U.S. commandos have<\/u> shown a special interest in strengthening ties with one of the most corrupt, abusive, and repressive regimes on the planet. The delivery of aid by Special Operations forces to the coastal African nation of Equatorial Guinea last month followed pilgrimages to the country\u2019s pariah president by top U.S. officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move came amid shifting West African geopolitics. A Pentagon report<\/a> last year mentioned Equatorial Guinea as the potential site of a future Chinese military base. At the same time, U.S. relations with longtime allies in Central and West Africa have frayed, often in the aftermath of coups d’\u00e9tat by American-trained military officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aid to Equatorial Guinea appears to be the latest facet of a U.S. charm offensive to woo the country\u2019s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a tyrant now in his sixth decade in power, as the U.S. has lost influence in the African Sahel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \u201cWe hope that this donation is the beginning of additional cooperation,\u201d said Commander Michael White, the defense attach\u00e9 to the U.S. Embassy in Equatorial Guinea, after U.S. Special Operations Command Africa spearheaded a modest donation of humanitarian aid to the tiny, oil-rich central African nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea David Gilmour expressed hope that the recent donation of medical supplies would be the \u201cfirst of many opportunities to partner with\u201d the government there. It follows high-level engagement by the administration of President Joe Biden with Obiang\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis seems to run counter to every value that the Biden administration publicly espouses when it comes to democracy, human rights, and anticorruption,\u201d said Cameron Hudson, a former Africa analyst at the CIA, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. \u201cThe administration is doing everything it can to maintain a military foothold on the continent. And if we don\u2019t already have a foothold, to create one. So establishing or deepening relationships with particularly odious regimes like Equatorial Guinea are not off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Efforts to improve relations with the notorious kleptocracy come as the U.S. has been forced to scale back its military reach on the continent. (Kelly Cahalan, a spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, said the command was unaware of any increased U.S. engagement with Equatorial Guinea.) The Pentagon curtailed military ties with Burkina Faso<\/a>, Mali<\/a>, and Niger<\/a> following coups and reduced its counterterrorism activities in Cameroon due to human rights abuses<\/a> by the country\u2019s military. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this month, Niger\u2019s ruling junta, which includes a number of officers trained by the U.S. military, announced it was severing a long-standing security cooperation agreement with the United States \u201cwith immediate effect<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crisantos Obama Ondo, Equatorial Guinea\u2019s ambassador to the U.S., did not respond to requests for an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Equatorial Guinea has been plagued by oppression, corruption, and poverty for decades. After seizing power in a military coup<\/a> in 1979, Obiang and his family have ruled it as their personal fiefdom. Despite significant oil wealth, the country suffers widespread poverty due to rampant embezzlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent State Department report<\/a> on human rights in Equatorial Guinea details credible reports of extrajudicial killings, torture, \u201cinhuman\u201d punishment, arbitrary arrest, and political imprisonment by the state, among many other abuses. It also chronicles corruption at all levels of government, especially the top: \u201cThe president and members of his inner circle continued to amass personal fortunes from the revenues associated with monopolies on all domestic commercial ventures, as well as timber and oil exports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department seized a beachfront mansion in Malibu, California; a private plane; and a fleet of luxury cars \u2014 purchased with looted funds laundered in the U.S.<\/a> \u2014 from Teodoro \u201cTeodorin\u201d Nguema Obiang Mangue, the president\u2019s son and now Equatorial Guinea’s vice president. The U.S. settled the case after Teodorin forfeited nearly $30 million in assets<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Swiss prosecutors took possession of 11 of the younger Obiang\u2019s luxury cars<\/a> in 2016, seizing Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, a Bugatti, and a Rolls-Royce. In 2021, France seized $170 million of Teodorin\u2019s assets including a 101-room mansion<\/a> near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The seizures have not affected Teodorin\u2019s conspicuous consumption, typified by his penchant for enjoying the high life on a luxury\u00a0superyacht<\/a> and, last year, staying in a $75,000-a-night<\/a> New York hotel suite while asking the United Nations for aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years, U.S. officials have publicly fretted about China establishing a naval outpost <\/a>in West Africa. “The thing I think I’m most worried about is this military base on the Atlantic coast, and where they have the most traction for that today is in Equatorial Guinea,” Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, then-chief of AFRICOM, told <\/a>the House Armed Services Committee in March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an October 2023 analysis<\/a> for Congress, the Defense Department reported it was \u201clikely\u201d that China has considered locating a \u201cmilitary logistics\u201d facility in Equatorial Guinea. Earlier this month, Gen. Michael Langley, the current AFRICOM commander, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee: \u201cChina is actively pursuing a naval base on Africa’s Atlantic coast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The pariah state has been invited, since 2019, to participate in AFRICOM\u2019s Obangame Express, the largest multinational maritime exercise in Western and Central Africa. AFRICOM also conducted a maritime capability assessment for the country in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That same year, