverepresentedaboutathirdoftheinhabitants. of They are group In addifon, therL were a few thousand Fernandinos ' from formeraslaves as mixed heritage descended from Europeans as rell by"the Brit.ish, and from emancipated Africans from sierra Leone' i;;";;; and a knowledge of Liberia and the West Indies, oft.en with English namesof mixed African and Coastal Englsh. Other minorities r/ere lhe Crioulos portuguese blood, and irmigrants from he s1and of Annobn, populated by and liberated slaves from Angola. There I/ere a1 so limited nurnbers of Fang the largest group !ere ri"y.ro" from Rio Muni and 4,222 whites. However, the irmigrants fron Nigeria; Ibo, Ibibio and Efik contrac \^rorkers ontoal the plantatiorr" tto lived in compaet colonies' Theybrought population "o"o population up to some 63r000 shortiy before independence, making a density of 31 per kmz. An important characleristic $/as the large surplus of men, caused by the importation of workers ' oldest The mainland tribes are divided into o seeions. The its inhabitants are the small tribes of the Bujeba and the Ndowe tribe with Los subdivisions Benga and Comb. They are the "People of the Beach", late arrivals' Playeros. Inland are the Fang, comparatively A census made 31 December 1950 showed Rio l'uni to have 156,175 inhabitants; L,4g7 of them whites, and L2,263 mainly of.Gabonese and LB3'377; increased to Cameroonese origin. Ten years later the population had was 7 per krn2, fairly evenly The population density Z,gq of rhem rtit". throughout. the districts. Subsequent figures have to be extradistributed polated rith the help of an estimated growth rate of 1.7% per annum' This to brings rhe populetion to 285,000 in 1970 and would have brought it The326'000 slow in 1978 if it had not been for factors outside normal demography' one he infant mortaliy rate I'fas growth rae should be noted. Although of the loest on the African continent (53.2/Lr000), Lhe fertility rate \'ras has a strong he second lowest (G55/Lr000) after Gabon' This sub-fertlity bearing on the values and atitudes of the ethnic groups, especially the
A census in 1912 gave the Bubi as
547"

Fang.

of the more recent history of the people of Equatori-al Bidyogo' Guinea are fair1y well known, in particular from writers like Ndongo has been made less clear Domnguez, Fernandez, Pelissier and cronj. l{hat is the general cultural and social background for these events and the attitudes make which hve interaced with them. To clarify the issue it is necessary to a thr:mbnal sketch of the people. The emphasis will be on the Fang tribe, extension because of its numerical and political domifiance, and because its for an understanding of the into three countries must be taken into account situation of the exiles. Fang stories tell that they cane from a bush country far to the north-eas, outside the region of the tropical rain forest' They seem to and have been driven south and south_r,est by the Fulb tribe Some one hundred Centrefifty years ago and to have s1ow1y made fheir \day into rnhaE is nor'r heparts Sud Province of Cameroon, Rio Muni and the norttrern and north-\^Testern of Gabon. sma11 groups arrived at rhat is now Libreville about 1850, but the
l,lany events

movemen

petered out around 1890. l4gration inside Fang territory is still going on, which has made frustrated colonial administt.iorc describe the Fang as "nomadic". The erm is misleading, with few, if any, of the normally accepted criteria of nomadism applicable to the slow extension and consolidation of an area taken over from smaller tribes.

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Fang settlements have taken dfferen forms. In Cameroon and Rio l4uni there are relatively well demarcated. areas populated by one paricular subdivision of the tribe while in Gabon fragmented groups are interspersed. Relations between the groups are strengthened by a system aimed preventing incest in the widest sense of the term, which allows a man to at "*ogr*y, marry only outside his own clan. The Fang actually appear to practise double exogamy, which means that a man is prohibited from rrrying nt only a girl from his fatherts c1an, bu also one from his motherts. this cornplicated system means that the kinship ties become further extended geographically. rt is also indicative of the profound values-Fang tradition attaches to morality, which they regard as one of the fundamental prerequisites for the granting of fert1iry.

iii

It is not certan what the economic basis of Fang life was before the migration began, but once they entered their present trritory, trad.e seems to have become a dominant aspect. Slave trade and colonialism had encouraged an extensive netv/ork of rad.e routes between the inland and littoral, and the Fang were in an excellent geographical and corrnercial the position to make use of it.
During the seventy years after 1850, commerce changed from almost exclusively ivory and natural produce to manufactured trade goods, and from bartering to exclusively cash basis. rn the process, most of the traditional skil1s at handicrafts disappeared. and the capitalisation of trade goods upset the circulation of marriage payments which, in turn, weakened the social organisation. This is relevant to the present hardships in Equatorial Guinea in three \,rays: non-existence of the cottage ind.ustries which might have provided basic necessities, adherence to cash economy in spite of runavray inflation, and serious social disorganisation.
compared with many other Bantu tribes, the Fang appear to have paid little attention to farming. subsistence agricultui" on rhe whole, for the I/omen' while the men d.evoted themselves to trading, "r, times raising at the necessary capital through wage labour in the timber industry and to the sporting events of hunting and "obnn" raiding. The introd.uction of cocoa and other cash crops, in the nineteen-twenties, changed this. Many of the men became farmers attached to a particular plot of 1and. As a consequence, the population became more settled and the growing importance of trading centres for the crops led to previously unknown concentrations of the population. In the centres the bark huts gave \,/ay to r^ell-built houses of dried clay on woodframes and, in spite of a certain resistance to innovations, furniture of all kinds began to appear. propelled by the economic boom which had begun in the tr,enties with the of "*ploit"tion \,,/as on its oukoum wood and the profits made from cocoa and coffee, lh" area \''lay ro a relative prosperity. At the same time, crises were building up inside a social system which was vulnerable to the sLrains imposed by rapid socio-

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economic change.

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A classical study by Balandier analyses what happened in Gabon; (1) what \^7ent \^rrong rith the colonial system and how the Fang responded' The situation i-n Equatorial Guinea shors st-rong analogies which help in explaining how a rapidly developng country with excellent economic pofential has backtracked a century of evolution in a few years and become the most backrard region in Africa.

Early explorers like du Chaillu and Fourneau were impressed by the intelligence "tt tn" vitality of the Fang, but were not a\'rare of the vulnerability which was inherent in the social system. They saw the strength and dynamism but not that it was lacking in direction' Migrations to do wage labour added to the dispersion and fragmentation of the social grorrpirrgs. Rapid economic progress had unfortunte social side-effects nd contributed to a !eakening of tradtional values which, in turn, interacted with what can best be described as a eultural inferiority "The complex vis--vis the colonialists and their technical superiorty. described as the favourite son of God, the possessor of the whiteman rras knowledge that is the source of power. He was said to be able to perform miracles (akung) ." (2) At the same time, the growing imbalance was further affected by he gap betvreen the traditional village elders and the rapidly growing number of well trained and educated youngsters who were becoming a ne\I social type for which there \^/as no place available within the system'

i'

Apparently, the Fang felt a kind of identity crisis and a need for reorientation. ]n the late forties' a series of steps v/ere taken to cope with the situaion: bringing the groups togelher inside the "alar ayng" movement for clan consolidation and setting up the "Pahouin Congress" for policy-making and external relations. ("Pahouin" has often been used as a name for the Fang. In reality, it is probably a corruption of a M'pongwe phrase *eaning "I do not know" used in response to incomprehensible quesions about their neighbours the Fang')
Another response to the vaguely understood but strongly felt crisis was in the field of religion. Missionaries, money and the miracles of technique had reduced the nfluence of the Biri cult of ancestor worship' A new, more por4Terful , religion had to be introduced. The outcome ras the syncretistic Bwiti cu1t, courbining traditional and Christian traits and sirongly reminiscent of the Voodoo of the inlest Indies and the Candombl of Brazi|. Like these, Bwiti had strong elements of magic and secrecy and is, in many respects, an underground movement made to Serve as refuge and defence frorn the superimposed threats of colonialism"
The reaction is in no way unique. 0n the contrary, it is quite common as a reaction of defence agains oppression in the form of innumerable more or less messianic movements throughout history. On occasion the reactior has been pushed further to become a militant \^/ay of political expression and (1) (2)

Balandier

L970.
279

Balandier, Ibid. r P.

Bur while such a turn of events as, for instance, in he case of Mau-Mau in Kenya has oftqn been the work of vo1us with a sopisticated policy towards eventual improvement of their own peole, Equatorial Guinea is a different case altogether.

action.

The Bwiti cult appears to have been growing strong during the fifties. It vras protected partly by its ovn clandestinity and partly by the perpetual lack of corununicaion across the cultural and linguistic gap between colonisers and colonised. In retrospect, it is clear that much of Macfasr election campaign in 1968 ras drected towards the adherents of the Bwiti cult and, more specifically, towards Lhe influential village elders whos.e fears of the Spaniards could be played upon easily. Once the foreigners and their superior magic were gone, the good o1d days of Fang po\/er would return, with many wives and children; the old virtues restored, notably that of greater respect for the elders. All the property of the colonialistis would be distributed to those'who were for Macas, bringing

endless prosperity.
a')

IlISTORY

The history of Fernando Po began in a distant past when it was populated by Bantu-speaking peoples coming across the narro\.{ straits from what is now Vctoria on the coast of Cameroon. Their descendents were the Bubi who created a centralised kingdom, ruled from the Moka highlands. Portuguese seafarers came to the island tn 1472, noted its great economic and strategic value and named it Formosa, "The Beautiful". Twenty-one years later, in an unparal1e1led display of colonialistic at,titudes, a Papal Bu11 put the "undiscovered" ror1d up for grabs, dividing it into two spheres of interest for Portugal and Spain. The Papal Seal closed Africa to Spain and. gave Portugal South America east of longitude 460\,1. The arrangement survived until L777 when Spain obtained Fernando Po in exchange for its part of BraziI . i^Ihat Spain lost in terms of size of territory it gained by getting a base for the slave-trading which was necessary for the explotation of its American colonies. But Spanish presence on the island was insignificant and the most influential there rrere the British who were soon o use it as a base for their anti-slavery warships. English attempts at buying the island were opposed by the Cortes but Spanish interests in keeping it were dvided and it v/as not until 1858 that Spanish colonial interests, rapidly declining in the rest of the rorld, reluctantly began to focus on equatorial Africa. In the turmoil of frantic land-grabbing in the late nineteenth century, Spain demanded large areas on the mainland where it ras now beginning to stake out possessions, but. it was'up against stronger colonial po\ers and received only a fraction of its claims.

Originally, the desire to possess the mainland terrtory of Rio Muni was based on a realisation that there \/as a great need for manpower on the plantations of Fernando Po. This did not work out. The mainland tribes were different from the docile Bubi and Crioulos. Spanish settlers could geL thei way with the Playeros. They found it rather more difficult to bend the Fang who, in 1960, made up 80-902 of the inhabitants of Rio Muni.

The Fang were fierce warriors, independent and primitive' not quite' to be trusted and no good as farm labour. The inability to understand what was gong on lmong the Fang qras to become one of the most fatal short-comings

of the colonialists.

There were other fa1ures. Rio Muni remained largely unexplored until the 1920s. Itlhen the Europeans finally moved in they did much to develop he area, building model villages complee with churches and schools along the new roads, introduced coffee farming and timber industries, built r"q,r"te road netowrk and worked hard on getting the health situation "r, under cont.rol. But there \^7as an ever-presen paternalistic attitude which prevented clear ideas of the damages which were being done and created what was to become a heavy psychological legacy. Post-primary educagion was sadly neglected and attitudes tol'rards political conscousness hlere set by the Franco regime.

In 1945, a newly awakened and slightly bewildered attention to its exotic colony found an expression in the creation of an Institute for African Studies in Madrid. IL was getting too late. "The winds of change" were moving up on the Beaufort scale. The Bubi and the Playeros kept quiet, but Fang nationalism \^las beginning to express itself in Gabon and Cameroon' gradualiy spilling over into the more prosperous and advanced Rio Muni' lp"in r."t with increasing oppression, culminaling wirh the alleged murder of the nationalist Enrique Nvo. years later Spain was finally admitted into he United Nations. Respectabitity became a must. l'loreover, there was the issue of Gibraltar and how to put pressure on the British to hand it back to Spain. UN pressure tovrards decolonialisation left litt1e option. The Madrid Government had to do something. It made the colony a province and began an assimilation policy" Economically, iE created great benefits for the population, in particular for the rhites. Predictably, the increased freedom stimulated the demands for further independence. In 1958, hundred of nationalists went into exile' one of the most important leaders was kil1ed and pressuTe mounted. The nationalists protested in the UN against the strengthening of the Spanish influence through an increasing integration rhich sar the first African delegates in the Cortes in Madrid and growing numbers of African students in universities in Spain. The opposition against these apparent benefits must be seen against the inferiority complexes which the colonial domination created'
Two

From 1960, Spanish repression became milder. Prisoners and detainees were released and n 1962 most of the exiles had returned. In that year Spanish Foreign Minister Carrero Blanco visited Spanish Guinea for the first In 1963 a referendum \^7as held on the tiure. Things were beginning to stir. people of Fernando Po, feeling they question of increased autonomy. The had more to lose than to gain from stronger Fang participation in internal affairs, voted against. The larger population of Rio Muni voted for'

In July Lg63, the Liberation Conrnittee of the OAU increased diplomatic pressure and, one month later, Madrid announced its intention of giving the two provinces of Spanish Guinea greater autonomy and an opportunity. (1) o "prepare themselves to be administered and governed by their oh'n sons".
(1)

lloronoff , 1970, p' 208.

H
H

Atanasio Ndongo founded the independence party MONALIGE and an autonomous goverrment r^ras set up, headed by Bonifacio Ondo Edu who later became the leader of the MUNGE party. An unkno\^m colonial civil servant from a remote inland district named Francisco Macfas was,appointed as

rq

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Vice PresidenL.
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It is obvious that he last years of Spanish rule represented a serous attempt to make up for past neglect. "Economically speaking the period of autonomy \^ras characterised by outstanding achievements, especially as regards he development of an economic and social infrastructure and the development of agricultural exports." (1) Fernando Po had a per capita In GNP of US$ 466.-- in 1965, way above any other country in Black Africa. 1968, the average per capita GNP for the whole country reached US$ 300.--, second only to Gabon. Literacy \,/as assessed at 897., there \474s one doctor per 71230 inhabitants and 5.7 hospital beds per 1,000; Fernando Po had 12.3 telephones per 1,000 and by far the highest number of vehicles. The countryts energy consumption per capita was the fourth in Black Africa, etc. Q)
Opinions among the exiles about the role of Spain as a coloniser vary from acceptance by most of the refugees in Africa, to harsh condennation from several of the politcal1y conscious resistance groups in Europe. But even those who give much credit to the malerial benefits of the later period of Spanish presence agree that"he greatest crime Spain committed in Equatorial Guinea was its neglect to introduce political education and to form political cadres". There is an easy explanation for this, the oppression of politics during the Franco regime - but the fact remains. The colonial por^/er withdrew from a country woefully unprepared for the political aspects of independence.
The circtrnstances leading up to and following independence' described in some detail by the specalists, will be outlined here under section 3, ttMaclas I Countrytr.

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2.4.

CI1RONOLOGY

fi

r470
1500

r'l

rl

,i'
ii iil 'i
ti
l

Portuguese seafarers discover uninhabited Annobn, and r\^ro years later Fernando Po, populated by the Bubi people.

*
H

fl
d

First factories and slave-trading on Annobn

Papal Bu1l splits the world into tv/o sphere of dominance between Portugal and Spain along longitude 46oW, shutting out Spain from Africa and giving a part of present-day Brazil to Portugal.

L4:3
L494

d #
g

fl
,21

T77 7

Portugal and Spain swap Fernando Po and Annobn for BrazLan

possessions. Spain begins slave-hunting and slave-trading. document, undated.

t
AI

L789

fl {t Il
,'.l

(1) (2)

ANRD

"Espaa y Guinea Ecuatorial", Servicio Informativo Espaol, Madrid, 1968,

10
{1

fl
Yd

F-l :l ,'l .;l

L827

England sets up a base

slave trade at Port Clarencer no\tr Beginnings of Fang migration into Rio Muni'

for naval ships to

suppress the Malabo'

1843 A spanish Royal 1B5B 1866 1885

commssioner sent t.o take possession of the islands appoints an Englishman the first governor of Fernando Po The first spanish-born governor, and beginnings of spanish colonialism or Fernando Po' The

first Catholic mlssions on Fernando

Po

Germany and France draw a colmon border between respective colonies Karnerun and Gabon'

their

lBBg Spain, having lost its

steps up the colonialisation. Fang migrations ebbing ou.

American and Asian colonies, expropriates land from the indigenous population and

1900 A treaty in Paris reduces Spanish land claims on he continent from 300,000 km2 to 26,000 k'n2: the Rio Muni enclave which is conceded from French Gabon. An adminisraion is organised n 1904, but most of it remains unexplored unril rhe 1920s. 1936 Civil war in Spain. Fernando Po is Falangist. Rio }funi becomes "pacified", i.e., Falangist'
Lgl+7 Fang nationalism emerges

Republican
Guinea.

Lg42 Treaty with Britain on Nigerian labour in Equatorial in to

Gabon and Cameroon. Spain ries repress budding tendencies towards independence'

1953 Nationalist leader Enrique Lg56

Nvo

is killed

1955 Spain joins the United Nations.

Under UN pressure Spain gives

rith the provinces of the peninsula. spain introduces an assimilation policy along Portuguese
1ines.
Hundreds

its colony equal status

1958 Nationalist leade-r Acacio Man is ki1led. in Gabon .nd Cameroon.

in exle

f959 The indigenous population is granted Spanish citizenship. . Nationalists protest increasing Spanish domination in the

UN.

1960 General Spanish elections. First African delegates in the Cortes.

11

L963

Referendum. Rio Muni votes for increased autonomy' by Fernando Po against for fear of becoming dominated the Fang. Macas becomes Vice President'
Franco noninates Bonifacio Ondu Edu to head the autonomous
government.
Two UN

t964
L965
iii
1i

resolutions urge Spain to give full independence and to prepare a constitutonal conference' year for cocoa. In October he constitutional conference begins in Spain, buL stalls'

llj

]-966

A UN commission visits Bquatorial Guinea'

Record.

iri

t967
iii
.,i

jii

ii
iti
l

1963SpainI^fantstoincreaseinternationalpressureonBritain to concede Gibraltar and pushes the conference to show its eagerness for decolonisation' Macasr relations with Trevijano begins' Maclas visits UN in New York' referendum 11 August, the new constitution is accepted in a
observed bY the
UN'

iij

In
12

September general

elections are

won by Macas '

lij
ili
ii

October: proclamaton of

Independence'

11 Novernber: Equatorial Guinea

joins the UN'

ili

iti

iii
!11

to Lg6g t{acas bans Red Cross relief flights from Fernando Po Edu' force; ki1ls Ondo Bafua; asks UN for peace-keeping 5March:thefirst''coupd'tatatempt'tleadstoviolent seriesofassassinations.6,00Ospaniardsareevacuated by air and sea, B0 remain in Equatorial Guinea'

ti;l lrll

TgTo''YouthonEhelnlarchwithMacas''roamthecountry. 7 July: creation of "Partido Unico Nacional'

ExchangeofambassadorsbetreenSantalsabelandPeking. Equatorial Gunea voes for China in the UN'

I'il

LSlt Macas assumes total por/er' SpaindeclaresallinformationaboutEquatorialGuineatobe against the official secrets act' LgTzReligiouspersecutions'NzAbuy'BishopofBata'inexile' 14 July: l'Iacas makes himself President for Life'
AgreemenEsabouteconomic'cultural'rechnicalandmilitary assistancefromUssR'Cubaandothersocialistcountries. Somals and Ethiopians engaged n the security system' Strained relations with Gabon'

12

r97

Maclas imposes

costitution and renames most places in a desire for authenticity. Third PUNT congress. Attempts at a national census. Economy disintegrating. Ca. L27. of the populaton in exi1e. US$ 400,000'-- loan from IDA'
ne\, ANRD

L97 4

August: formation of

Liberation movement' "Coup attemptil followed by large-scale killings

'

L975: March: formation of Liberation movements: ANALIGE, URGE and MOLIFUGE in SPain. Deterioration of relations with spain. Macas signs friendship treaty r,/ith PresidentBokassa of Cenral African Republic. Labour treaty with Nigeria abrogated and 20,000 Ngerians repatriated. All Roman Catnlic priests and nuns arrested' Diplomatic relations with US broken. Franco dies. 11 Nigerians shot in Malabo. 25,000 repatriated' 1976
US Embassy closed.

Equatorial Guinean students in Spain occupy the Equaforial Guinean embassy in Madrd. Their relatives at home ki1led in reprisals. Meeting of the Liberation movements. 20 October: the ner Spanish Government lifts the official secrets act from information about Equatorial Guinea.
L97 7

lularch: last Spanish diplomat leaves

embassy

in

Malabo.

November: The President of Gabon, Omar Bongo' goes to Spain where he requests diplomatic support for his countryts claim on the islands of Equatorial Guinea in exchange for Gabonrs support for spain in its problems with the canaty Islands. Macas visits Peking, Pyongyang and Hanoi'
L97 B

March: last Spanish teachers leave. April: A mercenary committs suicide in London. Docr:ments found in his apartment prove that he had been employed in I972 to overthrow Macas and put General Ojukwu, leader of the Bafran rebellion, in his place. May: Macfas declares an atheistic state. June: The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs says in Peking that his country would strengthen its diplomatic relations with Equatorial Guinea'. July: Six Spanish priests are expelled from Equatorial Guinea. Equatorial Guinean ambassador in Gabon abduced and presuruably
ki11ed.
13

J.

MACIAS'

COUNTRY

The change rhich has Laken place in Equatorial Guinea after Macas took poweris ofamagnitude which makes it unique in Africa. stil1 more astounding is that it remains so unknor^m. It is a contributing part' of the tragedy that even the meagre information n'hich has trickled out of the country has to a great extent been ignored, or repressed. Spain and the vaLican have kept their silence. So have the socialist countries and the inter-governrnental organisations. Some lJestern publications like "Marchs Tropicux" have produed information vihich is misleading to the point of becrning fa1se. Other Iestern reterations of reports from the refugees have been regarded by Third !,lorld countries as representing partisan interests. t'Such reports remain a matter of speculation in the absence of first-hand reports, much more so while Spain, United States and West (1) fne Germany are sti11 Equatorial Guineafs rnajor.trading partners'"
Most list of trading patners is incorrect but the caution is justified' and much of it of what has been published so far is at best second-hand, consists of rehashed digests based on sources so far away in time and space that checking' and controlling become irnpossible'

The task of providing a report on he exiles, their reasons for leaving the country and the possibilities of repatriation, made an assessment of he current situation inside the country essential. However, a study of the existing documentation was anything but conclusive.

until 1968 the country had been abundantly, if not wel1, described inSpanishpublications.AnauthoritylikeLinigerlistsl,T00titlesinhis iiuriogr"ptti. Q) Macas changed that. rn December 1968 he told leading (3) Among civil servanEs "Franco commands in Spain and I command here" ' his commands were the closing doi,rn oi tr"tt a dozen nevrspapers and periodNews from icals, rigid censorship and banning of all foreign journalists' and about he country became scarce, contrdictory and hard to evaluate' In 1971 he was helped by the Franco regime which made all information relating to Equao.i"f grrirrea "materia reservada", prohibiting its publication in Spain under the official secretst act' eventually published was obviously biased. statements the from ,Ialabo, reinforced by Macast eminence grise, Trevijano, stressed and imperialism' progressive nature of a regime threatened by colonialism Those who had fled from the country held rather different opinions '
tr{hat was

Impartial sources like member organisations of the uN expressed Handbooks themselves in bland offici.alese and n statistical estimates. but in vier of what I abou Africa provided some ineresting information that it was laer Eo experience personally, much of it is so out-of-date may sip is totally misleading. l"la1abo is no longer a town where "You port and coffee in the main plaza in front of the Cathedral, walk to the
(1) (2) (3)

Africa

Magazine, No .

79

l"larch \97 8.

Liniger-Gournaz rM.

"Guinea

EcuatorialiBibliogtafa

general,UNESCO 1L91 4

"Ya",October L977.

L4

the beach, and enjoy 12 hours a day of televsion on free public sets (Spain's last pre-independence gift) and where inexpensive local taxs ake you to a cqcoa esaterr. (1) All this was already untrue in 1973 and the statements in "Africa Yearbook" of L976 ate nothing short of macabre. Its "Visiorrs Guide" provides opening hours for banks and shops, lists hotels and restaurants' (2) and describes t"talao " "r busy town, throbbing with life and music". Evidently it was necessary to visit Equatorial Guinea personally,^. But "Tourism is not encouragedt' (3) Eo assess the contradictory infor*"rion. and visas were all but unobtainable for lJesterners. I eventually goE one from a dplomaf who was planning to defect in order to avoid the fate of numerous of his colleagues. Some had been called home "for urgent consulations" and some had been forcibly abducted from their embassies; all had been kil1ed.
The following descriptions contain ury firsthand observations of the situation inside Equatorial Guinea and corroborative information obtained through methods mentioned.,below in sectlor- 7., "Sources".
3.1
THE STATE APPARATUS

"The rule of the first President, Francisco Macas Nguema, is highly personal" observes the Encyclop.edia Britannica. l'fitogo, less given to understatement, claims that I'True independence lasted only 145 days, from 12 Ocrober 1968 to 5 March 1969. Since then Macas has suppressed the righc of association, abolished the political parties and created PUNT, membership of which is compulsory from birth. The President has assumed the rights which belong exclusively to the people. To maintain his por/er he practises to an excessive degree racism, tribalism and regionalism. The life presidency claimed by Macas is contrary to the Consitution. tle has insfitutonalised a reign of rerror by imprisoning or physically elirninating persons guilty of non-existant or supposed crimes". (4)

Actually the democraticConstitrrlion was disregarded after 75 days. After the Christmas recess the Public Prosecutor, Juan Jos Martnez Zafo, approached the Minister of the Interior on 26 December L968, drawing his altention to "excesses and maltreatmentt' by Government officials, and "reports, of which the Chief of Police had no official ne\,/s, that certain persons had been detained and were being held Inrithout having appeared in court, apparently as political prisoners. The Minister informed the Public Prosecutor that tre could not discuss the matter rith him and that it as forbidden to interfere with political matters". (5)
The five political parties had all come into existence during the period. Idea Popular de la Guinea Ecuatorial (IPGE) was formed by colonial the lawyei, Lrri" Maho, whose leadership eventually passed on to Maclas' once
(1) A11en & Segal, "The Travellerts Africa", Hopkinson & Blake,
New

York,

L973.

(Z)
(3)
(4)

"Africa Yearbook and tr^lhot s .hlho", Africa Journal Ltd., London, L976, "Africa South of the Sahara", Europa Publications Ltd., London' 1977.
l"ttogo

1977

(s)

"Yat', october

L977

l5

Spanish attitudes torards the independence movements had become more tolerant. The Movimiento de 1a Guinea Ecuatorial (MUNGE) was formed in 1963 by Ondo Edu who died in Blackbich prison in 1968. The Movimiento Nacional de Liberacion de la Guinea Ecuatorial (MONALIGE) was formed n L964 by Atanasio Ndongo, ki11ed in March 1968. The others r/ere the Fernando Po Democratic Union and the more important Union Bubi. The Bubi leader, Pastor Torao A founder of the Union Bubi Sikara r/as to die in Bata pfison, "of thirst". is said to have died from gangrene caused by his eyes having been gouged

our.

( 1)

In 1970 Macas banned the political parties and created the Partido Unico Nacional. In July the same year it was renamed Partido Unico l.lacional Trabajadores (PUNT), "The Workerst Only National Party'r. The PIJNT membership card became the all-important document which had to be shovn everzwhere and at any time. Before he became a refugee, the Minister of fhe Interior used to say that "Once you needed a certificate. of baptism to enter Heaven. Now al1 you need is the card fron PUNT, because there is no other God but Macas". Failure to produce the card usually 1ed to immediate arres. The Party activists quickly assumed a pover over and beyond the 1aw, much of it based on the fear inspired by the youth section of PUNT, Juventud en Marcha con Macas. The Youth on the March with Macfas \^as recruited mainly from the discontented teenagers at the botom of the society. Given sudden po\,er to intimidate anybody below the top strata of the Party they formed bands of thugs, encouraged to ferret out potential enemies of the state. Confiscations, beatings and general harassment of the population became routine.
iii
iit

ii iii

The democratic Constitution, accepted by a UN-supervised referendum in August 1968 had become more and more dsregarded. hrhat remained of it was effectively s\/ept aside when Macas assumed ota1 supremacy over the nation, PUNT and the arrned forces. Adding a surrealistic touch he also declared himself Grand Master of Education, Science and Culture. (2) Aft"r a nevr referendum, twelve months later, he Third Congress of PUNT adopted a new constitution rhich formalised the autocracy and set legal rights aside in the case of subversion or acts against state security. Accusations of these two offences would be judged by persons apponted by Macas himself. Their verdict could be anticipated from the way in which the referendum had been carried out. "Everybody agreed that the referendum day was disastrous. It anybody who intended \/as pure coercion and mplanted an undescribable terror: to vote against. or abstain \,as threatened with public ki1ling. This was carried out. The few r^/ho abstained in Evinayong and Santa Isabel were given a terrble beating, and any who managed to survive v/ere executed a few days later in Bata prison." (3)

The Independence Consitution had tried to balance the numerically dominant Fang by providing certain safeguards for the smaller ethnic groups on Fernando Po. These measures r,ere no\, abolished and the administraton of the two provinces became more ntegrated.
(1) (2) (3) Jeune Afrique, L7 October 1975. Boletin Oficial de1 Estado, 14 JulY L972.

Bidyogo, p.

229

T6

officially Malabo remains the capital. In reality the centre of on very po\,er is now on the mainland, as Macfas only visits the island all his time in the small town rare occasons, preferring to spend almost of Mongomo and ,.rl_irrg rhrugh his political network. Each province is a Each district is governed by go.r"rrrd by a "Gorci" (Gobernador Civil). "yor who is delegated from the Government, and by two Lieutenants-n-Chief' one from the National Guard and one from the Militia, commanding their respective units. The Government delegate is theoretically in control over a conrnittee consisting of the local President of the PUNT, the President of the l,Iomenf s Section of the PUNT and the President of the Juventud en of the Marcha con Mcas. On paper this set-up is under formal control PUNT and the arme-d forces but responsible to the civil administraton' In reality it is a shell around Ehe security organisation shown in the diagram below, r^rhich has its members in all the other bodies, primarily as spies
and informers.

Civil
National Lieutenant-in-Chief --

Governor

..t
Mayor

,fi1itia Lieutenant-in-Chief

(Government

Delegate) -+

President of [Jomenr s Section

J
1

rhe PUNTT' President of Youth Section

Detachment Heads

SECURITY

,7
\

Detachment lleads
I

J
Army

\.L

Militia

The real administrative structure gives a different picture. Tire diagram below shors the key posts. Gone are the ideas of delegation of po\^rer between etitnic groups, of balance and collaboration. All of them are held by '{acast clnsmen, he Esengui from Mongomo'

L7

Life President of the Republic H- E. Macas Nguema Biyogo

Minster of the People I s lutnister for National Securiry (l'tacas) Armed Forces (Macas )
Head of H.E. rs Military Household (Com. Teodoro Nguema Mba N'zogo) (1)

Minister for
(Macas)

Trade

Head of H.E. I s Cvi1 Household

Vice President Bonifacio Nguema Esono (2)

Minstry of Defence
(Com. Teodoro Nguema Mba N'zogo) (1)

SecretarY General

lfinis ter f or Foreign Affairs Bonifacio Nguema Esono (2)

Captain Aide-de-CanP
(t,taye)

Secretary of State for

Economy and Finance

Di

tric t

Corunanders-

Captain Znd. ComPanY

Minister of the Interior

Secretary-General of

in-Chief

(IIba Onana) ( I)

the PresidencY Director*General of ) Security ) of ) Director-General and Tourism ) Information (Daniel Oyono AYingono) (3)

Notes:

Civil Governor
Permanent SecretarY of

(1) Cousins of Macas (2) From Macas t village

and f amilY.

(Feliciano (l) Oyono)

the

(3)

Nephew

of Macas

Commande'r-in-Chief of the People's Militia (Braulio N'zue)

Dis
Di
s

-v

PUNT

trict- Lieutenants-in-Chief
trict
\y
s

vSecond-Lieutenant Detachment Offieers

Militia {,

1B

As with he administration, the Government is one thing on paper This began on L4 JuLy L972 when Macas, elected for and another in reality. a five-year period, proclaimed himself President for Life and took upon himThe first Vice-President, a Bubi self forty-five other official titles. from Fernando Po, died in connection with the destruction of a photo of Macas. According to the Constitution the post should be held by a Bubi, but the present Vice-President is a Fang from 'facas' clan in Mongomo. He will appear again in this account, in the office of Blackbich Prison.
The Cabine should also include the heads of twelve ministries. Of those who made up the Independence Cabinet, ten have been killed' "Africa South of the Sahara" lists the 1974 Cabinet, soberly commenting that but "some of these Ministers may be dead". Three have indeed been ki11ed' lack of zeal as lack of the low number most 1ikely depends not so much on money. trrlhen the economy came close to bankruptcy in L972, several ministries altogether' \47ere more or less closed. At present three seem to have dsappeared Educaton, Popular Construction, Agriculture, The l,Iinistries of Popular Popular Health, and Electricity and Natural Resources have ministers appointed by Macas personally. However, they have no budget and when I went t tne buitdings the doors had been loeked for a long time. The only ministries which seem to function to any degree are the l4inistry for External Relations and Friendship with the Peoples,headed by the Vicepresident; the Ministries of the Peoplets Armed Forces, National Security and he Peoplets Ministry of Trade, with Macas carrying all the portfolios'

really govern life in the country are elementary, The constitutional structure at the top has been brutal and effective. s\^/ept array and the same has happened to the structures at grassroots 1evel, i.u., the tradtional village democracy which functioned on a basis of spiritual authority, kinship loyalties and prestige based on he respect a person could earn from his community. The o1d chiefs and their councillors have been substituted by militants appointed by Macas. "Now every chief If he has ambitions to \^/ants to be a little Macas in his or,rn village." inform on those politically, go further in life he has to prove himself and act in support who are discontented, report suspected "subversivos" of tacas. The days of ruling by consensus are long gone.
The mechanisms which

Every village or tor^7n in controlled by a Comit de Base:, The compositon is the same as that of the Committee at the district 1evel, with the local President of PUNT, the President of the I'rlomenrs Section and the president of the Youth Section. The Base Commitee deals primarily with national security and surveillance of al1 travel and movement within the country. Nobody is allowed to leave his or her place of residence wifhout splcial permission. The perrnit, ca11ed "credencia", is issued by the Deleg'ao C.tUtnativo. It s given for such things as reporting for \^/ork; on occasions for seeking such medical treatment as is available, but very rarely for such purposes as visitinEi onets wife and children. lfhen a traveller arrives at his stafed destination he must prompt.ly report to the local Base Commttee, giving an account of vhere he from, the purpose of his visit and the persons with whom he is h", "oro" going tostay (there are no\/ only two hotels in the eountry, in BaLa and

l9

Malabo) ancl for how 1ong. His host must report on the stme matlers' Failure o comply inevitably leads to arres by the political police the Mlitia.

Further control of movements inside the country is maintained by an extensive network of checkpoints' established every 25 kiloneters along watch Ehe roads and manned day and night. The system is based on a double At every kept borh by the Militia and the ar:ny, the Guardia Nacional' chckpoint there are tr^7o separate camps \^7ith 5-10 people in each, checking orr each other as well as on travellers'
There has been no lack of official justification for the internal security system. Macas has declared that he has been threatened by, and by devine grace saved from, no less than fourteen attacks against his This is not a case of allegations open to doubt; it is downright life. and as far ridiculous. Already the evenLs of 5 March'Lg6g are questionable, clear that it seems far1y as the other repute coups d'tat are concerned most of them have been nothing but stories made up by Macas to demonstrate his invulnerability and divine protection. Among the refugees, opinions are dvided as to l"lacas' other motives for claiming that he has been threatened by "subversivos". Some say that he uses an invented attempt against tris iife as n excuse to kil1, others that he kills whether he has an excuse or nor. Judging from the existing list of his victims and from the knovn cases where entire villages have been exterminated, it appears unlikely that he feels restrained by the need for offical excuses '

"Mitogott, an Equatorial Guinean using a pseudonym for the sake of protecting rlatives inside the country' also mentiones "excessive degrees of racsm, tribalism and regionalism". This deserves comments' The racism directed torards Spaniards may be seen as a natural post-Independence reaction and has not been systematic. The tribalism directed torards the non-Fang ethnic groups has been much in evidence and has been severe periodically, but I have heard refugees of Bubi and Fernandino origin of Against the background say ttrat "tie Fng now suffer more than us". what has been don to their groups lhis seemed a surprising opinion, but their rationale \^as that "the Fang have lost more than us because there are more of them and nor^i Macas oppresses everybody"'
at.tempt at counteracting the preferential treatment the colonialists to understand, such gave to Fernando Po. But other things are difficult as the attitude to\n/ards the already vastly diminished population of

Theregionalismcanperhapsberegardedasanexaggerated

Annobn. A medically trained refugee relates:

"In March and April there \^ras a cholera epidemic in Equatorial Gunea. The hrorld Health organisation, in collaboration tiith the Ministry of Health, began a campaign of vaccination with a team for each province. The tearn for he island of Macas Nguema Biyogo began its work in the capital, starting rith the Government grtr_rl r" i" usual and then going on to vaccinate those in A third of this latter group was vaccinated. Subsequently, ""f,ot".

/,\)

the anticholera vaccine was 'exhausedt before it reached the inland schools. The vaccine which had been allocated for the Annobn district was puE into storage at the medical
dePositorY '

"There v/as a brand new ship rhich could do he voyage in one day. The Government \^ras aware of the stuation on Annobn but rworthwhiler. considered that a trip to the island \,{as not Some time later Annobn was stil1 cut off and the remaining inhabtants serously considered leaving for Angola or some other nearby country. Basic goods were short and fundamental needs could not be sa.tisfied. I recall that one of the worst thngs that could happen to one !as to be sent to Annobn. The area had become a living hell and the epidemic continued to take its to11.
"The General Drector for Health made an attempt to protest against such a state of affairs. He protested and this action cost him his job. He was sent to Ebebiyin as Technical Assistant in the Health sector. After nearly a year the Government, rconvincedr that tsomething serioust \as happening and,with the intention of obtaining pigs to eat on the feastday of 5 March 1g74, ordered the ship Presidente Maclas Nguema Biyogo to sail for Annobn with a leam of nurses, 70 rnilicanos and about 15 Guardia Nacional.

"They arrived two days later after having stopped off for tsightseeingt on the island of Sao Tom (then a Portuguese colony), vaccinated the population of San Pedro de Annobn and did the best deal of their lives, four cakes of soap for each pig. They did an about turn and went back to Malabo. l4ission accomplished. Result z 192 dead, unburied' out of a population of 400 inhabitants. These and other events which are present in all our minds give, I believe, a clear idea of how our country is tled and governedt."
The case of t.he courageous General Drector for Health should be compared with that of a football player from Micomeseng who made a political career in he JuvenEud. "He had not even the training of a medical dresser, bu Maclas made him a medical doctor by decree and nominated him Hospital Director."

the whole, the health situation is becoming increasingly frightening. The climate of Equatorial Guinea provides fertile ground for most tropical diseases, making effective health care imperative. The colonialists built one. In the L92Os there were thousands of victims of sleeping.sickness. Tn L942 their nurnber was reduced to 538, fourteen years later, several hundred thousand analyses had revealed 70 cases. The dread.ed "pian", also knovrn as "tropical syphilis" had appeared mong 61794 people out of 44,652 r,ho had been checked in L942. In 1952 the situation had deteriorated, with 10r952 cases out of 81,352 consultations. However, in 1958, a campaign against the disease found only 21381 afflicted
On

2I

7:I4r37L. Malaria r/as fairly well under control, rnrith an average recolnition as cause of death of. 20 per year. Leprosy had affected in several 4 - 51000 in the l94os but the fight against it was having results treatment centres. The biggest leprosarium, in Micomeseng' had 1r210 parienrs in 1958. (1) In 7967 the country had 16 hospital establishments ,itr, r,637 beds. According o uN statistics, spain, at that time, had one hospital bed for 193 people, Equatorial Guinea had one hospital bed for is even 171 people. There are no indications that the health care system bein *.irrtrirr.d today. on the contrary' it appears to be deliberately neglected, apart from token conLributions from abroad' After the numbers of indigenous medical personnel had been exiled or eliminated, small "Inle could talk ro them when f/e Tere sick' cubans worked r" p"t"*"dica1s. seem bur they had very little in the way of drugs or medicines, and did not friendinerested in helping us any\"/ay. Now we have the chinese' They are cannot talk to them"' lier and r^rant to telp rrs more' but we
among
l{ongomo supplies of some size in the country. These are said to be stored in apparently and can be released only on specific order from Macas' This is I have seen \'ee kept open but the shelves not forthcoming. All the pharmacies pills and the like; \^Iere completely empty apart from collections of headache would find in a family-stzed in size and composition approximately what one first-aid kit. There \,r'ere no customers to be seen in any of the pharmacies had any and I did not get the impression that the people behind the counters in training in pnaacy. ucas is known to have attacked modern medicinedid the context of his campaign for "authenticity", saying that Lhe people no not need it before the colonial period and, therefore, there should be met medicine need now. ft is interesting to note that the use of European with no counter-indications as far as he himself or his innnediate family were concerned, as will be seen in section 4'

As for medicines, the refugees agree that there are medical

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health eare has deteriorated to the stage of the eatly colonial days for all except the Party hierarchy, animal health care has (trypanosomiasis) ' disappeared altogether, largely becase of sleeping sickness wholesale The livestock whlch was not ki1led by disease has been slaughtered rare for the national feast days when the participants have been offered opporunities of eating meat ' If
human

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However,imustbestacedclearlythatlsahTnoindicationsof themselves serious food deficiency. Even Ehose in forced labour can keep free to from sLarvation with a bit of luck and with enough family members climate Generally speaking the hothouse do some subsistence cultivation. 0n Fernando Po the excellent soil makes it makes real famne a remote risk. the beaches easy to grow manioc' yam' bananas and other staples, and along fishing rods ' In with crude women and children catch small amounts of fish possibility of catching fish in the rivers' using Rio t4uni there is also the game, such as antelopes traditional fish-traps or hooks. In some areas there is
(1)

Valentin Mati1la, D.4., "Progresos Sanitarias en 1a Guinea Espaola", Archivos del Instituto de Esludios Africanos, Numero 55, Madrid, 1960.

22

procupines. The authorties have forbidden firearms and metal spear_headsbut'iittagerssometmesorgansethemselvesinsmallgroupswho it with spears with dig pits to trap the !ame, use dogs to-"hase it and kill wooden tPs hardened bY fire' fact that their dier is adequate is illustrated by the extragazeLLes and

The

ordinaryphysqueofthemajorityofGuineans,bothintovrnsandjungle well built' bulging vllages. I^Iith few exceptions, hey are extremely ex_prisoners, whose Even with muscle and of great physical vitality. by deep scars and burns, have managed to ordeals are clearfy illustrated regainimpressivepnysi"alrlealttl.Itseemsfartoassumethatt'hisfactor to the physical and mental strength has been a major contributing 'anazngLy long periods some prisoners have survived' Infact,onehearslitcleaboutlackoffood.Almostwithout about the exeeption, the p.pt. are stoic and proud' and complaints salr, soap and mainly with Government-created shortages are f.r, concerned an equatorial climate and the medicine. Salt is an absolute necessity in The clmate also increases the need to lack of ir has been severely felt. be,andtofeel,clean.Refugeeswhohaveescapedaf.tertTToyearsofforced soap during the labour report tat they recej-ved five pieces of Chinese entireperiod,tobesharedbytheirramities.othershavebeenusing few remaining clothes ' papaya leaves to wash themselves and their

)..

ECONOMY

According Eo UN statisics

for

1967, Equatorial Guinea exported

38,000metrictonsofhighgradecocoaworthUs$25'1:9'9qO:,-1^:'064metric mr of wood worth rons of Robusa "ri..orin us$ 6,209,000.--, 325,806 US$ 624'000'--' palm oi1 worth US$ 19 ,L67,000.-- , 2,995 metric tons of rorth us$ :ogr000'-- and 4,005 metric Eons L,43g metric tons of palm kernels Organisation (rAo) of yuccaworrh us$ 296,000.--. The Food and Agricultural 1,000 metric tons calculated that industrial fishing produced approximately riere exported' of fish per year and that shrimps-worth US$ one million extensive sma11the However, this was insignificant in comparison with canoes, which provided approximately scale fishing, done largely from per capita consumpLion 12,000 metric tons of risr,, bringing the annual

of fish

uP

to

46 kg.

Allthischangedafterlndependence,althoughitisuncertainto whatdegree.Afterlg6gEquatorialcuineaslowlydroppedoutoftheworld. The kind of data Information about the country became more and more scarce' marked with Ydarbook were which make up the cohnns in the uN Satistical anasterisksgnifying''estimate''.ForafewyearstheestimateshTere to low estimated adjusted for estimated growth rate, then abruptly descended errrr nrr*b"rr, then disappeared altogether'
AccordirrgtoPelisser,''Spain,whomadeconsiderableinvestments' (i) from lhe new President"' \"/as \^Tearying of incessant calls for assistance colony fell as flat spanish benefits from trade agreements with its formerits losses and compenas production and imports. The Madrid Government cut
(1)

Africa South of the Sahara,

L976-L977 '

23

sated its returnees for much of what they had to leave behind. It was a lot' One among many, the forest.enterprise ALENA lost all its peseta 727 million investment because of the economic paralysis in 1971. The flight of capital' and know-how did not help the economy to recover' but there s no indication that Maclas ranted it to do that. On Ehe contrary he continued to lead his country towards bankruPtcY.

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In June L974, Africa l{agazine published an article on the situation in Equatorial Guinea stating that the countryrs rate of inflation was greater than in any other African country and among the highest in the world- It 1as revealed that Macas had just expelled the remaining Egyptian, Sudanese and Nigerian echnical experts sent under the Interafrican Progranrne for Co-operation, as well as the Haitian Mittchel Louis, who was in charge of the UNDP office in }4alabo. Currency reserves r^rere exhausted and Lhe only currency which the country possessed was the pesetas one thousand million (US$ 15 million) offered to Macas by Spain. 'According to the magazine, African leaders whom Macas \,as said to respect, including the presidents of Cameroon, Nigeria and Zai"xe and the Emperor of Ethiopia, had advised him to abandon his power. Iufacas' nalural response rras to forbid them to interfere in the internal affai-rs of his country.
months later he convened the First Extraordinary Congress of in Bata. In his opening speech, Macas, much in his owr manner' the recognised the reasons for the chaotic situation: "The matters which will be discussed within this Congress will be limited exclusively to those connected with the world oil crisis and the consequences of this in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and in Africa in general. I am not arad, Comrades and fel1ow Guineans, to affirm that this crisis has affected many developing countries and not simply the Republic of Equatorial Guinea as our enemies within and without believe, for in many regions of the world the price of basic arlicles has increased considerably and such artcles Iluch has been said are in as such short supply as in our o\trl country.... about salt and soap, but I believe that' at the plesent time, thousands of sacks of salt and soap have arrived in Equatorial Guinea and these have been distributed restrctively to avoid price abuses which have been committed by many traders and others who have been selling soap at pesetas Guinean 75.-- to 150.-- per unit. i^le consider such persons as enemies (cries of tDown with the traitorst) of the Government because such sales are destructive. Anybody selling a cake of so.ap at this price will be arrested and brought before the courts to be judged in conformity with the present Constitution of the Republic of Equatoia1 Guinea (applause) ' Henceforth, nobody may sell basic articles at abusive pr{ces, but can only sell them at the duly authorised prices of the Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, and these basic articles will be controlled '" (1) by the Government itself and nobody else
Tvro

pUNT

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True to its name, the Extraordinary Congress then adopted Point 10, a decision "To approve the urgent construction of a Palace of Congress with a capacity for up to 10,000 people; B5Z of the costs to be met by the Peoplers (2) Revolutionary Governnent of the Republic and L57" by the Militants of the Party"
(1) (2)

Bidyogo, p. 266f.. "Decisions adoptadas por e1 I Congreso Estraordinario de1 PUNT", Bata, Agosto I974.

?L

Simultaneously Macas acted in two directions. First he provided his people with a rationale for the economc situation, expressed in an .ngty retort abou the scarcity of food mentioned in the international press, saying, in effect, that only colonialists and neo-colonialists talk about rrilk, bread, sugar and tomatoes "which are not typically African foodstuffs. Meals of the African type exist in Equatoral Guinea". (1) The non-avalability of certain typical African foodsuffs like meat, fishreggs and other essentials \^/as not mentioned, neither was the lack of salt, spices and the rght to consume crops which had previously been produced in the countrY. Secondly, Maclas blamed tnle shortages olr the failure of his countrymen to implement Decison No. 2 of tine Third National Congress of PUNT. The Decision read: "To unanimously approve the Economic Development Plan outlined by the PIINT and its Life President for the recrutment of SIXTY THOUSAND (60,000) Naional I,lorkers who will dedicate themselves to activities concerning agriculture, forestry, roads, etc.r to be recruited from all districs in a First Plan for the rehabilitation of all the plantations abandoned by foreigners. " (2)
The Decision did not do much to help the economy. Semi-official doctrnents from UN Headquarters cautiously refer to the crisis which had begun n 1971, mentioning that the experts which had been sent from FAO in Rome and the United Nations Development. Progranrne (Ullp) had returned from Equatorial Gunea without making any recommendatons. It is noted, without coments, that. they had not been able to study the question. The crisis continued and new UNDP projects' approved in January L975, included "two or three volunteers to assist one expert in a project for "ncrease and

diversification of agricultural producLion". (3) Evidently the days of plenty \,/ere over and the indigenous management capability had sunk to below that of expatriate volunteers.
The ilN plans for assistance were in the fields of. agriculture, livestock, forestry, industry, nalural resources, human resources, infrastructure, development planning and administration, conained n 14 separate projects. A Headquarters spokesman recently declared, off fhe record, tha "due to circumstances outside our own coritrolr our current activities bear no resemblance to the rather extensive Country Programme described for Equatorial G'uinea".

Indeed, current UN activities consst. of teleeommunication developmen, a UNESCO project which no\^7 appears o be Lerminated, a project for maintenance and repair of industrial equipment which is "not in full implementationrr as the experts have lefr the project and reactivation of'a palm oil factory.

At the same time, the needs appear to be greater than ever. Exactly to what 1evel producion has decreased is uncerLan. Recent export
r)
(

1)

Unidad de 1a Guinea

Ecuatorial,

B June L97t+.

(2) (3)

Bidyogo,
UNDP,

p.

233.

Assistance Requested from UNDP by the Governrent of Equatorial Guinea for the Period L974-1978.
L)

lli
ii
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tons per year' figures for cocoa are said to be approximately 3,500 metric at 2,340 metric The commodiry experts at Gill & l,rii,r" put the L975 export try or observations indicate that the low figures might well be ;;;". The beans correct. The extensive plantations around Malabo are all dead' the concrete and are rotting on the trees, all he feeder roads are overgrornm been felled basins are filled with debris. In places,valuable trees have banana cultivation' Eo make place for family-sized ptot" of subsistence produced n Rio Mun and sma1l on the other hand, some coeoa is evidenly markets. quantities of it ''. ,*,,ggled into Gabon for sale on the loca1to Eastern no\^7 go overseas exportsronce almost wholly absorbed by spaint with the low grade coffee' said European.o.rrrtri". This is also ih..tr. industry to end up in East Germany. The productivity of the forestry m3 before rndependence to decreased from an annual average of 364,000 swiss commercial ;a;-;, in rgzr. Later t became negligible. French and incidentally securing a enterprises atempted to revitalise the producion, monopolyintheprocess,butnothinghappened.Itshouldbeaddedthatthe Gabon, in previous trigh productvity, 23 m3 ptnu"t"te as opposed to 10 m3 Spain had because had been possible because of a good transport system and than other importing accepted a rider ange of diffeient types of wood countries. (1) disappeared' Indigenous production of fish and seafood has virtually and partly due to ussR fishing parrly due to the prohibition of ovrning boats the trarlers monopoly. observers in cameroon expressed their concern that empty the sea"' o were using fine-meshed nets and "fishing as if they wanted of the catch Apart from what is gven to those in forced labour, nothing seen any!'Ihere' reaches Equatorial Guineans. There is no livestock to be I sa! \ere four pigs inside afl army compound' not even goaEs. The only animals that'rthe island The Africa Yearbook and trihots Vho for Lg76, sLates approximately 7,000 of Macas Nguema Biyogo and Rio Muni together have its information'refers to licensed vehicles". That, like much of the rest of in the streets the period around 1968. Now it is rare to see a single vehicle transport' 0n1y of public of l,lalabo. There are no buses, taxis or other meansLandrover in Government truck or exceptionally does one encountel a battered supply, rationed service. vehicles vith co regist.ration exist, but a petrol the repair-shops' All at 15 litres per t\,/o weeks, keeps them off the streets' different tradet\'/enty many sti11 with their o1d advertisements for some marks,areclosed.Soarethefillingstations.Boattraffcusedtobe intense,with663shipsenteringandleavingthecountryn1967.Thedoctrnentation present number does not seem to be recorded in international onshipping,butitisnotinexcessoftenshipspepyear'apartfromthe entries in the Soviet fishing ships based in Malabo, and the Soviet navy ship' Presidente The closely guarded harbour of Luba, formerly san carlos'and Bata' It is a Malabo Macas'Nguema, commutes infrequnt1y between of china and manned Japanese-built vessel, providea uy trre Peoplers Republic indigenous cre\^/' a smal1 by chinese who gi.re ""rtain on-th"-jo training tomi1-tary patrol boats of three The only other Equatorial Guinean Uats are of the coasts and the prevention of approximately 16 tons used for control and one in Bata' escape attempts. Two are staioned in Malabo
(1)
UNDP, L974, P, 2l

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26

As for civit aviation, Africa South of the Sahara mentions that' n 1967, the number of arrivals and departures in Santa Isabel was 13,863 and 14r166 respectively and in Bata 7,350 and 7,68L respectively. These remain quife good' The have been drastically reduced but the facilities The Soviet airline Aeroflot Spanish airline lberia has a weekly flighr. f1ight, luloscow-Tripoli-Malabo' set up "for geting also operates a weekly naval cre\^rs and technicians in and out", and to avoid what has often happened in the past when Equatorial Guinean students, coming home from training in rhe USSft, rried to defect before boarding the lberia planes. In addition, there is the national airline Lineas Areas Guinea Ecuatorial (LAGE), which has two flights to Douala in Cameroon and four per week between Malabo and Bara. LAGE is perated by Iberia personnel but Equatorial Guinea holds 51% of rhe shares. Other services still exist. Malabo has electricity more or less daily and water for one hour a day. But the national bank is closed since the Director \,as publicly tortured to death behind the Hotel Panafrica in Bata The central post-office remains permanently closed with an iron bar across the doors. Its closure cannot have made much difference in view of the rigidity of the censorship. Tro hotels remain open' Panafrica and Hotel Bahia in Malabo. The Bahia is attractively situated by the beach, whi-ch one is forbidden to visit, thus making the harbour completely out-of-bounds. It is not a bad place. The stained and rotting matresses have no bugs and it is kept very clean. Guests who bring their ovm food from abroad have no problems with meals and, when I stayed there, it was very quiet, possibly because I was the onlY guest.
The streels of Malabo are s\^/ept regularly and .he facades of most houses are still in reasonable repair. In fact' one is constantly reminded of what an extraordinarily attractive city it must once have been' It is now strikingly depopulated and gives a general impression of a place hit by war or the plague. At the tirne of my visit practically all shops were closed, In a few places small girls or old as \^rere most of the market-place stalls. a couple of very small loaves \/omen can be seen on the sidewalk selling of bread made from flour mixed with manoc, or a sngle cigarette' or a box of matches for 75 ekuele. With rhe ekuele on par with the Spanish peseta, this amounts to approximately US$ O'90' Certain staples are more reasonable in price: manioc was US$ 0.30 per kilo, bananas US$ 0'60, poratoes and yam US$ 3.-- per kilo, avocado US$ 0'60 per piece, pineapple of condensed US$ f.20 per piece, palm oi-1 US g 3.-- per litre, a small tin (These figures are expressed milk was US$ 4.90 and one egg cost US$ I.25.

in

US

dollars to facilitate

appreciation'

Fresh fish from the beach can be found on the market in very smal1 quantities at US$ 7.30 per kilo. The crabs, lobsters, shrimps and other seafoods, for which Santa Isabel particularly used to be famous ' are nowhere to be seen. MeaL and dairy products ale non-existant. Flour is very scarce and bread made out of flour is a privilege only for those who have the means to import it by air from Douala in Cameroon. Rice from China is reserved for pople doing forced labour and not available in the markets, but Cuban sugar can sometimes be found at US$ L2.20 per ki1o. A big bottle of Chinese beer costs US$ 9.75.

27

Importedgoodsareexpensive.Apairofshoescosts5'000 6r.--), a pair of trousers 6,000 ekuele, a shirt 5,000 ekuele ekuele Razor blades used to cost the equivalent of and a towel 2,OOO t,r.i.. us$ 0.60 each but can nol^7 no longer be found. Inlristwatches' spectacles the'matter-ofand the like are Ehings of the pst, vrhich helps Eo explainmilicianos at he were stolen by the fact way n which most of my belongings airport. when I tras leaving the country'
(US$

The con.rol over the sale and purchase of basic articles, mentioned taken' also in Macas, speech tn L974, sti1l exists. I have seen bribespermits very matter-of-factly and routinely, for the issuing of the of soap lists required for essentials. The ttitt.o permission to buy a bar separate' all the members of the applicants household, and similar, but and other permissions are required for the purchase of kerosene' a spade

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fundamentalthings.Ho'u.,".,itappe''sthatwhenthearticlementionedon a ne\'I on the permit is not available, many officials will not insist bribe for a new aPPlication' differEven the visiting foreigner quickly becomes ahTare of the not manifest irself ences between the "haves" and the "have-notstt' It does using money' The "haves"' so much in clothing, but rather in behaviour and in bundles in smart, confident and free r*o move around, carry their money in quality' wiLh a their pockets. The banknotes are of the best-, British-made of metal thread inside the watermarked paper for electronc detection they are in the \^lay counterfeit money. Yet their real value is demonstrated held often handed over in the standard bundle of nineteen 50-ekuele notes ' the terrace at a beer together by the folded twentieth. Party-officials, havingthey, nor the which neither of the Hotel Bahia, calmly pay with bundles not drink beer recipient,bother to count. The "have-nots" do not Sl^Taggert do and do not carry bundles' Before going on to mention Maclas' most important effort to\^7ards the recruitment of Lhe implementation of the Economic Development Plan: be incomplete \^ithout the National Inlorkers, these notes on the economy wouldGuinea has ordered the quotation from a spanish periodical, "Equatorial themintingofsilverandgotdcoinswithavalueof2'000ekueleand Championship 10,000 ekuele respectively, to comlnemorate the Iniorld Football (r) hich are to be held in Argentina"'
3.3
.

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FORCED LABOUR

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TheendofslaverySomel50yearsagodidnqtmearranendtoforced crops' are both labour. Cocoa and coffee, economically the most important imported labour' iab'our ntensive, and the building-up of plantations required from the Kru eme mainLy u-ri,ng much of the rrineteenth ".rrlnty the workers rribe,recruitedbyLiberiancons.,ls,bothontheLiberiancoastandin itinerant I,,/ere widely scattered as vest African ports, where the Kru-men dockersandsailors.ThisSystemgaverisetoconsiderablecomplaintsabout keeping contract time and consuls bad working conditions, illegal extension of A defeated Liberian presidential part of the workers' wages for themselves. of being responcandidate caused a stir in the us by accusing his Government

(r)
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"Ya",

7 l{"ay 1978.

!i
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denied this s.ible for what amounted to slavery. The Liberian President commission to and asked the League of Nations to send an inernational recruitment investgate. The report, read in Geneva in 1930' noted that scarcely criminal compulsion had been carried out "under conditions of (f) distingushable from slave-raiding and slave-trading"'
about At the same ime, French colonial authorities I^/ere concerned Guinea ' (2) the continuing out-migrarion of \^ToIkers from Gabon into Equatorial artifcia1 borders However, this was a voluntary, spontaneous migration across administration Spanish colonial into Rio Muni and neither the Frlnch nor the Laer a similar iurmgration of Fang from Cameroon had the means to stop it. took p1ace. point of The trend in cocoa prices was rising and, from Spaints production on Fernando Po rhere view, he mos important thing \,as to increase At the large modern plantations \^7ere being created, needing more manpol/er' of mainland nurnbers same ime, there hTere reasons not to bring over large such as the cotrnofl saying that Fang were Fang. some were paLently absurd, handling most' not fit to farm cocoa: the same subtribes r/ere successfully real to the Others h/ere more if not all, of the cocoa farming in Gabon. Fang' which politically astute: the old aniagonism bet\'Ieen islanders andrising Fang Spain had made rrorse, and particularly the fear of imporLing docile island' nationalism and claims for Independe.rce into the peaceful and who could rt was easier to import foreign vorkers from another country, conventiently be expelled should the need arise'

Economicandotherpressuresintheover-populatedsouth-eastern to find part of Nigeria 1ed to a migrant \^/ork-force' parts of which began signed was their \^Iay to Fernando Po. Tn L942, a formal labour agreemen but, on occasion' attempts by the Spanish and British colonial administrations Fernando to keep thngs working smoothly failed. The short distance betr'reen the Biafra during particularly po and Nigeria contributed o the difficulties, of Ibo refugees reached both the island and Rio l"luni' war when large nr.rnbers the height and Santa Isabel \4'as the main airbse for relief flights durng of the famine. the After Equatorial Guinea became Independent, Macas stoppedFaced Red \^7ages' He also stopped payng the lbo fheir Cross relief ffigrs. in Biafra' with the choice etween starving in Equatorial Guinea and starving to have sad thev stayed on, but the situatin was tense and- 95 of them are (:l Nevertheless, when 20,000 workers !ere repatriated to ;;; ;iii". Macias to Nigeria in 1972, the Lagos Got"rn*.nt signed a ne\d agreement r'ith accusations with recruit another 15rO00. But the strained situation continued' Irritation from both sides, incidents and isolated outbursts of violence' in conrol grew in Lagos where it was said that "while the spaniards were But after Indepthe labour agreement had been kept and paym.ents'dere made' endence...EquatorialGuineanotonlyfailedtomeetitsobligations,but (1) League of Nations Document C.568M.272,Commssions Report, Geneva,
1930.

(2) (3)

Balandier,

79lO

Sunday Times, London,

I February

L976'

29

subjected the Nigerians to what the Nigerian Government descrbes as an (f) About half of the unbroken chain oi pto.ro"ation and humiliation". 45r'000 man !orkforce on Fernando Po had gone back to Nigeria rhen the incidens goL \^/orse. After embassy personnel had been whipped and eleven Nigerians shot, the remaining 20,000 Nigerians were quickly repatriated and the Nigeran Labour Congress urged that the Federal Government consider (2) It could have been 'lthe imperative necessity to annex that is1and". done, but was not. The usual ominous calm settled over Fernando Po and the cocoa production ground to an almost complete ha1t.

This r^/as unacceptable. Equatorial Guinea had substantial bills to pay, for arms, Government vehicles, the presidential plane, improvements Lo the port in Bata (although it was used less than ever before) , a very expensive Congress palace, printing of new stamps (a costly undertaking arranged through Trevijanots interests in Liechtenstein) and the printing of the new ekuele bank notes in Great Britain (at a cost of US$ 2 nillion). tlacas needed cash. He had got credit before from the USSR by giving them the monopoly of fishing in the rich waters, but that affair could not be
repeated.
Cocoa production had to be increased. The output on the small plantations oned by Rio Muni Fang had declined badly after nationalisation. Only large-sca1e agro-industrial farming on Fernando Po could help the

bankrupt

economy.

recruitment should have taken place after PUNTTs Third Congress in 1973. Actually it began in 1976, mainly in Rio Muni. About 700 people were called in. Ilost of them had nothing to do and little to eat anyvray and went voluntarily for a twelve-month period. The real number of people who went was much higher as many could not afford to leave their dependents and took them along to Fernando Po.
The first

Ln L977 there \^rere two more recruitments, this time under strong coercion. The Larget was 25,000 workers from all the ten districts of Rio luluni. Taking into account their dependenls the number reaehed approximately
40,000.

Forced labour is unpaid. It may be regarded as an unusual "foodfor-work" system, remunerated by 20 kilos of rice, 4 litres of palm oil and 4 kilos of fish per month. The ration is given to the vorker, rrespectve of the number of dependents. While for an individual the quantity is actually somewhat in excess of that provided by the World Food rogranme for people in relief camps, it is clearly insufficient for even a small family. It is also interestng to note that rice, provided by China and fish, provided by Ehe Russian fishing monopoly, are not available on the market places, but only for those in forced labour.

Conditions are tough. The workday is as long as the daylight' from 6.00 to 18.00 hours, the rhole year around. The severity of the control varies. When bad it means beatings, withholding of food rations,
(1) (2)
Sunday Tirnes, London, 1 February L976.

International Herald Tribu'ne, 2B February

L976.

30

viol.ations of women of all ages, random brutality and the occasional killing'out to carry I^Ihen good it means certain leeways, such as allowing depedendents slash-and-burn cultivation, leaving the workers quiet as long as they fulfil their quoas, and no molesting. Under no circumstances does it mean paynent' food beyond that mentioned above, medical care, or freedom to coffnunicare wth relatives' or to go home.

l"iost of the forced labour is on the cocoa plantations. There are also other fields of endeavour for the National In/orkers. Maclast faithful, together with Chinese technicians supervise those building the highway, from behind the barracks of the Policia Armada in Bata in the direction of Evinayong and Mongomo. French engineers from the DRAGAGE enterprise ratched them toil on the construction of M,ac{ast nev/ palace in Bata.

Some import.ant distinctions should be made in rhis context. The Liberation movements have talked about slavery. This is debatable. "S1avery"

implies a propertyelementand conjules up images of auctions and trading posts' the The National irtorkers are State property, not to be traded, only used for in the "corv benefif of the nation. They are m.tch I/orse off than people once system" who had to spend 15 obligatory days on public works in French ltlest Africa until Lg46. They are better off than the Sklavenarbeiter in Nazi of property' Germany \^/ho \^rere, on the wholer regarded as an expendable piece Russia who, undeT forThey are somewhat \,orse off than the serfs in Tsarist tunate circumstances, could produce a surplus and accumulate reserves of their own, giving them a certain security and independence' It is interesting to note that in 1953 the UN ad hoc Cormnittee of Three exposed certain conditions in the corrective labour camps in the USSR and that this eventually led to the rnitigation of some of the severer sides of the Soviet labour system; in particular to about one-Ehird of the camps being converted in 1965 to relatively milder labour colonies' In the case of the present conditions inside Equatorial Guinea, both the UN and the USSR close ifr.ir eyes. Irrhile the attitude of the latter may be understood, that of the uN and, more recently, that of the EEC inspire grave \^/orries. For the regime, the National \^Iorkers represent an asset and a hope to get the country ouL of bankruptcy in order to preserve the current system' However, they are not treated as a valuaLle commodity. Abuse is frequent and aecepted by the Government, as vitnessed by numerous incidents' In one particular camp, the guards, after confining the male labourers to their quarters' raped many of the women. A fifteen year o1d girl tried to bite off the ear of the guard who was raping her. Ilis companions then held her pinned to the

3t

groundwhlethebleedingmanpulledabrandoutofthefireandburntouc hervagina-slowly.Hewasnotreprimanded,possiblybecausethedead are the law enforcers gr1 was noE a 'ori., and possiuly also because 1a\,runtothemselves.other'moreroutine'Sanctionsaredescribedinthe following Pages 3.4.
LAI^I AND LAI^J ENFORCE}NT

is guaranteed by the "An independen and secure judiciary is the highest court of Constitution. The Supreme Tribunaf al Malabo appeal. " (f) AcomprehensionofthelawenforcementsysteminEquatorialGuinea and' wnt to leave the country is important for the understanding or rtry people A further reason is that therefore, deserves to be descriud at some length. contact with it, particularly those who have returnees tend to get into.tor" been expelled frorn other countries' Penaltyclausesinthenationallegislationarekeentostateserious crime for such a imprisonment. r,, la' LlLgTI' it is the punishment in Equatorial Guinea Foreigners as insulring rhe president (O-ti y""ttl.' get the same punishment as i"ttgrity" working "against the terrirorial The distinction is academic' nationals, i.e.,20-30 years of priso, or death. Lately'therangeofpunishateoftenceshasbeengreatlyexpanded.Itnow includesgivingofferingstomissions'nott'urningupformanifestationsof is again rt praise and joy on national t"""tlrys and being "descontento". almost anything' academic. Almost anybody can be arrested for Inmostcasestheprocessleadingtoarrestbeginsatthebottom Jefe del Seguridad dominates' of the ladder. There, at village 1evel, theyoung and militant student' with a The local chief of Security is irequently thepowertosuperviseandcontrolhistwocolleaguesintheComitdeBase. village from youngsters in the His information is, to a great extent, derived family' neighbours and others' who are erlcouraged to inform on anybody: AccusationsandallegationsareforwardedbytheChiefofSecuritytothe DelegadodelaMiliciaatthedistrictlevel.TheniilitiaDelegatehas' -as his only function, to forward reports to the President' If no acknor^1edgeback to the Jefe' he will contact ment from the Office of the Presidlnt comes has not been forgotten' Macas directly, to make sure hat the accusaton ThereportsaddresseddirectlytothePresidentarebriefaccusations whatsoever',to verify if the in telegraphic style. There is no pto"Ldrrtu leads to a Presidential order for aceusation is true or fa1se. Normaily, it lead to promotion for the Jefe' punishme4t; and an abundance or t"potls will asinthecaseofAntonioSeguro,.,,ittiteratemilitantfromEbebeyin. Theimportantthingtonoteinthiscontextiswhatmaybethemost tragicaspectofwhathashappenedinthecountry:thedestructionofthe once democratic and based on traditional social system. The villages, made into political instruments mutual assistance and respect, have ben been replaced by political nominees' for the regme. The chiefs and elders have
(1)

Africa South of the Sahara, L9l6-11 '

often despised by the population and always dependent upon l{aclas for their po\^ier and promotion. In this system' syrnpthy becomes \'eakness, old loyalties Letrayal of the Party. One can only guess lhe amount of strain many of rhe new officials are under in a situation which makes ruthless and ambitious exposure of potential enemies of the State a matter of personal survival '
Orders for arrests can also orignate from the top, from he President himself or from the circle around him. Previously, this would sometimes

lead to a trial, especially in the case of a teal- or alleged attempt to oppose the regime. There have even been occasions where the accused have Ur r.ptesented by defense lawyers, although there are strong indications that these latter were under instructions not to defend their clients, only to plead for clemency. The "defenders" wouLd then be over-ruled by the will of the peoplei expressed in shouts of "No mercy for the enemie of Equatorial Guinea". Death sentences , a foregone conclusion if the accusation came f rom Macfas, T,{ere carried out by public executions with obligatory cheering attendance from all the population within reach. Methods have varied. In 1969, the victims "vlere unski1lfully hanged ... to the strains of Mary Hopkins singing 'Those hlere the Daysf over the The background music !as not used later, possibly loudspeaker system".(l) because of breakdowns in the electrical sysLem. On Christmas Eve of the same year 4alabo prisoners were publicly shot but later executions have usually not involved firearms. Instead prisoners have been beheaded' with their heads left to rot on poles, slrangled or beatentodeath' In the case of the Director of the National Bank in I'Ialabo, Mr. Buendy, his hair and eyes l{ere burnt before he was killed in a spectacular event in Bata in Lg76. Subsequently, his village vas detroyed and the remaining villagers beaten to death.

Information that Macas enjoys being present at executions is incorrect. On the contrary, he usually signs the death sentence and leaves for Mongomo even before the trial has begun and, in any case, public execuEions have now all but disappeared. l4ost of what happens takes place inside the prisons. Former Miniser of Health, Pedro Ekong Andeme, personally witnessed the beating to death of 157 prisoners during his in jail from 1971 to Igl5. (2) Other wholesale killings have oro "."y in villages connected to some offender andt at times, when the occurred actual prison \,/as too small for expediency. This occurred in Bata, tn t974, when thirty-six prisoners !/ere taken out of the jail and ordered to dig a ditch. They were then forced to move into it and the earth was filled in, leaving only their heads above ground. The next day witnesses saw that all but two were dead with their eyes missing and their faces partly eaLen by insects.
There rs some feeling among the refugees that the Cuban presence has alLeviated law enforcement practices. "Idhen they shoot people they do it wi.thout r,luch of the usual brutality and oflen it seems that they do not really rltant to clo !t." Also their treatment of girls s much belter than what happens to the girls in prisons or the ones attached to those in forced labour.
(1) (2)

Financial Timqs, L7 February B.B.C., 27 August L97B

"

1970.

33

takes place is knovrn as El Baile, the Dance. Expatriates re not invited but there can be little doubt that the Chinese medical staff at the nearby hospital have seen the results of it. An ex-participant gives the following account:
one spectacle which still
I'On Saturday evening a dance akes place at Blackbich. sixteen en come ouE of a lov building. Most of them are naked but they cover themselves by tying banana leaves around their

raists with a piece of string. Then, around sunset, they begin o dance around a burning fire. Three other men stand in the background, singing and keeping the rhythm by clapping their hands and encouraging the dancers to join in the clapping and the song. The words are simple and repeaed incessantly' Usually, there are only a few spectators at the beginning, but later soldiers will turn up from the army ctmp' fifty meters &wa:yt often bringing their wives and children to watch the dance. Eventually the dancers begin to ire. Sweat glistens in the firelight on the lean bodies. Some of thern will stumble, but the dance goes on because if one of them fa1ls ' one of the onlookers will reach for one of the iron rods which have been heated until they are as red as the embers. careful not to burn his hands, he will aim a stroke, sometimes missing sometimes scoring. The fallen man gets to his feet and continues moving around the fire, clapping and repeating the endless song. Not until most are !/eary beyond exhaustion does it end. Then, with the dancers staggeling around \^/ithout sense of direction, is the scene broken up. The onlookers move in with Abaca sticks in their hands, hitting those who fall or crawl unEil they eventual 1y find their \^ray in through the door they Once inside the came out of some five or six hours earlier. building they are prodded and manhandled into their ce1ls."

This is a description of one saturday evening in Blackbich (known as "Blbich" which is pidgn for Black Beach), the prison in l'lalabo' It has been confirmed by independent sources, and there are no grounds for doubt, that it goes on every week of the year. Similar scenes have been witnessed in Bata.
My question hIHY received different ans\Iers. Three informants mentioned lrcias' Lg73 campaign for "Authenticity" saying that the dressing up in grass skirts \^/as.intended to irnitare certain tladitional dances' everyOrre srrggested that fot a long time there had been a severe lack of thing, including enteltainment, for bored soldiers. Qne shrugged' Qne said nothiog, orrly mentioning the name of lfacas' nephew, Daniel Oyono a Ayingano, rio is nief of National Security. He is also the author of pamphlet abouL the 1974 tti.aL of large numbers of political suspects' nritfe "El Baile de los Malditos" - The Dance of the Damned.

Blackbich is surrounded by a four-to-five meter high concrete wa1l. It is quite smal1, only some 35 X 40 meters but the area is used which To the left of the entrance is a building with two doors effectively. lead into th" "nav.s". The big ha11 is windowless. Two electric bulbs burn day and night and there are latrines at one end. There are nolmally around 180 prisoners, all men.

The prisoners ae divided into groups, according to the reasons for their arrest. There are invisible lines of demarcation between the parts of the hall where the political prisoners are and those of people ccused of ordinary criminality. In actual facL, the latter receive preferential treatment and constitute a privileged c1ass. The "subversivos" are controlled by a kapo system similar to that of concentration camps in

Europe, wih three criminals n the key position of bringing food and drinking \^/ater. It is also the three kapos who keep the pace of the weekly dance sessions.

On the other side of the open court is a somerhaE smaller building. Its far end is a t'nave" reserved for female prisoners. At the other end of the building is the prison office and the room where executons are carried out. In between are sixteen cells for solitary confinement. Each cell is 160 cms long and 60 cms. wide, makng it impossible to lie down in a straight position. There are no windows and no light and scant ventilation hrough holes below the roof. In the daytime the heat is stifling. Urine andexcreta go oll the floor. Cel1 There is no \,rater and no latrine. prsoners are kept naked or sometimes allowed a pat of underpanLs. They are never allowed out, except for interrogatons, the ceremony called "raising and lowering the flag" and Saturday evening dances. Food may or may not be brought by the guards; one ex-prisoner says that he received nothing to eat for two reeks. The "f1ag ceremony" is prison slang for daily beatings.

a prisoner is taken out for interrogation he is invariably made to run the gauntlet between the guards rho are present. He is beaten with truncheons until he has made his \,ay to the door of the prison of f ice. There he is tied with his hands behind his back, thrown on his stomach on the floor and has his legs bent backrards until his feet can be tied to his elbows. The position is referred to as Ethiopia in memory of the Ethiopians rho worked with President l"lacast security system in L972-74.
Inlhen

The actual interrogation goes on while the prisoner is lying on his face and stomach. It is nvariably accompanied by beafing and although routine questioning only goes on for fifteen to thirty minutes on account of the number of prisoners who have to be heard, informanLs who have been through it say that time seems long.

Interrogations are conducted by Sergeant Ondo Ela. Ile is from Mongomo, old, but strong and vigorous. Allegations that his strength comes fro feeding on human ftesh are impossible t.o confirm, but his reputaion for uncommon brutality seems well-founded. Ile has been decorated for his fervour and diligence by the President. Trvo clerks assist with the typing of the protocol, if one it taken, and with manhandling the prisoners. Usually at least two of the three key persons of the judiciary system on the island will be present: Comandante Teodoro Nguema Mba NtZogo, Jefe de 1a Casa Militar de Su Excelencia, Bonifacio Nguema Esono, ex Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and now Vice-President, and Carmelo Bic, Teniente de 1a policia Armada. In case of executions or interesting interrogations normally a1l three will attend.

35

Nighttime is usually preferred for interrogations and always for executions. Killing takes place in the room adjoining the prison office. In the past prisoners vrere often shot or garrotted but nor the common method is crushing the head. The prisoner has his feet untied and is led r dragged into the inner room. There he is forced down on the floor and held, face down, while the sku1l is-broken with iron bars. The body or bodies are left on the spot and fetched in the morning. The three kapo crimnals have the task of washing away blood, vomit and brain substance. Fairly often a corpse is brought the 500 meters to the hospital where death is declared to be natural. The body is very rarely given out, although, on a couple of occasions, the family of a particularly important The usual way of body dsposal is o person has been able to retrieve it. rop it into an open pit, locally knovm as Toma' behind the cemetery' The vehicle used for transporting corpses from Blackbich is well known and its registration, which carries the Presidentts initials, MNB 8740, is feared' the ce11 prisoners news gets around fast by wal1-tapping. The sounds of interBet\nreen certain cells it is even possible to talk. rogations and killings can be heard quite clearly from the ce1ls closest to the wa1ls of the prison office and the execution room. Generally, all prisoners here know each other but, because of the turnover and mortality rate, the names of those in the cellb1ock are eventually forgotten' However' sometimes there are telltale signs. In the light from the elecric bulb in the corridor, one prisoner entering Cell 6 saw the name Ondo Edu written low on the wal1, apparentlY with b1ood.
Among

Apart from routine interrogations, torture is used to break a prisonerts resistance. It can also be added to normal questioning methods on the order from a Gobernador Civil ' or a captain of the armed forces ' The reasons may be anyhing from a personal dislike of a prisoner to the President having had one of his supernatural visions. The most commonly used instruments are:

A Club made from a coffee-tree branch, carefully selected and \,rorked, some 65 cm. long and elasic. It is normally used by the National Guards and the Milicianos enrusted with the transportation of poltica1 prisoners on their way to forced labour. "It is used for all t.yPes of continuous blows and makes the flesh and the muscles so painful that iE is impossible to touch the part of the body which has suffered the blows because if is so sl'/o11en.rt A rubber truncheon made from lorry tyres, about 3 cm' thick and 45 cm. long. "It is used for all fypes of continuous blows and leaves swollen \^/eal s' particularly on the buttocks' Some three hundred blows are given daily at each session.''
Abaca stick, made from an elastic root which is very cormon on Fernando Po, particularly in Moka. It is used to give blows across all parts of the back, feet, buttocks, etc. "Because it is very elastic it bends to the forrn of the body and leaves thck 1nIeals

.tt)

which are painful as the club strikes a large area of he body all the time. It is about 55 cms. long." The l{elongo club is used in the same way.
An initiate Eorture:
E1 Balanceo (The Swing): The prisoner is tied by his feet and hung above the ground and beaten mercilessly about the ribs, lower part of the back, the buttocks, etc'. He is sr/ung from side to side and around in circles to make him dzzy and sck and to create a feelng of terror within him. The pain from the metal

into the system has listed fve current methods of

links or rope binding his ankles is intense and the prisoner rapidly loses consciousness.

into his wrsts right to the bone. The resulting pain is made increasingly unbearable by the prisoner being beaten by clubs and pulled downwards. Inlhen suspended by the wrists the prisoner rapidly loses consciousness. The pain is extremely brutal and if this form of torture is continued for more than 15 minutes, the victim is unabte to use his hands for several days and the pain stays wth him for more than three months. In addition, there is the possibility that he may suffer permanent injury to the bone or tendon. On occasion, the National Guard or the Mlitia leave prisoners hanging for a considerable time as though they were colpses
Las Tablillas (The Planks): Planks of wood are pressed on both sides of the ca1f, ankle and the under part of the foot. At the end of the planks are notches over which ropes are passed and progressvely tightened so that the feet are so contracted and painful that the least movement is unbearable. This form of torture is employed for hours at a stretch and, on occasions, the prisoner is left in this position in the ce1l.

La Colgadura (Hanging): The prisoner is hung from the roof by a rope attached to his handcuffs. This makes the handcuffs cut

(the Shackles): Metal fetters are tightened around as hard as possible so that there is no circulation the wrists in the hands. This causes a very intense pain which is further increased whenever the shackles are moved or pulled or struck, and make the metal cut ino the bone. Prisoners are sometimes made to undergo this form of torture for days at a time and there are many who are left with deep scars on the wrisls.
Los Grilletes

El Rombo (the Quadrangle): The eLbows are forced behind the prisonerts back until they rneet and are tied in this position. His wrists are bound in front of his body. The prisoner is left in this state for a considerable period of time until he collapses. He is then repeatedly forced onto his feet and beaten until he is no longer atrle to stand and then is brutally kicked where he has fallen. The pain is such that loss of consciousness follows rapidly and so to avoid this the pressure is decreased from time to time. This form of torture generally lasts for 3 or 4 hours
11

IH

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a .day

The wrists and elbows are subsequenly left permanently scarred and injured, often they remain raw to the bone'
.

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he ?he same ex-prsoner has also given a personal account of what It has been regarded as the ri/ors experience, the feeling of going nsane' experience' I have met no confirmed by one more person with a similar more than hese who have been in a position to tell the story'

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"The cell is a room which is permanently damp and foul-smelling, justlargeenoughforoneperson.Thereisnolighting,naura1 or arificial and almost no ventilation. The prisoner is deprived of everything (cigaretes, visits and even food on occasions) and kept in the most bsolute solitude. The prisoner is forced to rerair, standing the whole day and the guards watch to see whether he leans against the wall, in which case he is beaten'
,,The reson for prisoners beng put in these cells are varied' It a suffices that one of the camp prsonnel takes a dslke to occasions On other prsoner for him to be escorted off to the ce11. prison.r is put.in the ce11 without any explanation whatsoever' Allernatively prisoners may be punished collectively for an act carried out by one individual. Many of those who have undergone

ii

lorture have come out with ther nerves shattered, in a sate of former madness, with their health and sight impaired, such as the Miniser of Economy and finances, Mr' Braulio Ichinda'

"For the unfortunate prisoner-assigned to the punishment cel1s' life turns into the most brutal sort of exsence. I^lthin a short timeblackelouds,likedarkmarshypatches,descendintothe The situation becomes one brain and mpair his mental lucidity. incessant martyrdom in which all thinking and reasoning is blocked and and nothing is envisaged other than nightmare, pain, suffering despair.' A bat1e cornmences within him. The superhuman efforts he as shadows' makes to rid himself of these evil nightmares are as vain past prisoners The very wa11s are hung with the remembrances of which haunt the' newcomer. ,,His nerves are on edge, a spark of madness seems to .trant to take hold of him, his hands become tense, a dry svieat' as cold as the cell walls, breaks from his body. The minutes are slow and hang fortunate n the air and he weeps in anger and helplessness. The more escape ones cry out loud, braking the silence, letting their tears behindthebars.Thosewhoareabletoreleaseatorrent'ofrears again' know a brief moment of relief and hope which soon disappears night comes r,ithout his seeing it. The Guard gives the order to le dovm on the dirty floor and sleep and so he lies down, But anxiously seeking, like a star of hope, the oblivion of sleep' side from sleep tetrays ni, insomnia invades the body and tosses it out, sadand mosquitoes crawl to side on the hard floor. The bugs istic and bloodthirsly, stabbing and stinging at his skin so that a what he had hoped for as rest turns itself into a sufferance
,,The

3B

thousand imes r/orse. Solitude pervades and, like a lost soul , he heaves a sigh that he might leave this threefold hell of body' soul and mind. If he is released, he is marked, infrm, unhinged

to the point of

madness.

"Hatred, disrespect for human Life, a desire to break a mants will - these are the only qualites with rhich Maclas'People's Milita are endowed."
The aecounts add certain overtones to the words of rhe Saturday

evening song: Maclas

The population adores him, Le us enjoy ourselves in Independence

is a serious

man'

l,lork and remain quiet And the Lord of Guinea will take care Of you for a long time. "

3.5.

RELATIONS I^IITH FOREIGN

POWERS

The picture is not easy to dscern. On numerous occasions it has been mis-represented and deliberately confused by partisan interests.

A good starting point for clarification can be found at the embassies in Malabo. The biggest are those of the USSR, Cuba and the peoplets Republic of China. Of more modexate size are hose of the German Demcratic Republic, Libya and Nigeria, but the Nigerian Embassy is under a condition of siege with a number of Nigerian nationals confined to the The Ambassador is n Lagos Embassy compound and not allowed to leave it. indef initely.
The Spanish Embassy s open, but no Spanish Anbassador has been there since 1975 and presently there is only clerical staff. The US Embassy was elosed in Mareh 1976. Gabon and Cameroon have embassies but the ambassadors stay in their respectve countries. The French Ernbassy is the only one from the I'Iestern bloc. It appears o be the smallest in Ehe tofnrn and, at the time of writing, the Arnbassador w1l be leaving shortly'

Other countries with dplomatic relations with Equatorial Guinea are the Central African Empire, whose ruler has always been admired by Macas, and Ghana. Diplomatic relatons with Sekou Tourts Guinea-Conakry came to an abrupt end when a citizen of that country had a relationship with one of Macasr mstresses. The diplomatic contacts which reman with ambassadors accredited in Malabo, but stationed elsewhere, are Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Democratic People's Republc of Korea, Romania, vietnam and
Yugoslavia.

39

Hr

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Of intergovernmental organisations, only the United Nations Development Progrartrne (mqOp) has an office in Malabo, wth a minmal staff and a budget rhich has been reduced from US$ 800,000.-- in L977 to US$ 500,000.--

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in 1978. UNESCO diseontinued its activities in the country n L976. I^IHO has a represenfative stationed in Yaound who visits Malabo once or twice a yeax, but after Macasf refusal to a1low LrrHO, or anyone else, to relieve the cholera victims in Annobn, the practca1 results of the vists appear negligible. The Organsaion of African Unity (OAU) closed its office in Malabo n L977. On the other hand, theEuropeanEconomic Conrnunity (EEC) is plannng to provide aid in accordance ith the l-om Convention. It ntends to give financial and technical assistance for building sorage tanks for fuel for the fishing ships, road mprovement between Baa and Mongomo and harbour improvement in Bata.
The Papal Nunzio representing the atican in Yaound is accredited in Malabo, bu has not been here for several years. The Cardinal from The Spanish Catholc Church appears to have withBenin has made one visit. dra,n completely. The presence of ndividual foreigners is very limited. In 1960 there rere 7,068 Spaniards, 4,222 of hem on ernando Po. At the time of

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writing, there are, apart from a skeleton staff of three clerks at the Embassy and about ten people running the national airline, only Seores lfontero, Torbay and Touza. The last Spanish schoolteachers, sent by Spain as a part of a cultural assistance scheme, left in March 1978 after considerable harassment. gne Portuguese, married to an Equatorial woman is staying.
The number of Cubans has been reduced to about 500 r+ho are mainly concerned r^iith military training and some teaching. Soviet Russians are very much in evidence in Malaborbut most of them are in the sealed-off submarine base at San Carlos and on equally inaccessible radar and radio installations in the highlands of Fernando Po. The Chinese are mainly in Rio Muni, where they work principally on road improvements. They also have a eam of ten para-medicals there and another tearn of eight in l{alabo where one of their tasks is receiving bodies from Blackbich. In addition, they have built a radio station in Bata, are working on telecommunications in Malabo and run a ship named after the President which sails irregularly beteen Malabo and Bata. The French engineerng firm DRAGAGE has been involved in construction of Macast new palace in Bata.

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Oher French private firms are involved in forestry, at least for the time being. The prosperous 150,000 ha. forest enterprise in Nyefang, expropriated from Antonio Lopez Sanchez, has been Laken over by Cubans, a trend which may continue. On the other hand, it is possible that Cuban embarrassment over the nature ofl4aclas' regime may lead to a withdrawal'
Commercial relations, once dominated by Spain, have now altered direction. Reduced quantities of cocoa and coffee are exporLed to East European countries. Some of the timber goes to France. Swiss Plans to get into the timber ndustry in Equatorial Guinea came to nothing and there are no known relations with Llest Germany. Trade with Spain has stopped altogegher', unless one includes the presence of Trevijano as rePresentative
40

ii

..

t-

oi Spanish interests. Howe-ver, this would be farfetched, as Trevijano has now been deprived of his Spanish passport and lravels on an Equatorial Guinean dplornatc passport-when he makes arrangements for Macast foreign
trade. There are no other foreigners n Equatorial Guinea. More than that' there is a legal ban on any conversation or other cormunication between naionals and expat.riates, with the usual consequences in case of detection. The ndications are that this situation is likely to remain. But a reaction has begun and, on 23 February Lg7B, the Secretary General of the UN made an atenp to esablish drect conact, on a confdential basis, with the nepublic of Equatorial Guinea. As direct contact with the Government of Equatorial Guinea did not result n achieving the desired objective, due to te refusal of the Government of EquatoEial Guinea, a majority of'the I^IorkingGroup (three members: the tqro other members of the i,lorking Group abstained) recournended that the Commission, before taking a final decsion on this matter, undertake, accordng to the procedure laid dovm in paragraph 6 (a) of Economic and Social Council resolution 1503 (XLVIII), a thorough study of the human rights siuation in Equatoral Guinea, taking nto account the economic, social and cultural conditions in that country.

Macfast political anrbitions are confusing. Although his main support comes from the USSR and Cuba, and his main trading partners are he East European countries, he made violent attacks against the USSR durng his visir to Peking in L977. His attacks against imperialism and colonialism have been very consistent, but somewhat lose n their concentration when they include Switzerland and organisations 1ke the Inlorld Council of Churches (l,fCC). (1) As far as his general attitudes are cor.cerned, some indications can be found in the political affinities he has claimed with Hitler (see Appendix 1), Franco, President Amin and President, now Emperor, Bokassa I. But these hardly seem relevant, rather another sign of his political immaturity. At the time of Emperor Haile Selassie?s death, Macas declared that he wanted to cror,m himself King, partly to gain "prestge within the Organisation of Afrcan Untyl'. He r^as strongly advsed against such a move by flabbergasted counsellors. The fact that he did no renounce the Kingdom because of personal modesty is clear from the list of forty-six official honorary titles he has assumed, only a couple of which. are mentioned in this report.
The intensity of the opposition against Macas' regime has expressed itself in a number of Liberarion movements; all in agreement about the absolute necessity,to install a democratic rule, but often disunited because of differing political views, and because of the lack of traditional coherence between tribal groups and sub-groups. The lack of unity is in part the Iegacy of colonial divide-and-rule policy later reinforced by Macas. There are also indications that Trevijano directly and indirectly creates dissent and distrust bet\^/een the Liberation movements, partcularly in Spain. The result is a bewlderng number of acronyms, dominated by ANRD, ASODAGE, CAHIS, FAM, MOLIFUGE,OMGE, URGE and several others. At present a1l of them operate under formidable constraints, without support and at bes barely tolerated. For obvious reasons the Governments of Gabon and Cameroon are unable to recognise them and the OAU is forbidden by its ol^n statutes to acknowledge a Liberation movement directed towards an independent member country. (1) Recorded intervier with l'tacfas, B.B.C., 30 July T975. 4l

Nevertheless, the despar of the refugees has taken the form of at jungle action. fn L976, a smal1 group of exiles made its I^7ay through the and a few bushknives they night to the ovm of Evinyong. I,iEh bare handsget arms and amuniton and attacked the nilitia Uarratts, in an attempt to start a popular uprising. They r'ron he fght and found the weapo::'-::t.n:}T-,t., attempt faLe, because there ws no ammuniton there' According to The-.T.imes\ri of the they kil1ed or wounded eight membe-rs of the militia and two soldiers the of national guard before they were foiced to etreat. The brutality Maclas t Evinayong is an indication of subsequenE reprisals in and around furher dread of the extraordinary courage of he raiders and his fear that attacks will be more successful'

(1)

18 Decembex L976

42

4.

MACIAS, ''THE UNIQUE }IRACLEII

Accounts of post-Independent Equatorial Guinea imply a number of contradicrions. To clarify some of them it is necessary to make an attempt at understanding the role of President Macfas in the events of the last ten years. His official title "E1 unico miraclo" hints at his tremendous importance and the way his personality inter-relates r+ith what has happened in his country. However, whaL has so far been said and i,ritten about him has been in he vein of conveniona1 European political and social concepts. This is far from the whole picture. There are other aspects; an African reality, profound, at Eimes difficult to perceive, but perhaps even more

important.
Maclas belongs to a Fang clan cal1ed Angui or Esengui, meaning "Father of the Goril1a" and is said to have been born n the vllage of Nsangayong in Mongomo District on l January 1920 or L924. Irrhile the date is uncertain, it is clear that he r^ras rrot born in Equatorial Guinea, but in the small own of Oyen in the Fang-dominated Woleu Ntem Province in the north of Gabon. People from Oyem point out his birth place, sometimes with pride rnixed with fear. His father, Biyogo, known as "Su Santo Padre" (His Saintly Father) \^ras a well-knovm man, famous for his sorcery and infamous for the casual killing of one of his o\,n young sorls.

There is no mention of Maclasr birth in any of the official registers in Equatorial Guinea. The first tirne his name appears is in the Registro Civit in Bara in 1935. The entry sirnply states his name vith the counent "a boy of approximaEely 15 years". In the records his fiame rtas then written Masi. He later changed it to the Spanish form Macas to honour a Spaniard who had helped him to become "emancpado".
A highly complimentary biography of Macas, published in the Catholic monthly La Guinea Iqu,atol:.ia1 in October L96B described him as "A man rho knors ti" peopt. atrd all their psychological artifice, subterfuge and reticence. The administrators obtained a true and exact understanding of the situation The statement shows lack of underthrough the faithfulness of these traits'r. standing both of l{acfas and his people but it gives an indication of how While the militants for Independence Maclas \,,/as regarded by he colonialists. were imprisoned, detaned or in exi1e, Macfas stayed on the job and was seeri: by the Spaniards as a trustworthy collaborator, always eager. to please, and easy to handle because of his intellecLual shortcomings. He was rewarded acctrdingly with the "Order of Africa" and the "Merito Civil", and with the confidence of he authorities. he went througtr his basic education in Catholic schools dominated by his elder brother and with no apparent talent for as a shy boy study. 0n three occasions, in 1940, I94L and L942, he failed crucial examinations at the now closerl Escuela Superior Indigena in Santa Isabel which

In reality,

would have.qualified him for the beginning of a career in the civil service. In 1943 he was hired as an "ordenanza" (orderly), with the Forest Service and Public Inlorks Department of the Sub-gobierno de Bata.

43

AfterStrongpersonalrecommendationsfromtwoofhisSpanish time and superiors he was allowed to sit for the examination a fourth to a posting passed it in Lg44. This 1ed to his becoming "emancipado" and with the then as t,auxiliar administrador" first in Rio Benito DisCrict, until L962' Ile remained in this job public tr^lorks Department in Bata. became assistant Then, after a long illness and a year spent in cameroon' he posting in the an equally 1ow interpreter in the remote Mongomo District, eivil service but with certain opportunities for a shrewd man wihout ignorant scruples. He used his key positioo tittt Spanish officials who were against or of the language and the customs by twisting his translations for confid f".ro.rrite method of his was to people, particularly in court. a stiff was entially tell a man accused of some minor offense that hehave facing it reduced' to sentence ,rt trrri he, lt""f.s, would use his influence in If the re\^/ards r"ru rro, up to hs expectations, subsequent translations the courtroom tended to cause problems for relatives of the ungrateful'and to show him The colonial authorities noted the respect people seemed to 1968' Maclas lived up made him "a1ca1de" (mayor) of l"longomo fto* tgO: Tn L964 ro their conf idence in him trrd agio his ef forts \^/ere rerarded ' and he was made vice-President of th "consejo del Gobierno Autonomo"Constitutional ,,Consejero de Obras Publicas"' t\^7o posts which he held until the posts he kept a 1ow Conference in June 1968. In spite of these prominent in most of the Independence political profile, present but largely inactive
movements.

seor fn Lg67 he became friends with a spanish legal expert named report in this Antonio Garcia Trevijano y Tote, referred to as Trevijano recognised the potential of Macfas r,herehis name appears of ten' Trt'ijano of the costs of a and took him under his wing, paying for at least part New York in 1968 in order visit which Macas made to tt" unitud Nations in by the recorded \,/as to be groomed for greater things. It(1) neces sa1.y, as shor^m incoherent' and They are rambling made in late 1967. "n""n"-il;i"; wirh appeals to the President of the conference not to interrupt interspersed defy analysis of him, to al1or trim to finish, not to cut him short. Theyas Maclas sometimes his political thought and leave the teader as confused they are' they also as declared himself to be. Bu, full of sound and fury haveasignificance.Thereisapowerofexpression,atalentformoving Bantu el0quence ' an audience and an unmistakable element of tradition have been very clear to the Conference precisely what l1acas vanted may not but it was evident that he wanted it very strongly' approaching Trevijano r^/as awa'e of this. Ile financed Maclas in the behind (2), making it clear tha. he r^ras campaign witfr pseras 50 million was o come' and him, writing his speeches' masterminding much of what for his or'n ambitions' instrunent obviously regarded Macas as the ideal tunt opponents !ere Maclas ran an excellent eampaign' He had to' His But they were all in more popular, more experienced, .much .tlur educated. himself as the favour of close collaboration iit spain and Macfas presented did not ta11y If this only real nationalist, the only true anti-colonialist' in the villages' He home with his speeches during the Cnference, it went

(1)
(2)
44

Ecuatorial, Actas de la Conferencia Const Eucional sobre Guinea L961, Discursos 31-10, z-IL, 3-11, 6-Lr, 8-11, 9-11, L-IL Ndongo BidYogo, P. 14L.

travelled extensively, concentrating on the rural people that his more sophisticated competitors neglected; especially on village chiefs and their counsellors rho, in turn, used their considerable influence over other villages to make them pay heed to the potenrial President:
People who remember him from that period have said:

he

"At that time Macfas !as a good speaker. He could really rouse his audience. He would start off with his slogan - Unity, Peace, Prosperity. He would speak f"or a very long tme, much of it in Fang because his Spanish \^/as not very good. Then he would break off and point a a plantation or a house orrmed by a l^/hite and fYesl'. shout 'Do you want that?r and people would shout back tlf you voe for me I will give it to Your Then he would say and the younger people would be for him"' Still, Maclas may have lost if Spain had not intervened elumsily in the internal politics of the country. In particular, the activities of Sr. carrero Blanco, Minster of Foreign Affairs in Madrid, did irresponsible damage to the reputation of Bonifacio Ondo Edu, leader of the mosE important political group, MUNGErand a man generally respected by the people. Later Trevi j ano \4ras to say that "Ar the time of Independence the only person with the necessary force of character' strength, energy and prie-was Macfas. He was the only leader capable of uniting the country The first does Lehind him". (f) The last sentence has some truh in it. not. The other major candidates possessed the same virtues and it seems airly certain that, if no other aspecs had been involved' one of them would have become Presdenl. But there were other sides to Maclasl personality and the support he received ras less blatantly colonialistic.
Backed and prompted by Trevijano he appeared on television, then relatively wide-spread. Those who watched saw a serious and concerned

politician, with internarional experience gained during his journey -to New York and the UN lleadquarters. (It was only much later that Maclas said publicly fhat, because of language problems, he had only been abLe to coamunicate wit.h very few people. It seems that a major encounter \^7as with two puerto Rican janitors in a corridor who told hirn that they were being oppressed. some of Maclasf strong feelngs about the u.s.A. may date back to-lni" episode.) But his populist genius worked best in the vil1ages. His limited education and antipathy for things he did not understand was accompanied by a syrnpathy for certain old traditions whch r,rere shunned by his cmperitors and completely ignored by the colonialists. Hs fatherrs reputation helped rmong some sections of the Fang tribe and his o\^irl T^/as beginning to grornr along similar 1ines.
He ron the first ballot rith 36,716 votes against 3Lr94I for Ondo One r^reek Edu on 22 September 1968. The margin was sma11 buE sufficent. later he won the second ballot and his \,ay to the Presidency was open' The
( 1)

Dominguez

L977

, p.

26,

45

outcome \^las voEes \iere honestly counted under UN supervision and the judging from perfecrly clear;- itre people had made their choice. Bur \^ras ahlare of one interesting facl: spanish ne!s reports at that time, nobody the only mainland district \,fhere the vote went against him was Mongomo'and five years dominated by his own clansmen, where he had been mayo fox whee.he was bett.er knornm than anywhere else in the country'
Macas for this report is to try to elucidate the extraordinary character of It is very difficult' who is one of the enigmas of eontemporary history. I have talked with hundreds of puop1" rho have met him, seen him, listened remains to him and, in some cases, knovrn him as r,e1l as anybody can' Yet he elusive and with him, the future of Equatorial Guinea'

The rest is history and has already been outlined'

I'rIhaL remains

4.L

TilE PERSONALITY OF PAPA MACIAS

The personality of Maclas appears to be inseparable from his political thinking and, at first' seems to be just as obscure and incomprehensible. Partisan accounts do not contribute Lo one's understand-

cause ing. Trevijano refers to him as: "Passionately given to the noble of dissimulation or intrigue' of the Independence of his people, incapable Ramon sternly upright in his objectives and actions". The Spanish writer' his Garcia Dominguez, who knew him personally from Lg72-74, describesa pathcharacter as: "unbalancedrinconsistent and unpredictable, wih unusual outbursts of o.logically psychic incongruency which provokes his lucidity and which and violence, interrupted by priods of equilibrium of a latent must be related t a sense of bifte resentment arising out inferiority comPlex". Equatorial Guineans in exile habitually refer to him as "medio fear, boEh loco,, (half rnad). If asked to elaborate they will mention his his irrational dead victims, of people who may be a threat to hirn and of his phases of the behavour and obsessions, and the way he is influenced by the moon, indicating lunacy in the literal sense of the word'

of these stereotypes are very illuminating and statements bY medical abot mental instability remain weak if they ae not corroborated hands of certain sPecialevidence. This may exst but is inaceessible in the ists of medicine and psychatty in Spain' his hearing' "For a long time l"lacas has been having trouble with compaign and his deafness has It was aLready evident during his election Pladrid before increased since." In fact he went o the Clnica Ruber in diagnosis the the elections, for examination and treatment. However, was remitted to revealed s)mptoms beyond the purely physiological and he outcome of Dr. Lopez Ibor n Barcelona fot a pty"tti"atic examinltiol: Tht ethics but' this examination has not been revealed for reasons of medical further consultto Barcelona for three years later, Maclas went clandestinely ations with Dr. Ibor.
None

46

If the effectiveness of the psychiatric aid remains unknovm, it is clear that his deafness has increased. This could explain some of the peculiarities of his behaviour, such as his screaming and shouting' It might also conribute to his tendency to suspect virtually everybody'
Macfas \,as also treated by Dr. Manuel Duran Sacristan at the Hospital Clinico, Ciudad Universitario in Madrid. Again, medical ethics tori revelations about the patient but rumour has it that he was suffering from a brain umour. However, mfly refugees who were once in a I position to observe him closely confirm each others mpressions of some of the more noticeable trais

"He is physically strong and in good health but badly co-ordinated, wittr jerky movements. He has no tribal scars and has forbidden all scarrification after he had a vision in which he sar himself attacked by visitors with scars. His eyes and ears are bad but he uses no hearing-aid. He only accepts food cooked by members of his own family and it is all imported from Spain. He never drinks alcohol, only mineral 't^later, buL he drinks Iboga and smokes Bhang and this shows in his pupils.''

widely spread. derivative from a local tree. The drug can be taken Iboga is a little-knovrn both by smoking and by drinkng, and is said to resemble LSD n ts effects. It is also regarded as an aphrodisiac and plays an important role in traditional religion. It may be assumed that the effecs of systematic and prolonged use are less than healthy. Its hallucinagenic effects are potent and may explain certain of Macast peculiarities
Bhang is a loca1 form of hash-hish, relatively
been "Maclas is very frightened (tiene mucho miedo). He hastOndo Edu, heard, publicly, to cry out the names of his victims. you, Atanasio, why do you search for me? I have done nothing to you have killed yourselfl t. He once ordered the table laid for eight peop|e, then sat dor,n alone and kept up a conversation with the dead persons for whom the table had been set. The servants qrere mute. Maclas is guided by voices. Nobody knows quite whose but sometimes he will stop himself in the middle of a speech, listen quietly for a moment and then talk about ondo Edu and Atanasio."
Some

'

things can be inferred from his recorded speeches and from his public behavior. Anecd.otes abound but some are confirmed beyond doubt and appear to be indicative and inspired by a sense of pity, perhaps partly because as a public speaker, Macfas is a long way from the usual calm dignity of his countr)rmen. tr^Ihere the latter use guiet measured eloquence, Macfas shouts and rants. Thre is much of HiLlerts hysteria in his more rabble-rousing deliveries but !,/ithout the calculated build-up and carefully orchestrated response. Maclas improvises, swilches from Fang to Spanish and back again in mid-sentence, and rushes on, heedless of the shouts from the crowd, repeating himself or changing subject as the mood takes him. Some of his mannerisms are undoubtedly caused by his deafness, bul the rambling incoherence and length of his speeches (rhich often go on for hours) is

41

partly due to his use of Iboga and Bhang' An eyewitness account may serve as illustraEion: ,,In 1975 Maclas had ordered his picture to be put up everywhere' InDecemberthatyearhewasinvitedtoEheUniondouanireet conomique de ltAfrique centrale (UDEAC) meeting in cameroon' telephone trrlhen he r^as there he was urgently informed over the pictures, on the door of the house of the ex-vicethat one of the President, had been torn. He inrnediately left for Malabo where Lhe first thing he did \,as to order a big meeting, a Congreso Popular, for the Seccion Feminina de PUNT in the hiorkerst Recreation Centre' ByS.00inthemorningeverybodyhadarrivedandwaswaiting. ucas arrived at 13.00 hours' very excied and intoxicated from Bhang and went right into a violent speech: 'r have been told that my picture has been destroyed' .1 cannot tolerate this' Now' I ask you Nobody is allowed to point his fingei at it' what shall I do with the person who has destroyed my image?' 'Kii1 him'. Macfas then began to talk about Atanasio and the coup d'tat. He then changed again' to say that and that they \^/omen were allowed to come to his closed palace any price they were all free to sel1 whatever they wanted at liked.Afterthat'hebegantotellthemthatiftheyeverhad trouble with their husbands he would receive them and the meeting endedinlaughter.Laterinrhedayheorderedameetingofall the teachers and students in Malabo in the Collegio Nacional for the next morning'
,,The women shouted

an

begantoinsulttheMinistersandtheaudience,wipingthe s\./eatfromhisforeheadanddroppingthemicrophonefromhis trernbling hands. He began talking about the destroyed picture and said that if an mage of him \^/as ever harmed in the College' everybodytherewouldbethrovnintotheseawithastonetied around his neck. 'From today, the }linistry of Education rill be closed and all the teaching stopped. I r,ri11 create political corrnissars to take over aLl the posts held by spaniards and throw awayallcopiesofthebookFormaciondeEsprituNacional Ecuatorial and write a ne\d book ca1led Formacion politico de Guinea eight people Two days later the president actually made a list of its rho were to co-author the book. Llhen it eventually appeared of the Prdsident, a list of contents were limited to a biography his forty-six titles and an attack on Spain' President,BosioDidco,hadbeenunderarrestsincethetorn photograph had be"o ruiorted,and was killed shortly after."
The ex-Vice "Maclas never returned to the Conference in Cameroon'

"Macfas arrived in his Mercedes' He \"as very excited'

He

the period Maclas can sound quite normal on the radio and during to have been impressive when the country sti1l had a TV station, he is said say that there are days when he can on the screen. Those who know him re1l bequitepleasant.Atotherlimesheiscompletelysilentortalksto

45

himself. irlhen he starts to grind his teeth he is regarded as very dangerous and fear of him mounts during the period from November to January, particularly at the time of the ne\^l moon. His excentricities can sometimes have a happy ending. During one of his difficult periods, in early L975, Maclas rushed out of hs palace a rnidnigh in a tantrrn. Armed with a machine pistol and accompanied by the Governor of Bata, he picked a Landrover and In/ent to Okucuc Bianba Mba, a 1ocal drinking place. l{aclas kicked the door open' waved the gun and ordered everybody present to 1ie flat on their faces on the floor. Lrhen he found thaE there \/ere several soldiers present his rage mounted and he beat their faces, screaming that they should stay in their camp to guard their President, and then he 1eft. He went to the military camp some 200 meters from the Old Palace and emptied his gun into the ceiling. "Laughing like a madman" he screamed that Lhe duty of the soldiers \,ras not to rest but to guard their President and then he returned Lo his palace. The next day he promoted all the soldiers he had beaten to the rank of
Lieutenant.

gther incidents would appear mainly humouristic if it were not for their sinister connotations. He has' on occasion, picked up a stick The ominous thing about and begun dancing before the crowd, rather stiffly. an other\,rise harmless exhibition is Macas' preoccupation with cults that demand human sacrifice, accompanied by dancing. Ths subject vill reappear in the context of the Bieri and Bwiti cults. His inferiority complex is constantly mentioned by those who have knovm him. The reason most conrnonly mentioned is his lack of formal education, but as that is compensated, to a large exLent, by his shrewd intelligence, it would seem that there are other more relevant factors. These are probably more in accordance with the traditional background. One has to take into account that for a Fang, the family, and especially the procreation of the family, is of Paramount importance. A man can be rich and powerful, but if he does not have wives and childrerl' he is considered a non-entity, a nobody, an object. of condescension and ridicule. The importance of the family is also shown in the concept that a man has to break the sacred kinship ties and sacrifice a relative, the closer the better, in order to obtain potent magical po\/ers. Rumours that Maclas has done so abound but are, so far, unconfirmed.
The President is frequently referred to as Papa Macas but as pater familias, he has had his hardships. During his Mongomo period he
a

look the Bujeba girl,Ada,as his first wife in a Catholic marriage. After she became the mistress of a Spaniard named Roman he wanted to divorce her but the Bishop, Monseigneur Raphael Nz Abuy, refused. They had a civil separation in 1965 and she sti1l lives in l{ongomo, childless. In L972, he married C1ara, mulatto daughter of Santiago Osa, in a traditional tribal marriage. It is unkown who is the fatkrer of a boy, born in L972. Clara, who had some nursing training, held the post cf Director of Pharmacies, but has escaped to Gabon. Things were better with Frieda Krohnert, the mulatto daughter of a German and with Monica, the mulatto daughter of a Spanish The latter has een his consort since L964. Maclas Guardia Civil.

49

patiently had most of her previous lovers killed: Luis Nguema FredericoandsimonNgomo,'AgapitoNmvo,AntonioEljoandAntonioMane. cameroonian lover Tancho How.everrhe contented himself with expelling her Osseni.HeadoptedhersonwithOsseni'Teonesto'whoisnowinCuba with a for rnilitary training. He also adopted l'Iaribel, her daughter children r'ith the Deputy Director and pao and Moniqrrit, her
Nsu'

Guardia Civi1,

ofsecurityforBata.ThelatterdiedinBataprisoninlgT3.Monica in early I97B where was extensively mentioned in the international press emptied his it ras stated that she had escaped from Maclas, after having million) ' This is Swiss bank account (said o have contained pesetas 50 a grand shoppping incorrect. The illiterate but colourful lady went onas Maclast business tour, via Moscow, Paris, Las Palmas, where she acted

representativeindeatingswithaLebanese,JuanSesinJuan.Shethen Both to Malabo' visited Tripoli from where she returned, with Aeroflot relationships with other Frieda and Moniea no\,/ live in Mongomo. Maclas'very attracted to \^7omen is lromen have been of short duration. "Macfas husbands' during of mixed race. In order to live with them he kills their hisperiodsofmentalcrises.ThiswasthecaseoftheDirectorofSocial S"curity, FeliPe Pedro Esono.'' Thetediousdetalsalepresentedinanattempttoshowthree t p"t'o"lity; his sexual impotence which makes important f"".t, f u"""' strong loyalty to those closest to him and his him a laughingstock, his'of others. Thl picture then begins to emerge of disregard for the lives his deeds, unlearned but a person who is victim as el1 as perpetrato ofbut not sadistic' sensitive' but without direction, ruthless
shrewd, dynamic

lonelyandhaunted.Heisamanwhoisnotregardedasamanbyhisown on the preposterous people rnd whose desre for recognition and love takes cult he has created' expression of his mania for titles and the personality Hispersonalitycombinesintelligenceandhumour,albeitoftenbitterand Sarcastic,withaneedforthegrossestflatteryimaginableandcoupled it is oddly moving with amazing megalomania. Against this background ring of a hope which with its to recall his siatement on 16 January L969 have I "I have beln considered as mad' Ihenthe madness ,/as not to be fulfilled. has been suffered from madness? The only madness I have shown madness is over and for freedom and since freedom t, ,ror been achieved my (1) done vrithI"
MACIAS AND RELIGION

TheCatholicChurchbuiltastrongnetv/orkthatwasamplified bytheeducationalsystem.Christianity,saidtohave,beenadoptedby 957"ofthepopu1ation,ilYhavebeenthinlyspreadincertainpartsofRio important It \^tas an Muni, but there is no doubt that it was widely spread' governent' Training colonial power which was closely interwoven with Lhe ofindigenousclergywasoneoftheslowestinAfricabutalsooneofthe during the and Ii," aro indigenous bishops who were installed
mosr thorough

Autonomyperiodrerechurchmenofgreatstanding.Theyalsohadtheirornm Monseigneur ;t;;; ;irrr. ol"."". In a pastoral letter in April 1968, i'Th. preoccupation of some Catholics about the Raphael Nzu Abuy-\^rrote, brought home to us' attitude of the political leaders of Rio I'luni have been
(1) Dominguez,

P.

37

50

warn you against messengers of tribalism, hate and false promises, as well as egoism. fie also !arn you against anti-religious rabble-rousers. He who does no! fear God will not respect the laws of Human Rights'l.
Inle

followed ras a long story of escalating anLagonism on both sides. The Church, whose bishops (considered by many as imporant as the president) showed little willingness to co-operate. Maclas hamstrung the Church by expelling the two bshops and began a slor but fairly systematic campaign of humiliation and harassment. From L972, the year in which he made himself Life President, Party officials were increasingly prone to state "No hay mas Dios que Macfas" (there is no other God than Macas). pUNT catechism, which ras taught everywhere, compared him to the Messiah, an obvious wordplay in Spanish._ Its slogan "God created Equatorial Guinea thanks to Macfas. I^lithout Macfas, Equatora1 Guinea would not exist" bcame an obligatory part of Church services. Unwillingness to comply led to temporary arrests of priests, monks and nuns. A few were killed, for instance Father Jos Esono, but, on the whole, imprisonment was milder than usua1.
Lrrhat

In November I974, PUNT, upori Macfast order, prohibited all religious and encouraged popular supervisiog.gf "the subversive activities meetings of the Catholic and oiher missionaries". ( r, In March and April the fo11owing year, the tone hardened. Christian names were forbidden' so \.fere Christian funerals. The funeral ceremonies should be "carried out according to the African Lradition". Sermons r^/ere to be censored and alms or offerings to missions became prohibired. Private Catholic teaching institutions, the only ones sti11 providing a semblance of educaton, \^rere to be closed (see Appendix 2, paragraphs 2 ro 5 - the Decree is typical and well worth study). No Guinean shall' On 10 February |916, another Decree had one single artcle: as from this day, be called by the names by which he ras baptized in Church. Neither shall the mispronunciation of Afrcan names and particularly with 'European intonation', be permitted. Any person failing to observe this law shall be sanctioned rith a fine of Bipwera one millon". I ras in Malabo a small Church near the market place was stil 1 kept open, as well as a very small Seventh Day Adventist Mission Chapel . The Cathedral is inside what has become the Presidential enclosure, which is sealed off. It is now used ag an arsenal to store a:rns provided by the Soviet Union. I did manage to get into one other Church. It had been total ly vandalised. Everything inside was broken and lying in shambles on the floor.
trrlhen

The reaction of the Vatican has been one of discreet silence. Letters to the Pope have been answered by the State Secretariat which "takes note of the contenLs". Cardinal Pantin fromBeninwent to Equatorial Guinea n L974 and apparently informed the Holy See that the situation r^ias not serious. He also advised Equatorial Guinean seminarists abroad to return to their country. The returnees who did not manage to escape were imprisoned. The Papal Nunzio so as inYaound in Cameroon has recommended the Vatican to remain silent' in the country" There is a great deal no to endanger the rnissionaries still of information about the conditions available to the Catholic Church both in Cameroon and Gabon but, either it is noL passed on to Rome, or the Vatican hlhat is astounding is that no action has so far been taken to suppresses it. for the spiritual welfare of the refugees ' not to menlion their do anyhing

material welfare.
(1)

Unidad de Guinea Ecuatorial, 22 November L974.

-1 JI

In May 11971, Maclas declared his country to be an "atheistic staterr and shortly afterwards he expelled seven of the last Spanish missionaries from the ordine de los claretianos. Their average age \/as 66 and they had were accused SPent an averag e of 32 years in,Equatorial Guinea before they (1) The only one to remain was Father or iuiog ineliiguot" agents' and then had been Leandro Fuente, aged 85, who had married Maclas and Ada as evidence that kept in Mongomo as a kind of house chaplain, often usedpresence by an Uaas,"" ir good Catholic". This phrase, used in myview of Maclas t agent provocaEeur in Gabon would """* qt"'tionable in rather blatant violations of the Ten Commandments' In reality, the evasive action taken both by t{acfas, _pretending that atheism of a vaguety t"tarxist kind, and by the Vatican, pretending normality, are both highly christianity is sti11 observed riit-, r modicum.of misleading.Religionisplayingaveryimportantpartinwhatgoesonand the country and in Ehe situation amoig the equalorial Guineans, both inside into accoun!' neighbouring staes, cannot be understood unless this is takenof only a the support Macas t ability to suppress an entire nation with of political terror and smal1 fraction of it is only partly the result the strength of arms. Equally important. are the subjective factors; almost the feeling of fear thal he inspires is so sLrong that it causes rotal apathy and poltical impotence'
The question of beliefs outside the main established religions is a senstive issue. There is a tendency o rrite them off as primitive but supersttions, something to be regarded with regret or condescension,

certainly not to be taken seriously'

This atritude of superiority rnight have some foundation if applied when to current Western beliefs in astrology. It is inexcusably superficial rell-knovn African applied to rraditional belefs in a tribal community' A scientist elucidates: ,,l,lany of those who live in developing countries exist in cultures .inwhichthesupernaturalisveryrealindeed.Theyascribe naturally o"".rtiing phenomena to the whims and capriees of gods who mustbeproptiated.InNigeria,Ogunisthegodoflronandmany him vehicle ri.rut, believe that they can neglect v/orshipping days' onty at their own peril. ogun drinks blood and, every few his devotees have to find a live animal to saerifice to him'the This sacrifice is much more important to many'dlivers than regularmainLenanceofheirvehiclesandanaccident,instead vehicle' of being due to careless driving or mechanical failure of a (2) is ascribed to the anger of the god!"
and steaming The Bantu world of beliefs is bursting with vitality deaths are considFer and the power of virginity. with fecundity, fertility most aspects of 1ife. It can cause success ered natural and magic permeates it afiects childbirth and crops, and the outcome of r^ar' I'Jhat and failure, (1) (2)
E1
Arnre, O.

Elecromagnetlcs r"Development Problems in the Teaching of TelecomJnulric.ation Journal, Vo1. 44, and Telecommunications", October 1977, P' 495

Pais, 7 JulY L978.

the British, French and Spanish colonialists disregarded as pagan superstition remans a reality in the villages and sti1l influences life profoundly beliefs systematically. At an early stage hechangedhis emblem from the vigilant rooster o E1 Tgre, an animal which and does not exist in Africa, mystical, immortal, 1etha1, feeding on blood gazel-iLe as an emblem' Inevitably, they flesh. His political opponents had a lost in the villages.
Maclas uses traditional

Shortly after he became President, he revived the Biri cult of ancestor worship and collected powerful skulls from all over the country' is presumed to have created sanctuaries for these skulls in his vllage at go. Mongomo, where nobody outside his inrnediate group is allowed to

He

He collected all the sorcerers and Mvet singers he could get'hold of and learnt their Maln (magic). Most important of all, he learn the differen kinds of magic practised by the different tribes and is nor in a position rvhere he always has a surplus of countermgic' to the extent that he is invulnerable - within the context. of traditional religion. His fear of and very active campaigning against Christianity had a 1ot more to do with this than with affegations that missionaries were imperialists. Christianity, and I'Iestern technique and science are po!r'erful enough in their owr' right to be able to resist or even neutralise his magic.

Tomakehispowerknovrn,heusedtheMvetsingers.Theyare itinerant musicians who sing a kind of chronicle and running comment oir current events and are important disseminators of ne\^ls. Inihat I had not realised of when listening to them in the villages was that they are also in possession Some new dances Seem dangerous *"gi" and are performers of sacred dances' to h".ru originated fairly recently in connection wirh the Bwiti cult and were possibly created by Macas himself. It became knornm that the Tiger \^7as a legacy from Macasr grandfather, to serve him in defence and attack. If a group of people would gather to assault him, Macas would only have to "speak with the voice of the Tiger" to make t appear instantaneously in his defence. "It serves him as a guide'. I{hen he intends to go somewhere, if he sees the Tiger go before him he says that \^ray is the right one and, if he sees the Tiger turn back, he says tha way is Lad." It also remains invulnerable and immortal as long as it gets it" pr.y. "Inlhen it stays in the forest it eats animals. In the villages it eats men and feeds on human flesh every two or three weeks ' " With rhat "knowledge of his people and all their psychological artifice, subterfuge and reticence" so highly appreciated by the colonialists' Macfas placed his totem animal on Ehe PUNT rnembership card' The signifieance success that \^7as clearly understood by everybody. It contributed to his Macfas had come from Gabon where the secretive Bwiti had been more powerful than in Equatorial Guinea but where it was more feared" to approach and even The cults of Biri and Bwiti are difficult tounderstand to most readers from industralised countries' more difficult They are mentioned by writers such as Balandier, Trilles and hlalker. They are seen through gi."s darkly and expressed in sociological terms. People "
53

may also be veiled' in the villages put il more b1unt1y, although their termsin the night you have ,,you may le against Maclas as long as the sun shines but and hey sum up to be fr hi;. " These were the terrns used by one old man between the one explanaion for the otherwise inexplcable contradiction feeblemilitarypovrerandpopularsuPportforoneoftheworld'smost people' ,rnrtrrt"d pt."i"r,t", and his powerful hold over a reluctarit mueh in line Fundamentally, it is a question of regression to tradition, talked about with a well-knor,rn o""."ion in Hitlerf s Germany, when G'ciring paradise of the deceased General Ludendorff as going off to Valhall, the to think the Norse gods one thousand years earlier. But it is difficulr of another paralle1 with the Unique Miracle'

54

5.

THE REFUGEES

TherefugeesfromEquatorialGuineamayrepresentthelargest proportion of any nation ever to have gone into exile. Neverheless, little has been heard about them. They remain in obscurity, a silent embarassment to Gabon, Cameroon and Spain, a refugee problem forgotten by almosE everybody but themselves. Inevitably, there have been exagge1 ated statements about them' A PUNT spokesman t.pfi"a to a critical article in "Africa Magazine" in "Unidad de Ia Cuine Ecuatorial" on B June 1974 under the headline "Our Country is a Cradle of Liberty for Everybody". He made it clear that out of 6,00 atteged refugees in Spain, Gabon and cameroon most had left their country long before Independence. One thousand had left for personal t'they live normal1y"' reasons but many had returned to their country rhere "To speak about refugees from Equatorial Guinea is.a falsehood, a fantasy
and a myth."

This ca1ls for comment. Equatorial Guinea has had little of the violence and bloodshed which has taken place for instance in Amin's uganda, but to refer to life there as normal is grotesque. There is no doubt that the terror and oppression have been made systematic in a way which is unique on the continent. It is a statement of fact to refer to the country as "the concentfation camp of Africa"; not an Auschwitz built for the extermination of a people, but a cottage-industry Dachau' the other hand some of the information from refugees in exile is misleading as far as figures are concerned. There are explanations' In one case dubious population guesstimates made by the present Government have been compared with more pr"i"u demographic data. l{acfas has then been given the blame for the difference and been accused of having caused 50,000 deaths and 15,000 disappearance, and forced 150'000 people into exile' Other inflated figures are caused by extrapolation and by adding presumed annual growth to known data ithout having the means to check whether this has anyLhing to do with reality.
On

Evidently the truth lies betreen the t!o extremes. The following brief description of the current situation is based on conservative estimates of numbers and sub.ject to methods of cross-checking all data described in
ttSources" below.

5.1.

OUTFLUX

There are certain conditons which facilitate escape' The tropical rain forest in Rio Muni is extremely dense and easy to hide in' The border the thickness is a line on the map and there are no natural obstacles apart from strategic guard roads and of the vegetation. The soldiers or milicianos who points are badly trained and frequently not issued with bullets' There are no dog atro1s, machine-gun posts or land mines but allegedly there have been pits with sharpened poles made like the traditional hunting traps '

"r*orrIl*ged

55

Leaving Fernando Po is next to impossible since all the local boats have been confiscated to prevent eslcape by sea. The \'{aves of refugees from the island.came at the 'time of the repatration of 45,000 Ngerian plantation workers, escaping with them in Ehe general confusion. If anybody manages to leave now it is usually by having sufficient pretexs and connections to be permicted to go to Bata, from whel:e he may be able to make his way through the .iungle. I^Iith very strict measures imposed on all internal movement, travelling However, travel permits are leagally in Equatori"t crrinea is very difficult. stamped only at the points of depature and arrival, not at each checkpoint' everThis makes it possible to by-pass certain checkpoints and thus reduce theeven present risk of arbitrary arrest. Also a fast runner may stand a chance if apprehended by the authorities, since few members of the armed forces have taken been enlrusted rith rr*nrrnition. several people have done exactly that; cries of "Stop, to their heels and run off, hearing behind. them ever fainter or I'll shoot" from a frustrated soldier waving an emply rif1e.

or problem is that it is very dangerous to carry anylhing that might indicate rhat one is trying to leave; that is, personal papers, school Carrycertificates or any documentation other than the PUNT membership card'small ing personal beloniingr is very suspect in the border areas, carrying
A
ma.j

children even more so.

qt

INFLlTX

Differences betrreen the situations in which the refugees find rhemselves in Africa and in Europe will be made clear on the following pages after mention of common denominators and general characteristics' First, however, the influence of Spanish colonialism must be emphasised. It had different impacs on Fernando Po, colonised for four centuries, and the manlarrd province of Rio Muni, which was partly unexplored as late as 1920.. Fernando Po vas comparatively stable as fat as ethnic minorities \,ere concerned, but Rio }funi was..just settling dov'rn from a largeI^lhile scale population movement when colonialism began to make itself felt' politics the dynamics of Fang migration were s1owly ebbng out, inter-tribal were st.ill confused and uncertain. This affected the attitudes of spanish settlers there, who felt uncertain with the more independent Fang fribesmen' Po and Spontaneous Spanish sympathy for the more docile tribes on Fernando into a deliberate divide-andon rhe coastal strip tf-nio Muni later changed rule policy airned at maintaining Spanish economic interests after Independence Subsequentiy tribalism, rarely a minor issue' \^/as increased and aggravated Uy ttre colonsing power. It still remains important' even among Lhe refugees in Eurgpe
Spanish attitudes towards the indigenous population appear already in the official terminology: "menores" and "emancipadostt. On the whole, natives were regarded as ;primitivos". Lrhile Britain and France \^7ere making serious efforts to understand at least certain communities in their colonies by sendin g f.rst-rate anthropologists into the field and making use of their analyses of the peoples involved, Sp"itt maintained a deeply ethno-centric

s6

The superiority philosophy rhich can at best be described as paternalistic. and religious models was never in doubt, and it was f spanish cultural automatically taken for granted that acculturation r,as strictly a one-vr'ay process. Those who adopted Spanish ways were classed as "emancipadost' and gi.r.tr considerable assistance to advance further within the colonial system' t'menores", but it wa.s confidently expected that Those who were not remained they r,rould eventually mend their ways and n the course of ti.me'vrant to bectme Spaniards too. This class system, unknovn in the traditional democracy, caused considerable damage in terms of social tensions and confusion of value systems. The effects are still very much in evidence among Equatorial Guineans. Spanish unquestioning assumptions of complete have given rise to a corresponding cultural inferiority complex ",-,p.iioiity and a fixation on things Spanish. In fairness it must be stated that Spanish racism remained on the whole benevolent and coloured by a definite synpathy for he PeoPle.

As far as development in Equatorial Guinea is concerned the facts are c1ear. Spain, partly for reasons concerned with the international image during the Franco regime and with debates over the Gibraltar question and with touchy relations with other countries, \n/anted to make a model colony out of Equatorial Guinea. They succeeded in the economic sense. At the time of Independence Equatorial Guinea \^/as prosperous. Education progrannnes had raised the degree of literacy to a high level. Human and animal health problems were well under control. Economic administrative infrastructure \^/as more Lhan adequate, and the country v/as \rell on its \tay tortards advancing even further.

Inevitably this has affected the present situation of the refugees. I,Jhen they arrive in Gabon, Cameroon or Nigeria they automatically find themselves in conditions way below the standard of living they have been used to in their own country before Independence. When arriving in Spain they feelings originating from the have been influenced by the inbred inferiority Throughout they have been in a situation where physically colonialists. present Government affect lheir . and mental scars from the oppression of the for relatives and frlends left behind. daily lives, as do fear and anxiety political and economic uncertainties in the countries of asylum aggravate their situation and the inevitable stain of belonging to an exiled minority with dm prospects does not ease the psychological pressures
I,,Iith rheir varied skills and their energy and will towards helping themselves, the refugee groups certainly have a potential which, in the view of the countries of asylum, would make them assets rather than liabilities.
overcome if r:heir potential is to be given a chance?

The question is then,which are the main constraints which must be

is the uncertanty and ambiguity surrounding the presence of the refugees. In the eyes of the local indigenous population they are somewhat suspect characters out of favour with the Government, people whose obligations and rights are not c1ear. Hospitals and clinics refuse them because it is unclear whether they have the right to benefit from subsdised
The first

57

lreatment.stae-SupportedschoolsdotheSame,leavingexpensiveprivate standards as the or1y alternative teaching institution"- of sometmes dubious Employershesitatetogivethemiobs'ordosoatwagesfarbelowthelegal The is being created' minimum. rn other *or", . *irotity proletariat underprivileged groups in irnplicatons of this are those contrnon to most minoritysituations:lackofoppo'..,,'ityleadingtoviciouscirclesof as well as lack of poverty and marginality which peipetuate themselves; acceptance which is fot the the recognition'na t""p"ct which are cruci aL place' required before "rr"""""1"1 integration can take into the social There are also the contradictive elements builtconfused the issue These have system the refugees have brought rriith them' difficult for their governments to for he countries of asylum and rnade it is the fact that a considerable come to firm PolicY decisions. Foremost, number of refugees r@' categories of Equatorial To understand the situation five different Guineans have to be identified: in the country of Bona fide Polit ical refugees' remaining I. them to retLlrn' asylum because it is impossible for 2.
Guinea to look "Economic refugees"' who leave Equatorial going back for work abroad, ,no,tly with the intention of money' Guinea once they have made enough

t-al"ttorial

3. 4. 5.

,,Va-et-viens" - people who cross the border for short-term trips, mostly for trading purposes'
People who stay voluntarily

in Equatorial Guinea'

their will' People who stay in Equatorial Guinea against

ii

Noappropiiatecensuseshavebeenmadeofthefirstcategoryand itisuncerLain'h.tt'"'existingfiguresarecorrect'exaggerat'edorunderthe group of genuine political refugees stated. As rff u" the composition of different communities indicate that they is concerned, extensive contacLs /ith There are enough educated and trained a,:e a cross-section of he population. peopleamongthemtogive",,"t^,,""tothesuspicionthatmostofthecadres large groups of farmers and have left the country, but there are also fishermen from Ehe villages' elemenL, n the The ,,economic refugees,, constitute a confusing SensethattheyarenotcoveredbythelJNorOAUmandateswhichgivelegal in Moreover, their presence protection to recngised politicai refugees. the entire population rhe neighbouring eounrries t,." "u,rr"d.dubts 1!o"a about their reasons for q":?:lons of Equatorial' Cuineans in exile' raisi"g leavingtheircounty.Havetheydonesoprimarilyinordertomakeabetter livingincountrieswithamorevigorouseconomy?SinceanumberofexilesGuinea situation in nlua1rial apparently ao go back voluntarily'"can the beasbadasitisrumoured?Iftherumoulsareincorrect'isanysuch to well-founded feat o1 refugee "political" in the sens that he' "owing

I ia

I'
Ii
t1

58

!;

being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social grouP or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationalitY and is unable o.rr owing to such f ear, is unwilling to avail hirnself of the Protection of that counrrY"? Superfici aLIy, this and other relevanl- articles in the 1969 OAU Convention on Refugees make things quite clear' Any refugee who "has is no voluntarily re-estUti"tru himself in the country which he left" political no longer a longer covered by the convention, and consequently refugee. The r.1 "itrration s more complex and demands a certain understaning of the background of the ethnic groups involved'

l.Iith a shattered economy, life in Equatorial Guinea no\'n cauFes hardship which rnras unkno,n before Independence. Near total absence of such for health care and the most basic consumer goods and excessive prices labour necessities as clothing, combine with fhe system of unpaid forced to create an impossibl situation. To be able to obtain essential included commodities it is necessary to obtain money and for all who are not the in the small privileged grorrps in power, money can be made only outsidefrontier dare lo cross the country. Thus, a Large number of people who can and illegally make theit rry out and try to get employmenl abroad. Gabon, with its iapid economic expansion over the past years, has been a particularly attractive goal, and Cameroon and Nigeria have also offered some opportunities' official with luck, the migrating workers have been able to secure .iobs at theevefi per month or minimum salary of Fr. CFA 30,000.-- or about US$ 130.-they more. In less fortunate circumstances, part.icularLy in rural areas,to have taken jobs available at half or a third of the payment offered nationals or subsisted on money lent to them by relatives or friends'
The explanation of the voluntary repatration of these workers is is simple and based on the fundamental importance of kinship ties' It back normally the breadr+inner who goes abroad to make enough money to bring to support his family and to make necessary purchases of medicine, clothes' etc. These things are essential, but t is equally important that he himself comes back to assist the family he has left behind' He has the choice between risking his own life or the lives of those who depend on him. He returns. The third calegory, the "va-et-viens", those who come and go, is founded on the same rationale. They are small-time smugglers, mostly crossing the border at night, buying things like salt' soap, kerosene for lamps and other necessary commodities, and carrying their goods on their ba.ks. sometimes they stay a short- tirne in a village in Gabon or cameroon ro raise a litrle *only by doing odd iobs or cutting and selling firewood

along the roadside in order to be able to make their purchases ' Sometimes they can bring and sell small loads of cocoa. Their traffic is not regarded u"lrury seriou" by the authorities on either side of the frontier and they can sometimes make a deal wih the soldiers or milicianos' If they are caught a first arrest normally leads to nothing more than a week in loca1 detention, although a seconcl arrest is likely to mark them as "subversivos" and lead to a prison term under conditions described elsevrhere.

59

The return of the iob seekers in the second category ls more precarious. They must anicipate having some of their goods and moneY confiscated as a price for letting them return to live with their families easilY and being at the continued mercy of the local authorities which can seal their fate by branding them "subversivos"

According to many refugees, nobody stays voluntarily in Equatorial Guinea. This is " exaggeration. Undoubtedly there are groups which have gained from Macfas' rrtivat in power and the political system which he has reated, First among these are Macfas' ov,n kinsmen from Mongomo who have in which been propelled to unprecedented influence and placed in a position almost any use or abuse of power goes unopposed and unpunished: extortion, looting, confiscation, arrest of opponents, rape and manslaughter' Members of the army and the milicia fill the second rank in the pecking order' Since most of them are recruited from strata rhich rere previously looked down position' upon or even held in contempt, they have certainly improved their paradoxically, people from this "ti"goty do make their way inro neighbouring countries, usually posing as refugees. These are some of the agents provo.cateurs who have done much to complicate relations between the real refugees and their host communities'
The last group is the largest. The rhetorical question, "Inlhat keeps them from t"r.rirrgi" has many ans\/ers: fear of the dangerous flighr' behind uncertainty about what awaits them in exi1e, unwillingness to leavewill fear that their flight family members who are too weak to travel, being about reprisals, pride in standing up to their fate, fatalism' The external intelligence and counter-intelligence activities of on Equatorial Guinea are effective in a number of countries. What goesAccording almost immediately' among the refugees in Spain is known to Macfas by ao ,frrg"es in Madrid the information is collected and forrarded both who uses the Embassy of Equatorial Guinea and particularly by Trevi.jano,

this service to render hirnself an irreplacable al1y.

Rumours that Maclas has had a militant opponent to his about assassinated in Amsterdam are unconfirmed. The same goes for stories to the UN in New York as-sassination attempts against Gustavo Mbela, Ambassador

reign

0ntheotherhand,itisperfectlyclearthathisagentsare penetrating into Cameroon, in spite of a generally speaking tight security provocateurs ,y"a", there. Ln Gabon the situation is stil1 hTorse. Agentsmaximum antagonism to cleate make their lay into the border areas, under orders for the agent to against the refugees. The most primitive way ofoPerating is case and place the break into.the house of a Gabonese national, steal a box or The miliciano emply box in the ilrmediate vicinity of the house of a refugee' remuneration from those who give him sent out to do this is normally without during his orders, his only compensatlon being what he can collect for himself his mission. In Libreville rhere are t\,ro kinds of agents operating' One is more or less on the same leve1 as those in the villages; untrained rnilitants rho advancement spread confusion and dissent and hose main remuneration is

60
I

of their careers in the party hierarchy once they make their vay back home ' by These, as well as the ugrra" in the villages , atre sometimes apprehended another kind, trained in the the Gabonese authorities. Bgt there is also more countries which support 'qae{as, who are professionals and consequentlyin some difficulr to identiy. They have been involved, at least indirectly, of the refoulements which have taken place in Gabon up to November 1971 ' concernThey were almost certainly involved in the stealing of documentation In addition, the clansmen of Mac(as ing rhe refugees in Gabon in late 1977. in oyem in the Inleleu Ntem province have a certain polirical and personal influence whieh extends beyond the purely loca1 interests ' After these general remarks about the exile siuation, conditions in the rnan influx countries will be very briefly outlined' Unfortunately' much of the information cannot, for space reasons and other considerations' be detailed here.
5.2.L
GABON

is \,/estern Gabon. Except for a short stretch of the Mitemele River there nalural boundary, only some 250 kilometers of border dravm artifically through the rain forest, and through the territory of the Fang tribe' the I^lith these geographical conditions it is quite natural that Gabon hasinto have quietly f iltered largest nLlmber of refugees. The vast ma.jority Oyem' Fang areas near the border.and are no\^/ living in and around Bitam, have m6vsd as far south as Mtd,zt, Medouen and Cocobeach. Smaller groups port Gentil and Lambarn. An estimated third of the refugees are in The exact size of the refugee population is not knovn, but Libreville. be it is officially accepted as 60,000. The impact of this influx mustof politics and economy seen against the background of the population,
Gabon.

Maps show the Rio Muni province as a rectangle cut out of north-

no

for Gabon vary between the official figure of more than a million and UN estimates of. 715,000. Libreville had 250'000 inhabitants in 1975 and a probably third of a million in 1978' The two other largest cities, Port Gencil and Lambarn, had together 100,000 density inhab i tants in L9l 5 . I'Ii th this intensive urbatrisation population in the ca. 266'000 square kilometers of rural area is as low as l-2 per irrr2 of the 52 tribes in the country, by far the most numerous are the the Fang, estimared at 407. of the entire population. since B0z to 90% of to an r"flge." from Rio Muni are also Fang, their arrival is a threat atreay sensitive elhnic equilibrium. In addition, the "pan-Fang" movements' the Alar Ayong and the Pahouin Congress, extend latent intertribal tensions across the borders of cameroon. rhey also complicate Gabonese relations with Equatorial Guinea Gabon maintains diplomatic relations . under a stable goverilnent, rith all ad.jacent countries, although those with Equatorial Guinea were very strained on two occasions in 1972 arL' 1-974 because of conflicts over of extension of Gabonese territorial rTaters which affected the small islands
DemograPhic data

6T

through were quicklv resolvell^i:^::tt remalfls Corisco and El obey' The disputes uneasiness but an Lhe acivities of an OAU speciui-"o**i""iorr, attitudes tor'ards the refugees' and af fects the Gabonese authotici"r' booming' Per capita ncome tripled The economy of Gabon has been u"gittning' Gabon has.since period 1960-70 and rhar ru"'^orrtf-in during rhe
taken
income

overEquatorialG"ittttsoldroleofhavingthehighestpercaprta in Black Africa'

primarily on petroleum and important The present wealth is based The role of labour intensive patricularly uranium ";;*;;";"nese: i"ustry' is declining' This minerals , and forest production, especi aLly agrtculure create a da193rous employrhe very trpi urbanisation to of the economic growth' has combined with ,ilf"i is .rllner"bt. ao slow-downs
men. situation

Moreover,increasingdependenceonimportedgoods,includingfoodstuffs' above all in the urban areas' prices to dangero"rfy irgf1 ievls, infrastructure have contributed is raising t,'d At present, heavy expendlt,rtu orr"iOott, debt of about us$ r'7 billion' natonal roughly to an economt-c,."rrion with a aggravated by an inflation ourcome is an austeriry "."";;;;The estimated aL 307" "Evidently the first categories to be I,trhiletheGovernmentisdoingitsbesttocontrolthesituation, beginning ao ou-iurt. rhe effects are training, people who are marginal ,ro.rn"i*-f.opr" who lck becaus of lack of legal affected are rhe peoplt-ttt"' resented for micropolitical t"tlorrr'ar, StatuS'canrrotue,'uritfromtt'elegislationconcerningminimalvJages,free the situation of the ma'iority of t" *tai"al care' ff-'i" s the by their ignorance of French' education rhey are n""ui"rooed refugees. ,rr;;;;;, Attitudestowardstherefugeesareambivalent.Gabonisasgnatory totheUNand.n"oouConventio,,.,"o,,""'ningrefugeesand,inNovemberl9TT, High ommissioner. for RefugeesA requesred rhe u;;"-;rions rhe Governmenr tibreville for a six-rnonth mission' rD-cards (UNHCR) ro send a represenrari;;-io problem of supplying oo from the Government is working 'n counterpart Atthesametime,therearefundamentaldifficultieswhichhave that of lack of The biggest Ot"ftt is undoubtendly fide to be resolved' t"t.rg"e who is considered bona recognised status. At or.rural " receivesan"Attestationde:io"r"whichservesasanidentitypaper' a stencilled sheet of the docum""t t' i" tt't form of Unfortunately, flimsypaper.Itlookssounofficialthatonemusthaveacertainunderstandingforpolicemenandothersr^horefusetoacieptitasavalid unfortunatelv' ;';o ;; *pn"'i" tlei;'ptii:;^ documen.' not seldom tearing lack.ofalphabetic,chronologi.o'otherSystemsintheregistersofthe a duplicare long delar'-io the issuing of arlest' to de DocumenLation..r "r,r". centre t*l"t vrithout, vulnerable rhe t.f;;;; the *.."ii*., and, n imprsonmt"t " t""" ""P"1sion' Thelackofstatusinteractswithotherdifficulties,ofeconomic, and economic refugees' socialandpoliticalnature._Mo'.o.,",,thesituationisfurtheraggravated factor, the confusion between-political by an essenti;i

62

The frst

category is in principle covered by the UN and OAU treaties concerning refugees and given the same rights and obligations as other aliens within the country. Above all, its non-refoulement clause protects them from being sent back to the country they have escaped from' The second gronp has a fluid status and is in reality without 1egal protection.
Economic refugees are xegarded in rather vague terms as people entering another country to improve their econoiic situation and living

conditions. Certainly most of the inrnigrants do precisely that, but lhis rnust be seen against the situation in Equatorial Guinea. As one iurnigrant said, t'How can one be an economic refugee from a country withour an economy?"
The lack of lega1 status 1ed to a crisis on 16 February 1978 when increasing concern about agents povocateurs and news that a Gabonese-citizen had been ki1led in Equatorial Guinea made the Government act. The army, the police and the gendarmerie launched a ma.ior campaign in Libreville to get Ih. .ituation under .control. During the whole day, houses' pedestrians and vehicles \,/ere searched in the course of an operation referred to as "ratissage"

or rat-catching. It had been declared as ttinevitable" because of recent confrontations between inrnigrants and Gabonese nationals which had led to arson and pillage, thus forcing an interventio. However, the Government had declared that bona fide refugees had nothing to fear, but that "the recent census of people coming from Equatorial Guinea has been badly misunderstood by the population Most of the people actually believed that it \/as a question of Libreville. of systematic refoulement of all the Equatorial Guineans. Acts of vandalism \/ere thus carried out in the different quarters inhabited by Equatorial Guineans. People were breaking the doors of houses and looting what they found inside, Some \,ent as far as to set the houses on fire and commit savagie acts of aggression on the refugees." (l)
The ef fects were bad. The refugees realised that there \^/as no protection for them and the nationals drew the same conclusion' The experience \^Ias traumatic and, at the time of my visit wo weeks later' there were sti1l hundreds of refugees ,ho preferred to hide in severe discomfort rather than to go back to heir empty houses. Even the prompt

release - thanks to the tmely intervention of the UNHCR representative of the large number of refugees who had been imprisoned could not lift the atmosphere of anxiety and suspicion which pervaded the slums.
The gold

rush ambience of Gabon, and in particular Libreville, Anybody has had its definite advantages. It has been a free-for-al1. of the tor^rn ha.s been finding an unused 100 m2 of land on the outskirts able to claim it for himself. The next step, building a house, could be done in one to tr/o months at a cost of FT.CFA 50,000.-- to 100,000.-- or US$ 217.-to 434.--. This sum, and a fair amount of work, provides a shack built \'/ith odd pieces of wood and Oukoum plywood, with a sheet metal roof and a mud f1oor. There is no electricity but fresh \^/ater can normally be carried from a nearby conrnunal tap. The houses I saw were invariable clean and well kept, with god latrines dug downhill and dor,wrwind. l{osquitoes \,lere a problem, but (1) LrUnion, 8 March 1978.

63

the rural areas the malaria seemed to be under control. In the villages in of the capital the stuation was much less marked by the relative affluencewell constructed very but houses I^/ere, on the whole, good, built with mud onBoh in tovm and village leaves ' wooden frames and with roofs of impenetrable providing food there were small fields of manioc grotirrg near the houses, the year around. Theothersideofthegoldcoinisthatthereisnoorganisation nor the is active in welfare. Evient1y no Church has the resources' own' which on its experienee, to take up assistance programmes for the refugees occupied with are fully As the UNHCR and its counterpart from the Government up the legat aspects of the refugee problem there is a need for coming gaps with unconventional solutions and t.o make up for the organisational by involving the refugees themselves more than is usual '
5 .2.2.
CAI"IEROON

population The united Republic of cameroon has the second highest

ofrefugees,officiallygivenas30,000.Theyarelocatedmainlyinthe the sparsely populated tribal territory of the Fang, which extends through Equatorial Guinea up to to tropical rain forest all the way from the border
Yaound

to The Goverffnent has resisted pressures from President-Maclas :-gl5' when Macis sent his send refugees back. For instance, in Decemberttproblems of colmon interest" Foreign Minister with a delegation to discuss ( 1) wi ttr itre Yaound Government '

an average ,^,ith an estimated seven million inhabitants spread with is obviously riensity of L4 ar'^ti-Ot-mi o.rut an area of 475,000 km2, Cameroon The predominance of much less disturbed by the refugee infl.ux than Gabon' country where they are one Fang among the exiles is of minor importance in a population' Since of. LZ3 tribes and represent only some 3Z of the total president Ahidjo led the country to Independence on 1 January 1960' the and a national .gr." of poliLicar stabiliry has been relarively highcaused by the influx' reduces anxiety securiLy system knor,rn to be efficient among the refugees Hovrever, reports about agentS provocateurs opefating from the border have made the authorities keen to transfer the inmigranLs distance' Two a areas, in order to settle them at what is consideredandsafe }lband.jock east of at Akonolinga settlements are already in existence, than yaound but their total population seems at present to be no more 500 ro 600.

Thema.jorityoftherefugeesisstillintheFangareanearthe population a 1ow border, mainly in the departments f Ntem and Ocan' I^lith densityinesSentiallyfertilecountlythisregionhasahighabsorptive province which the capacity, in theory. In reality, the underdevelopment of problems'.particularly has only an embryonic infrastructure poses worrying population' The in view of the characteristics of much of the refugee Guinea has created in Equatorial syst.ematic repression of intellectuals (1) Jeune Afrique, l0 December 1976, p'
34

64

what must be, for its sze, the best educated refugee conrnunity in Africa' of these refugees adapting to subsistence farming are The difficulties obvious. So is the waste of human skil1s if this'b/ere to happen.
;e

Living conditions in urban and rural areas are fairly similar in Gabon, although a bigger population density makes land less to those available and there has been no comparable boom of house construction r^rhich has permitted extensive use of surplus and waste materials from the building sites. For better or for v/orse, the tempo has been calmer. In particular, the security situation has been much more reassuring, with the risk of refoulemenr almost non-existent.
The presence of a PapaL Nunzio in Yaound seems to have had no effect whatsoever. Presumably the representative of the Vatican is wellinformed about what goes on inside Equatorial Guinea but this has not in any r^/ay affected the Catholic Church, either n its policy towards a country where it has been effectively substituted by more traditional religions, nor in any manifestations of interest in the material or spiritual welfare of the Children of the Church in exile. The Nunzio has visited Equatorial Guinea on several occasionsl but appears to have reconrnended caution and an avoidance of anything that could upset Macfas and break the political relations. One refugee commented, "It's rediculous. Macfas does not get upset by what is said in Rome. He gets upset by voices which only he can heartt.

Recently, the Fdration des Eglises et l{issions Evangliques au Cameroun (FEMEC) has responded positively to the need for action. FEMEC seems to be willing to become the operational counterpart of the IJNHCR and the yaound Government. At the time of writing plans for assistance were being discussed n Yaound and Geneva, with priority on the issuing of proper identity cards, health care, educaton, housing and agriculture. Further aspects of meeting the needs of the refugees ,i11 be mentioned under the section "Solutions", but one peculariarity should be mentioned here, namely that quit.e a number of the refugees are not farmers, but rather ex-cabinet ministers, defected ambassadors, senior civil servants' ex-managing directors, chief accountants, middle-aged army ma.'i ors, NCOs f rom ttre Spanish Foreign Legion, travel agents and bank clerks. Finding meaningful occupations for them is not going to be easy' but if the task can be accomplished both Cameroon and Gabon stand .o gain considerable assets of trained and experienced manpo\,er. In view of this, and of the fact that the main potential in the under-developed influx areas is in forestry, ir rould seem that the situation calls for an innovative approach: instead of helping people into agriculture, donor agencies should investigate how the refugees can be assisted to fit in vith Cameroonrs development plans concerning the exploitation of the forestry resources. This would open a wide range of employment opportunities, from labour-intensive road construction, lumbering and reforestation, to specialised .jobs rith forest utilisation and protection, technical .jobs with production of playwood, pulp and Paper' small-scale enterprises' constluction' etc.

65

5.2.3.

NIGERIA

Nigeria are all from With verY few excePtl-ons the refugees in the island f -rIy early' escap from Fernando Po- l"lost of them managed to the Nigerian workers- were or during the confusion which rook place when theY are said to have repatrialed in 1975 and early 1916' Since then, s.ttered all over the 12 states' TheGovernmentofNigeriamaintainsstrainedrelationswith EquatorialGunea.IttoleratestheexistenceoftheAlianzaNacional not recognise Movement but does de Resrauracion Democrati.a (aitinn) iiutt"tion it.Ingeneral,thesituationoftherefugeesiscolouredbysimilar attitudes."Wecangetalong'butitisbetterfitisnotknovmthat pidgin coastal their knor'1edge of the \/e are refugees." l"tany have used that once they have been English as a step t"""tat assimilation and found of Nigeria, regularising of able to integrate with the economic progreds As a result there is a large their formal status has not been a pioulu*. numberofexilesinthecountrywhocannolongerberegardedasrefugees in the lega1 sense' the \ray to Spain and they For many, Nigeria has been a step on gather enough money to to appea to stay o"iy fot as long as it takes this may become a long time and' be on one,s rnray. I^iith the curreflt situationserious problems' Remarkably' in the meantime, housing "rr "tr.ution are praticallyallthelg5refugeeswithwhomtheANRDinLagosisinconract and are young, bachelors are employed. This is in part because most competent'.Nevertheless,withthepresentrateofunemploymentthroughout achievement' the country'this must be regarded as a notable Generallyspeaking,thesituationappearsfluid'Nigerian relationswithEquatorialGuineahavebeenveryStrainedindeed,tothepointfeasible inrninent - and perfectly where an annexation of Fernando lo tpp"ated ir"tified by the need to protect tens as long as a military presence could f.further violence. However' the Lagos of thousands of-Nigerin workers from its losses by paying ouL compensation Government refrained from action, cut calm' to the repatriated rvorkers and kept an uneasy Evidentlytherefugeesfeelaffectedbythissituation.They to reveal their real origins' keep a 1ow profile and often prefer not Againstthisu..t.g'o,,,,ditisdifficulttooutlineanyactivitiestoscholarships for number of assist them, apart from sugg"'ii"g a smal1 higher education' 5.2.4.
SPAIN AND OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

;l
;1
t1

il tl il
il
T

il
ti li
it tl
H

Itisimpossibletoassesswithprecisionthenumberofexiles a probable 8,000, with 6,000 as in spain. Estimates vary betwu.r ,500 an figure.However,thankstoastudymadebytheTechnicalCommissionofthe the characterisLics (ASODAGE) ' documented' ASODAGE Associacion de Amigos de euinel-t""tt"tial are rell and general situation of the exile conrnunity isanon-politicalorganisationrecognisedbytheSpanishGovernmentwhich

rl
+1

66
ff

concerflsitselfwithrefugeewelfareandsocio-culturalaf.fars.Inlate 2,500 Lg77 i made a survey of 2-?l persons sampled from the estimated exiles in Madrid. fi,e study is thorough and has been largely confirmed by some 45 in-depth interviews conducted in Madrid and Barcelona during tie fact-finding mission. In the following resum figures and percentages refer to the samPle.

things are striking about the sample: the large number of females, 542, and of Young PeoPle, with average ages of- 27 for men and 25 for women. 287" are of school age, and. 197" pre-school age. The problem arising in this particular context ill be mentioned in the context of acculturation.
Two

l"figration to Spain has come in three r^/aves. The f irst began before 1960 and was made up mainly of girls in domestic service and boys coming f or their studies. The second \,fave' predominantly students, lasted from 1965 to 1970, when the situation in Equatorial Guinea made it very difficult to leave for Spain. By then, 427" of. the sampled immigrants \^7ere on the whole absorbed - as students, employees, or children of parents who were already established in Spain. But in 1969 scholarships for students were discontinued f or political reasons. Sirnultaneously emplolrrnen| became problematc and, in early I970, one "cou1d see Guineans,sleeping in the subway ,tutionr, asking for help at welfare institutions, begging friends for money, conrnitting petty crimes or prostituting themselves". (1) The immigrants had become "de facto" refugees long before that status had received any recognition and more were to arrive into the same predicament. Increasing oPpression raised the number of people trying to seek political asylum in spain. The survey shows that 287" of the exiles arrived t 1976 and 1ater.

Inregration is particularly difficult in Spain. The refugees there have been Urorrlnt up with assumprions of Spanish superioriLy Lo the point that their erh;ic ienrity appears endangered. Girls from Equatorial Guinea have been particularly affected, to such an extent that they will often say that they re Black Americans rather than admit to their African background '
An obvious r/oIry is concerned with the next generation, the problem of children who gro! up as Africans in a European country rithout roots of their own, without much hope of becoming integrated where they are and with dim prospects of going back to where they belong - even if they had been

able to maintain the cultural 1ink.

In all probability, there is less racism in spain than in many other European countries. Unfortunately, this does not make it easy for the someone from a different race to live there. tr/e are again up against rracceptance, integration and ad.iustment of foreigners global phenomenon that is a function of the openness of the host society, the degree of attachment fhe immigrants feel for their society of origin and the similarity of cullures of the country of emigration and the country of imurigration". (2) (r) Ndongo Bidgoyo, 1977 , P . 186. Rose, A. M., t'Migrants in Europe: Problems of Acceptance and (2) t.969 Ad-ius tmentr' , Univers itY of Minnesota Press, lulinneapolis,
67

Ilrhilethesituationratherpfovesthatthelackofacceptancecan leadtolackofattachmentamongtherefugees,creatingacomplication one of his T"ii"^::::lusions: of the unforeseen by Rose, one shoula ''ot--iotget and ad.justment is Ehe openness ,,In]hat is imporrrir'ro, integration generosity of of tnt"friendliness and innnigrt country"' And, l :pi;" theindividualspaniard,whichtherefugeesarekeentopointout,this the in Spain has put not really Ue' forihcoming. The ethnocentrism handicap them severely' has enough to African immigrants under a pressur n"r.r, of having no n"U Upon arrival, the exiles-have :::-advantage difficultyrith_thelanguage'whichtheysometimesspeakbetterthanmany adaptation to-the culture' Spaniards, rrr rittr" tilrt pttiti"try lack of provincial practi"tr-difficulties: other hand, most have suffered from on the crops which can prices on everythi";;-includinq :h" subsistence adequate money, high Rfrica, the need for be grown outside a slum house i c.rratrl clothingandforhousing.Inpu'ti".,t'',thelastpointh,ascreat'ed may housing is expensive and Guineans -o""tttit f tne sampled households numerous problems. rven modest fo, "rr"idised t,o,rsing. not apply in one room' The housing and employment had four or more persons living sitr.ationhavealsocontributedtoabreakdornmoftheextendedfanily. Familiesaredispersednotorrlyb"treenspainandAfrica,butalsoinside trigt cost of housing.in the central even in laria. The ""rr;i;;-"rra spain, partsforcepeoplefaroutintothesuburbs,withtime-consumingcommunications' wirh farnily members and fellow Guineans ' making ir hard lo t".p in touch
Sofar,therehasbeenacertainamountofmutualassistanceand a way' the iob situation has' in wirhin the groups. it,.- to,rgl'rness of around those who have work' self -help puopl"*t""o"tn:i:t1:"t helped to promote thi;' Inthesampledgroup,normallyatleastoneineveryhouseholdwasemployed ti" (or her) income; but L27" of the households and the others were livi.g otr in a very df f icult position' r.ere r^ithout any breadwinn"r "rr,-"oosuq,r.rrtty,been to turn to charity-oriented ,ti"fying, has The solution, neither easy ,ro, and to the UNHCR' itu rhe spnish Red crtss-and caritas' organisariorr"
Surrrningupthesocialandreligioussituation,theAS0DAGEsurvey causd to a great extent ir. g.rr.ti "o"itl i,,s""t'rity, and by having been concludes that,there stateless by the lack of o;;;;;' uv uing "o"'ia"red some of rhis has been compensated by the spanish Goverment, although abandoned as individuals' All rhe the friendship tt'd g"o";;i;;:t:nt-:lanish for by catholics' but their ro be chiisrians and tt" *"jotii,ut.*o*t" respondenr, "r"in, t'o priests linked to the as there form a,"if;i;;-force religion aour.oa authorities which can provide cournunity". Nor are there t"y oln"t spiritual a viable value sYStem'

I,inally,therearesomesmallscatteredgroupsinothercountries " control of the information rru i, sritr.ri"nd, where the i1 ofthisrepor.'u"checkedagainstthedatacollectedinthefivecountrlesare in The refugees in switzerland visired during rhe facr-fi"di;;;ir"ioo. characterised by uncertainty' economrc a situarior, ,riirr to that in spain,
outside africa.
hardshiPs and uProoting'

rl

ii
j

68

6.

SOLUTIONS AND RECO}IENDATIONS

Like all refugee problems, that of the Equatorial main aspects: the world's problem in dealing wth its refugeest problem in coping with their o\/n situation. first aspect has made the second more difficult than it

Guineans has

trnro

refugees, and the The negleet of the needs to be.

The observations made in this part of the report must necessarily be regarded as preliminary guidelines, to be reviewed and revised in the Unless stated otherwise, they course of ongoing assistance activities. the situation in Gabon and Cameroon vhere needs are greater han concern in Nigeria and among the refugees in Europe. The recent austerity economy of Gabon and the constrains in Carneroon, in particular the high rate of unemployment, make assistance necessary within the near future. If this does not materialize t will be diffcult to avoid a furhter deterioration of the situaion. However, at this sage it seems that even limited assistance can go a long wy, provided that it is carefully planned and co-ordinated. And the time for planning is still there, imposed by the necessity to postpone implementation of most forms of assistance until the satus of the refugees has been properly recognized in the countries of
asy luru .

health situation in general; but intestinal parasites, tuberculosis, malara and other diseases which are endemic in the region may require special attention. Since the control of afflictions like leprosy and sleeping sickness has broken do\,n in Equatorial Guinea it may be necessary to cam-lraign against them to get some of the refugee groups back to the health standards of 1968. In he rural areas he most basic material needs are more or less met. Unemployment is rampant, but rith a 1itt1e help from kin, friends and

Before going into what he refugees require, one should briefly consider what they do not. Fortunately there is no need for relief operations. There are no signs of undernourishment, much less of famine, although a closer medical scrutiny rould probably reveal deficiencies of protein, vitamins and minerals. Neither are there any alarming signs about the

neighbours it is not impossible to eke out an existence of sorts. Ttre main objection to the situation is not the misery, which is less severe Ehan in many other refugee situations in the rorld; it is he inexcusable \^/aste of an unusual manpo\^7er capacity.

Before listing the.needs rhich do require a certain amount of assistance, some general characteristics of the refugees should be summarzed.
On

the positive side there is the high degree of literacy and lhe large proportion of people with professional experience.

On the negative side one must note that during the last ten year the sEandard of education'provided in Equatorial Guinea has declined from very good to dismal.

69

-Thesocialorganj-zaLionisnotconducivetounityamongtherefugees. highly were I^lth the exception of the Bubi, the traditional societes polcy did nothing to decentral zed,, and Spanish divide-and-rule improve the matLer. to the error in Equatorial - There is evidence of traumatic reactions lowering of the general level Guinea. This combines r"ith the drastic oflivingtomakeadaptationtoconditionsinexilemoredifficult.
Spanish-speakers in Black - The language handicaP of being the only great practical difficulties Africa sets the refugees apart and causes

.Thecoloniallegacyoffeelingsof'inferiorityvis--visSpain appearstohavereducedinitiativeardconsciousness.Theregresthe same' sive fears imposed by Maclas appear to have done -FromLhepointofvievofbackgroundtherefugeesareaveryhetero_ to exiled ambassadors geneous lo, ranging from farmr, arrd fisherrnen and cabinet ministers' Therequ_irementscomeunderthemainheadingsoflegalrecognition, rehabilitation and education 6.1.
LEGAL RECOGNITION

ThisisbyneeessitythefirstsEep.Ashasbeenmentionedinthe led to repeated acts of context of Gabon, uncertainty in this rLspect has refoulement,deepinsecurityamongtherefugeesandanumberofvicious circles which threaten future attempts at integration' refugees is well rn Gabon and cameroon the process of recogn zng the underwaythanks.tothegoodwilloftherespectiveGovernmentsandthe Unitedl.IatonsHighConrmissionerforRefugees.However,whatistrulythe obligations and important is thal he decision to acknowledge the rightsoftherefugees,inotherrordstoprovidethemrithaclearly definedroleinthecorrnunity,penetratesinto-thelorerechelonsofthe of the higher authorities stae apparatus. so far the goa ir,a.ntions administrators' police and local have often failed to be implemented by securityforces,andotherswhoareindirectcontactwiththerefugees. nationals confidence between until ths is achieved there can be no muEual ambiguous and potentially and refugees, 'and the situation will remain
dangerous.

Itmustbestressedthatpolicyimplementationandeventswhchcontradict'thestatedintentionsof""""pti''gtherefugeesareindirectly lack of interest conrnunity' fts caused by the ignorance of the interntional affecting the problems of has contributed to he very low prority rating therefugees.Nodoubtthiscanberemedied.ReactionsfromtheUNHCR of. the siEuation in Gabon' have alre.dy .",,""d important improvements could help simply in Further at.tention from humanitarirn otgrnizations l4ac(as rith lattude to breaking the silence which so far has provi'e'

70

operate, and \47ith outside assistance. Moreover, the positive effect of plain mo.ral support for the refugees should not be underestimated.
The chief manifestation of recognition is official documentation, valid for residence, !ork, medical care, education and travel. In many cases Lhere is also a need for passports for internatiorial travel in order to unite wth onets family, undergo training or find employment.

Provision of lD-cards is under way in Gabon and Cameroon, but most of the work remains undone. In Nigeria those who have arrived at a certain income level have normally been able to obtain official papers. In Spain in getting rhose rho already have residence permits have 1itt1e difficulty citizenship, but on the other hand new arrivals find it next to impossible to get permits for residence and work.
There is thus an acute need to provide help for the documentation process. Llhile the forms for this help will have to be decided after contacts with the governments and other bodies involved, some possibilities can already be mentioned:

- financial contributions for support of alteady existing progralnnes'

provision, within the framework of a counselling service, of assisEance with registering and keeping of systematic files, and

- dissemination, also through a counselling servrce or refugee bureau, of information to the refugees in order to alleviate fear and suspicions.
Especially in Spain there is also the need for moral support and encouragement of a gleater openness tovards the refugees. This can be provided by increased public attention owards the problem. 6.2.
REHABILITATION

It The tergr suffers from a certain vagueness and needs specification. past,normally to signify eicl'rer getting a group of victims of has been used in the a natural or man-made disaster back to where they were before they were victimized, or to establish them on the same level as their neighbours among the nationals in an influx area. ciples to be applicable. Considering the previous prosperity of their country, it would be unrealistic to aim at restoring them to such a level in view of the high cost and of the intra-eornnunal jealousies which would ensue. On the other hand, the present general leve1 of life in the rural areas is clearly too low. t"lany of the refugees are greatly overqualified for village farming. I,rlhat is more important is that the handicaps of language and of belonging to a minority prolelariat require that the refugees reach a level which would a11ow them to compensate for the inbuilt weakness of their situation.
The postion of the Equaorial Guineans is too complex for these prin-

7L

It could The heterogenity of the refugee groups could be a weakness' essential is hat the lanpo!er alternatively become a strong point. trhat is poLential be used as fully as possible, the solution being obviously intesrated community developmenJ aimed at making different groups ore

wi th nationals' ""prb1"--t"tegrating distance The srarring point is the allocation of suitable land at a the risk of agents from rhe border lilr, nq,t"torial Guinea which minimizes provocateurs. Close aitention must be paid to micro-politicalavoided and be "o'iditiott" in order that hosLile reactions from naionals in the areathe forest areas possibilties for collaboration be ensured. Fortunately, in a still comprise plenty of unused land and the heat and humidity result sols give rich harvests ' hothouse fertility ttti"tt makes even indifferenL cleared Agriculturally almost anything grolls. Allocated land can beordinary by burning and planted irmediately with available food crops' to provide staples will presumably be available bu it mlry be necessary necessary to ceriain seeds, particularly for pulses and legumes which are foodstuffs and other supplemenr rhe ii*ir" nuritional value of manioc in consisting mainly of starch. Fruits and vegeables which are rich these improvements to vitamins should be introduced as early as possible as general health status' the diet can be counted uPon to be beneficial for the In addition there are numerous possibilities to provide a good supply of animal protein: poultry farming (chickens, ducks and turkeys); fishpondsmadebydamningsmallforestbrooks;pig-andgoat-keeping'ltis in which worth mentioning thai the rain-forest is one of the few ecosystems growth' the much malignd goat can show all its qualities, such as fast once be to disease, and for rapid reproduction, hardiness and resistance As a subordinated to the envirorunent rather than the other way around' be investigated' If secondary activity the possibilties of apiculture should nutritionprornising they might provide a sizeabLe cash incorne and a valuable accepttheir al supplement for the ethnic groups whieh include honey anong able foodstuffs.

Adequateplanningisneeessarytoestablishproportionsbetweenfood copsandcashcrops.Thiswillentailmorethanasimpleassessmentof as as well food habits and taboos, the need for fertLzers and pesticides rt is etc' for seed varieties, improved tools and farming techniques, supplies' equally important to take the marketing aspect into aceount:price flucprices and demands, absorption capacity, ta"sp"it' storage' Ue worthwhile to study the feasituations, etc. In this contex it ay

bilityofintroducingmulti-purposego-opef?ivesocietles:-?artlyfor credit facilites' and production, partly for the pt"po"" ol"iai"g partlytopromotecollaborationbetweenmembers.Co_operativescallfor is financial support' rt know-how and training rather than large outside likelythattherelativelyhighnumbersofpeoplewithadministrative less problematic experience vould make the setting-up of co-operatives than is often the case feasibility studies The planning for co-operatives should also include levels' An obvious for smal1-scale ilrduslries- at differen technologicalbeing given priority opening night b"-fr""d l" forestry, which is actually

72

in Cameroonan national planning. Ideally Ehis should begin right from the settling-in period, in order to provide building materials and furniture, etc. An additional benefit to be found in 1tmbering is that the necessary reforestation can be done by unskilled adults and children. A survey of existing needs in adjacent rural areas will give furher indications for viable village enterprises: workshops for making and maintaining tools and machinery, for cars, carts and bicycles, for carpenters, tailorsr potters, brickmakers, anners and shoemakers.
The concept of organised settlement has been raised in most refugee situaEions. It seems inapplicable to he Equatorial Guineans for the following reasons. In order o have any chance of success the settlement must be aimed at the restoration or re-creation of a social system' notably

that of the settlers, not that of the planners. Therefore its size must correspond with thar of the political unit which is accepted by the settlers. Secondly, the settlerst or,,rn leaders must be given enough leeway to make their o!n groups funcion as a community rather than as a number of disorganised individuals. Thirdly, here must be both the felt need and Lhe opportunity The alterfor the settlers to activate a maximum of self-help initiatives. native is draLnout assistance to non-viable communities and support of professona1 charity cases.

Since rmong most of the refugees the political unit is a small cluster of villages, the choice is between hundreds of small setllements or no organised settlements at all. Everything points in the direction of minisystem; the democratic mum organisation: the decentralised micro-political sysEem ^hich would work against any imposed leadership (unless the management of the settlement came up with a strong ma1nn); the amibitio-os of proud Last but not least, organised settlepeople, independent and individualst. require heavy investment, donors with enough staying po\,er to carry ments the scheme through the inevirable delays and prolongations, and skilled administrators in numbers vhich are no! usually available. 0n he other hand, under present conditions the refugees cannot be expected to manage entirely on their ovrn. There is evidently a need for assistance; first to initiate the aut.o-rehabilitation by providing know-how, credi and in some tools and machinery; secondly, to cases basic inputs of seeds, fertilizers, dscuss ith authorities in the countries of asylum as well as with representatives of the refugees, how and where the refugees fit in with long-term plans, and to see how assistance can be beneficial both to them and to the nationals in the neighbourhood; thirdly to provide financial aid, after careful planning, f.ot he purpose of education.

Ideally, a well orgati.zed receptgn cenEre would do much to help both the refugees still coming in, and lheir country of asylum. In reality it could be counter-productive. If the flow-through cannot be ascertained, such a centre is like1y to cause new problems without solving the old ones. A reception centre where people get stuck for prolonged periods of time is r^rorse than no centre at all.
The perpetual problem of this knd of centre is rhat, in addition tonot being sure that there is an outflow, one can never be certain about what

73

trickle or even stop' or it may to the inflow. It may become ant' to.have a rarely achieved wilt swell into a flood' consequently "";;;;t" in its ability o render servlces' maximum flexibilitY b:, nt:::i:1^:t::t-:i::.': certain of its functions will have t: "iil ;"i;;"' I -' o" "ond l:^:l:.,n:":;l",?'rl?;i:i;;"' " ,"":;::".::.1:""i:::"''i'n'rll:'pri o r :' - :.,,:n' :.:t i": :: ;l::'Tt ";
haPPen

"#F' "' i-'n,:"::t ::.":il:l'i:"i:;"i:i: -:;'' ;l:l_:: :::,ili:"i:,"Hi::i :1".1":::.:;::'; search for nonon a :i::::::",;",'J;*:';lT;;i,,r",,o,,,,d rhe counrrv o,7 on":il:i-,::":::1" erleouatg ::ii' j :i "' i:"f i *i'i' il:';;; ;;;' i;'', :::"i1:1 "':^::';'iil :li: ; i:i::.' ::;;i,:li' .;;;-;:; *' t1 : ::: :,. :::':,':"iiiil'1,3 i:::'i:':::i::i 1 il;iiit".i: ii:.;:*:.'i';:":"::;: :i;
:T:"T:;"::
.;,1

and

3"ffi'i"'"-i'u-'"'th"*"ft.rtheyhavefinishedtherr
studies.

6.3.
he

EDUCATION

Thisis,aftetlegalrecognition'hemosturgentissueandisalso initaited' can be mst rapidly part of an assistanc. progr"rlt. . ti"h job opporHowever'itintroducesan"q.,'tioo'itr,considerablymorethanoneunknown. manpo\rer requirements and has to be taken into account are hlhat tuntiesbothintheeventthattherefugeesareabletorepatriate,andinPlanning for in the country of asylum' the event that they have to remain botheventualiliesisnotimpossiblebuthastobedoneincollaboratlon Interior' of the for insrance, the t"linstrr-i Educationr.Minstry among the refugees with, as well as those the national planning commi""io,-.r"., eventual return' As a result it is an who can anticipat" ," needs ^ttlt correctr-ons highlyhypothetical.Thereforetheimplementationofaneducationalprog_ conti;;;"; Lvaluation to enable rapid rame demands adequate and in order to adapt to changing situations' Themoreobviousaspectsofrhepresentsiuationarethelanguagepro_ blem,thesinkingstandardofeducatininEquatorialGuinea,thelackof obvious difficulties of the documents giving evidence 'f ';;;;ii;s' i:i^ilt large numbers of immigrant of asylum to accommodate proportionally countries
students.

Theseconstraintswillhavetobetackledatdifferentlevelsandin people io "ttt"gt.lot basic instruction for living' earn a dif ferent \^rays. It. is ,r""""""t; rr u"tirh mate-it hard for them to vrhose ignorance of French Attemptsinthisdirectionhave"beenmadebycertainmissiongbutona efficient way of helping the insufficient scale. Probably the most for a low-cost adult education torally suppor job-seeker" I{o.ri be to give financial or entirelv bv the refugees prosramme ,i.t ii*i-rea auirtr;;";;;r'mainlv
hemselves '

ThesystematicelirninationofteachersandotherintellectualsinEquaof the report affects the situaEion mentioned in tt,e s."o,,d p''t yet known to what rorial Guinea rt second";y";;;;ot'trtining' for is not of srudenrs requiring the decreased qualiy of extr. "rrppott to compenra" extent they may need

74

teaching, Absence of books and teaching m4terialsn spending much of the school daypracticingrnilitary dxII, etc. It may be that the best way is to identify teachets in exle and employ them to assist thei.r ovm people' provided tha the espective ministres of Labour and education can accept this.
The lack of school certificate and diplomas should not pose insurmountable problems. Moreover there is a need for testng and screening studens in any case. Again, ths has to do with the uneven and declining standard of teaching in Equatorial Guinea, and with many students having been out of toueh with school for years. Once there is an agreement with the Ministry of Education, testing can be done quickly and cheaply, but nevertheless with sufficient accuracy to show what stage the sLudent should be admitted to.
The problem of accormnodating inrnigrant students is strongly felt in some areas, because of already existing shortages of teachers, classrooms, and eaching materials. Until now the reaction has often been to exclude those rithout vald lD-cards. Once the documentation problem has been solved the situation should improve, but there may sti1l be a need for financial assistance in order to cope with the shortages. The needs for vocational and technical training depend to a great exten on the planning for rehabilitation of the large refugee groups. Presumably there will be quite a number of refugees with valuable technical and

professional experience for rhom the problem is not further training, but possibility to make use of wha they already know for the benefit of the
couununity.

As for post-secondary training, the need is great. Macias's systematic elimination of the educated elite in Equatorial Guinea means that in the event the refugees will be able to return to their country there will be gaps everywhere and at all levels. In the event their exile will be prolonged they will need higher education in order to compensate for the handicap of being refugees, nd to be able to contribute to the further development

of the countries of 6.4.

SUGGESTIONS

asYlum

These observationslead to some concrete suggestions. Both in Gabon and in Cameroon Lhere is a need for counselling services. However, in view of the very large numbers of refugees, it would be nearly impossible for an organi-za1ion of the kind previously set up in other countries to concenrate encounon individual cases. Moreover, past experience of the difficullies discouraging. IIhat seems more appropriate tered in this context is rather is a refugee bureau with the objectives of maintaining 1aison between the anthorities, donor agencies and tecogntzed represenLatives of the refugees; and of promoting education according to planned priorities and the possibilities for placement.

75

possibitities f.or a similar arrangement appear to be gradually under in fact already doing way in Spain, where ASODAGE is by lack of money' This inisome of the work, alttrougtr it is badly hampered also in tiative torards self-helt should be noted, and eficouragedtoleratedGabon' by the or at least Cameroon and Nigeria. fi it can be accepted of assistance programes authorities it is rikely to inrease the efficiency
rhi1e keeping

the costs

down'

undoubtPlanning for education progrartrnes in Gabon and cameroon ri11 in crash qdly reveal that there are refug"" tho can be employed as teachers enough well course language training. In *ty """"s those who speak I'rench but would be willing to to be capable of teaehiog rr" a]Jeady employed, teach in evening classes 10 in Libre_ The suggested number of teachers would be 20 in Gabon, 10 in vi1le and 2 each in Bitam, Oyem, Mdzit, Medouen and cocobeach; and costs for amenities should cameoon, 4 in Yaound and 6 in the border afeas. the students be kept at a rninimum, and it would be advisable ro sugges that direct or under the pay at least a nominal fee. The teaching should come Bureu. Salaries could be paid through indrect supetvision of the Refugee Peasants' Associations an interesting and highly efficint system' used by theteachers, and retained to hire in Ethiopia, in which they received the money teacherst performance' and the responsibilty for daily supervision of the incidentally also of the studentsr attendance'

Hopefully,theproblemsofprimaryeducationwillbesolvedmoreor the refugees has less automaticaiiy oncl the ambiguity of the status offor donor agencies to disappeared. et ttre present tim, it seems premature Refugee Bureau could begin planning in Ehis context.. on the oher hand, themight, local labourptobably assist in identifying unemployed refugees who The Bureau should laws permitting, relieve some of th tLacher shortages' applying for also be irrvolved in the testing and screening of studensthe needs and seconda.ry etlucation, and in policy evaluaion concernng possibilities for vocational trairiing' However'aSStaledabove,theneedsforhighereducationaecrucial andthisisanareawheretheIUEFshouldplayamajorrole. clearly ealled s A larger scholarship prograrmre in both Europe and Africa for and should be irnplemented as quickly as possible'
InEurope,theprogrameshouldobviouslybeconcentratedinSpain IUEF selection criteria where there are no language problems and where normal and administration of scholarships can be followed' Gabon, In Africa, the programe should be based in three countries: be for -However, he problem is and will continue to Crmeroon and Nigria. of language' Yt::^ :.^ sometime, despite the measures suggested above, that 12-rnonth language course l-n students will probably have to undertake a 6 to the post=secondary French or Englsh before sta'ting the normal courses at
education institutions'

76

the subjects of In addition, particular attention should be paid to of the 15 13 study to avoid sit,r"tiorrs like. that in Libreville where only subject open university sudents are attending classes in Spanish, the training to them. Needless to say this is hardly in accordance with priorities. risk that representacceDtance of students, partly to avoid the very real ativls of Macfas benefit from the progranrne'
prograflmes can be considered as an absolute mlnl-mum:
Span
Gabon Cameroon

Again,theRefugeeBureaushouldbeinvolvedintheselectionand

Althoughtheneedismuchgreater,the.followingscholarship
100 scholarshiPs 100ft
70
30

Nigeria
TOTAL

300

themselves' handling of the assistance should be entrusted.to the refugees but it This self-hetp appraoch has not really been tried before in Africa' would seem that the time is ripe for it. rn spain the non-political the Equatorial organtzatiors among both the latin American refugees and

Finally,thereiseveryindicationthatasmuchaspossibleofthe

Guineansappeartohavethecapacityandthesupportt'otakecareofsome ofthehumanitarianworkrmofigtheirownpeople.InAfricathetrustin in a reconrnendwhat can be done by the dispossessed has already been stated in ation made by the Refugee Bureau of the organzation of African unity valuable assistance to their December 1973: "As refugees can provide in the complementary fellow refugees, efforts should be made to associate them counselling services of services which are usually required wherever the scope is enlarged to cover aAiiional areas of refugee adjustment ' " to their An illustration of the assistance which refugees can provide mntioned ASODAGE survey comparriots in exile is provided in che previously which concludes with the following solutions and projects:

77

A major scholarshiP Progranrne'

Guinean Given that one main problem is the cohesion of the would be: community' to create the means for it Eo develop such as to enable the associations already existing' i.
ASODAGE'

to Promote cohesion to envisage the escablishment of a Council which ii. represents a1l the Guineans iii.tocreateacentrewhereGuineanscouldmeettofoster a connnunity sPirit to appoint a chaplain to promore religious gatherings ]-V. and further mutual aid' Tosolvetheproblemsofthechildpopulationnurseriesmustbe establishedandplacesinschoolsbereservedingoodtimefor children AGuineanStudentHouseshouldbeestablishedintheinterests lectures of those undertaking further studies' Courses and be given there' Africa and Equatorial Guinea should
on

-).

't
i1

il
il

:l

should The creation of a savings and investment cooperative from benefit promoEed in order that lhe Guineans themselves

rl

be
u
H

their caPital.
6.

up which offers A reasonably priced dining-room should be set

typicalAfricandishesinordertoalleviatehefoodproblem. shortage' etc' should be Such problems as unemploymen, housing such as ASODAGE studied by a conrnr"ior,'rithin an association businesses' where crealion of and prepare projects' such as the necessaryrequestingassistancefromnationalandinternational voluntarY agencies'

fl

il

7B

I. a)

Individual and Cournunity Promotion Projects

RELIGIOUS

1. Conrnunity Chapel 2. Chaplain' s Office

socrA]3. Meeing room 4. Council room
CULTURAL

b)
c)

5. Guinean Cultural Centre 6. Monthly bulletin l. Twice-yearly review

CHILD
I^TELFARE

d) e) f) II.

B. Nurseries
STUDENT ACTIVITIES

9.

Guinean Student House

ACTIV]TIES
[,lomenr

I^OMENIS

10. Guinean
Economic

s Hostel

11. Savings and investment cooperative 12. Bar - Cafe 13. Guinean Restaurant 1.4. Shop - Hispanic-African goods 15. Grocery III. Social l{elfare 16. Social welfare offrce 17. Assistance fund

Without going into detailed comments on these issues, the conclusion would be that the characteristics of the groups of refugees from Equatorial Guinea strongly suggest that assistance to them should as far as ever is possible be based on refugee parLicipation and self-help'

In view of the capability and maturity of many of the refugee grouPs' in all Lhe different countries of asylum, there is little doub that they can contribute greatly, both towards helping their compatriots and by becoming assets to their respective host communities, provided that assistance o them nor t.oo late. is neither too little'

79

SOURCES

This repor differs from what has so far been written about Equatorial Guinea. It is a frst-hand account, based on the writer's personal observations and on meticulously cross-checked accounls from eye-witnesses. It is also produced by an organisation and an individual without any vesed interests in the area. The material, of rhich this paper represents only a sma1l part, v/as gathered in six different countries: Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland and, most important, in Equatorial Guinea itself.
The inforrnants are government officials, representatives of international organisations, non-goverrmental organisations, churches, missionsr voluntry agencies, and individuals with relevant personal experience. Most of the informacion comes from the people of Equatorial Guinea. Some talked in relative comfort, many in misery and many took great risks in having anything to do Some provided interesting information about conditions with a foreigner. Equatorial Guinea without any intention whatsoever to helpi the everyin day behaviour of officials, soldiers, policemen and urilicianosthere revealed a great dea1.

As informants, the Equatorial Guineans are special. A large number of the refugees are re1l-educated persons who express Ehemselves with clarity and unusual exactitude in their reca11 of numbers and dates. Due o the smallness of the country their experience usually covers most or all of the regions, and much of what has happened. The cont.inued exodus also permits the up-dating of events. A grear deal has been published about Equatorial Guinea before f968. However, most of the relevant literature mirrors various aspects of colonialism and on occasion anti-colonialism and 1itt1e of it penetrates below the surface. Recent books give interesting descriptions of certain aspects of history of the posl-independence period but always from a the political strictly European point of view. It is hoped that his report will complement the pictureby bringing some economc, social and cultural aspects up to date.

Written sources as well as tapes of radio broadcasts, etc. have been used mainly to check verbal evidence. Official writings from the Macas regime have been searched as far as possible for credible evidence thaL there are positive elements fo balance the negative, but without success. Some published \^rritten sources are given in a short list of background reading. Quotations withou specific reference are confirmed verbatim accounts vhose sources cannot be revealed for securiEy reasons. For the benefit of eventual readers in Equatorial Guinea it should be stressed that is some cases details irrelevant to the general conten have been changed to Confirrned statements from make id,entification of a source inpossible. people with first-hand experience as well as any other statement which is not explicitly mentioned as unconfirmed, probable or with similar reservaEvery one of hese items has been checked and tions are given as facts. Contradictions have cross-checked with .i'r""" independent of each other. been pursued until they were either explained av/ay, or-the item dropped from Items rhich have not been confirmed in at least the list of accepted facts. countries visited are presented rith reservations. five of the six

80

of interviews with Equatorial Guineans it beqame clear informants that much of the information \^/as potentially dangerous for still inside the particularly for people rithin reach of l"Iacasl agents an procedure country vrho eould face unpredictabl reprisals. I made t standard tre or she r^as willing to to bring up this pont and to ask my informant if fur' and his long arm' of the obvious risk of Macfas' go aher, io "pit
During hundreds as much about An overwhelming number reacted in a way which perhaps says of this repor. "I am a\are of the presient Macast rgime as the rest rho are dangers and I have much fear, especially for those of my familyif I keep even srill inside my counry. But thLy could easily be killed hTorse f I tell you silent. The situation is so bad that it cannot get much so Lhat the r,hat I have seen. The truth about our country must be told give Maclas the protection of silence'" vorld rnil1 understand and no longer

81

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS

A56DAGE

L),iillii-"r"" *"i;.r.,r"

(Associacion de Arnigos de Guinea Ecuatoriaij', +*H (srencil), Madrid,

s"_

social
L97 B.

na e Amndio, csar: Presena jlo arquiPlagg-de-9t-Ton 3rincipe t "' reuret L/vv' moderna cultural po:ttgue

""u"u,

Aynni,

los articulos Antono: Los bubis en-J'erla+dg-P99t^l:1t"t"ton 'de 1942' espaola", Madrid' publicado" "rr@

Balandier,Georges:TheSociologyof.BlackAfrica,Prader,NewYork,19T0.

DominguezrRamonGarcia:Macas'laleydelsilencio'Plaza&Janes'
Barcelona,
L977 ' de

Vol' II IEA (Instiuto Echegaray, Carlos Gonsalez: Esttldig9-Guineos' "ssrldios L964'

Africanos)' Marid'

Fernandez,Rafael'SedmayEdiciones'l"ladrid'L976' Guinea' Matilla: E1 pasado-y presente de la sanidad -enGomez, Valenin

IEA, Madrid, 1968'

Govantes, Luis Saez de:

de Guine Equatoriale: ses ressource Kobel, Armin Eric: La RPulique et r"iUifitas de--4velo ementr Berne,

ootentielles et virtuelles
r976.

Mitogo:Guinea:'decoloniaadictadura'EditorialCuadernosparael
Dialogo,

Edm

Ndongo Bdyogo, Donato: Hislofia )'-llagedia Editorial Cambio 16' luladrid' L977 '

de Guinea Ecuatorial'
Nt.umu

Panyella, '

EsPaola' IEA' Madrid' L959'

Auguso:

uema de

etnologia de 1os Fan

de la

Gui.nea

Geografi-a e historia dS la Guinea Pujadas, Tomas L' & P-erez' l"lanue1 : Espao1a, IEA' Madrid' 1959' icjr de Fernando Poo' rEA' Madrid' L962' Teran. .l'tanuel de: sintesis_ geograf
Tessmann,

Gnrer: Die Bubi auf

Tern?ndg Po::

-,Ylkerkund,lil!:-Tinzer- 0. Herausg' von

1960' Archivos aei run', uol-55' Madrid' Whitstable' f975 ' lniood, G. A. R., Cocoa, Longman'

nffi-E-staat, L923 ' progre-soq valenrin Marirla, D.D.:

'

s-eniggrlas en

la

Guinea Espaola'

HANDBOOKS

Africa South of the Sahara, Europa Publications'

UN

London

Statistical

Yearbook

OFFICIAL

DOCUMENTS

La Educacion en .1a region ecuatorial de E-spaa' IEA'

Espaa en e1

Iladrid'

L96L'

Afric?-ec9?!9ria1, Edciones del servicio informativo espafol, Madrid, 1964' IEA' Madrid' Labor sanitara en 1as provincias de 1a regi '
L963.

ElplandedesarollodelaGuineaEcuatora]-,Oficinaderelaciones --- pubtf"as, Madrid, 7963'

La region ecuatoral esPa-ola al
Resumenes

'

IEA' Madrid' 1963'

---

Estadisticos del Gobierno General de 10s territo d"l crTf. de-dlf.a; rEA, Iladrid, 1957 '

PERIOP.ICALS

Africa, August L976. C,ocoa. Sl.atistics, Gil1s

& Duf fus, London, I976'

Counroditv Yearbook Lg77, Couunodity Research Inc" New York' Jeune.-Afrique, 72L - 2 November L974; 831 - I Decembet L976' Cotunonwealth Secretariat' London' L976. Trop ical Prodt.ts

-Qta.rJ=:JJ, La Yoz del Pueblo, Alianza Nacional de Restauracion Democratica recent edrtrons.

(ANRD),

83

APPEN.DIX

I
conference' Extract from a speech by Maclas at the constitutional

3 November 1967:

cost over fortY million "Hitler provoked the Second l^/orld I'{ar vihich rnrith all the peoPles more lives and Germany todty is on friendly terms once of the whole world' of Europe, Asia nd ernlrica, and

Everybodydeclared\"/aronAfricaandlwishtosayonething:I because made mistakes consider Hitler to be the saviour of Africa. HiLler throughout the world' he was human. Hitlerrs intention was to end colonialism AlthoughitissaidthathepersecutedtheJews,whathewantedlIastocombatpeoples wanted to cofnmand all the colonialism but he got confused and then heAmerica united and attacked Germany of Europe and so th peoples of Europe andforgotten' The colonial problem we and destroyed her. Sut ff tttis has been Guinea which can be equal consider as over. Today te wish to build a stable externally' to Spain and can count tn Spain both internally and following sense' I will tell you why Hitler liberated Africa in the for all men are human theologians, even though his conf,,sion r^hich was human, and we all decay' Knowledge is not those who make atom bombs, \,Ie are all human importanttome,whatisimportantismanandwhatmypeoplewishisthatman be given dignitY. GeneralRorrnnelV/enttoAfrica,tothedesert,wheretherewasfighting African of ficers' An African and where English officers \^Iere together \'ith officer and the English officer felc a bond between himseli and an English ,lnle are going to destroy Germany because she wishes to officer said to him, African said to him, 'rs Hitler bad?'' command over all our peop1es,. Te lNo, but a German should command over Germans' an The English office',"i, Italianltalians,aSpaniardspaniards,aFrenchmanFrenchmen...'.The the English' command over English officer did not say that the English should empire throughout the world' because the United Kingdom still had a o1onia1 And so the African officer realised' FollowingtheSecondl^/orldlnlar,whenGermanyhadbeenfoughtagainst anddestroyed,AfricabegantoevolveandrequestedEnglandtogranttotal position England maintained a very firm independence to the African countries' againstindependence.Nkrumah,Lumumba,sekuTourandXnumberofAfrican ptiti"ittts will remain in our hearts' AndtheAfrieansaid,'Englanddoesnot\^/anttogiveindependence. command should you said that a German should command over Germans ' an Englishman overEnglishmenandsowhydoyounotv/anttheAfricanstocommandoverAfrica was that Hitler saved Africa. Inlhat he wantedaspect.t' nor? r . For this reason r say on this I have finished to abolish colonialisrn and totk- aoguther' And

B4

APPENDIX

Doculrent issued. by th.e. Civil .Govgrnnsnt

SECRET

of Rio Muni in

1-975

During the session held in this Capital on 23 March, present at which were H. E. Life President of the Republic and the Central Committee of PUNT Honourable and creat ComradeMACIAS NGUEMA BIYOGO NEGUE and the tr^/omenf Revolutionary Section the following counsel was included in that offered to the above mentioned Organisation and hereby brought to the notice of the
Governmental Delegates
:

The afore mentioned Supreme Authority has abolished totally the l. ill-treatment of \^romen except in cases of subversion. tr^lhere such exception is made a detailed investigation of the faets shall be made beforehand.

2. A fuure baptisms the names given to those baptised shal1 be African names, such as Nguema, Mba, Ndong, etc., and never names imported by the colonialists, such as Lus, Anselm, Benito, etc., as used to be given.
The contribution of alms or offerings to the Missions shall remain 3. prohibited and the activities of private Catholic educational institutions throughout the territory shal 1 be suppressed in order to put an end to the subversive education which is imparted in such establishments and in accordance with Decrero-Ley No. 6lls ot 18 l"farch.

It remains forbidden for those in religious orders to move freely from one place to another. As regards funeral ceremonies, these shall be carried out according to the African tradition. 4.
The preachings and sermons of Priests shal1 be censored and listened 5. to attentively for subsequent analyss.
6. The National Anthem shall be actively encouraged within the Womenrs Revolutionary Section at all official ceremonies as shall the idea that political knowledge for the v/oman is obtained through the Party rhich is directed by H. E. Macas, etc., as is the doctrine to the revolutionary people that Equatorial Guinea must be commanded and guided by the Guineans themselves and not by aliens.

l. Daily work sha1l be recommended to the revolutionary people so that the people should never consider it as an activity of slavery but ralher as the basis of man's life. B.
recommends body.
o

For work in the fields the Great Master and Father of our Revolution that \^/omer. v/ear trousers to a11ow free movement and to protect the

The Liberator of our Great People, l{acas, ete., in his never-ceasing determination to place the woman at the summit of progress, once more invites her to prepare herself politically in the way he has outlined and considers invalid any type of meeting or association in which she has not participated.

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responsible for the,PartY the Governmental Delegates and those these counsels and recomobliged "":-- ,be,--^ Ii'.n. oi"iti.t" shalldiscussions to.make f":T:11 they maY have with the ._ ^., and meetulgs r'ghich *endations at all the Both 10. an LIie ur Lt
People.

To acknowledge receiPt
May God KeeP You

for

l"lanY Years

Bata, 17 APril

1975

DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE OFFICE

APPENDIX 3 +

AMNE.srr TNTERNA',TJONAL .P3gALS. r0 0u TO HE-LP END HUMAN. RIG.HTS VIOLATIONS IN EQUATORIAL GUINE..

International today (Tuesday, lO October f97B) appealed ro the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to Lake aetion o prevent further violations of human rights in Equatorial Guinea, which s celebrating the 10th anniversary of its independence on 12 October.
Amnesy

In cables to the Chairman of OAU, President Jaafar el-Nimeiri of Sudan, and the OAU Secretary-General, Edem Kodjo of Togo, Amnesty International said that the 10 years. of Equatorial Guinear s independence had been marked by a succession of arbitrary arrests, deaths from torture and summary executions. AI said that the grave and longstanding record of serious sign of human rights violations in Equaorial Guinea has shown little improving, despite international appeals.
The 1963 Charter of the OAU affirms that its member states vill adhere to the principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and AI said it hoped that the OAU's Chairman and SecretaryGeneral would be able to encourage fundamental improvements in the human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea.
Amnesty International has also urged other African heads of state to endorse this appeal and o influence the government of Equatorial Guinea by exerting diplomatic pressure.

10 0crober 1978

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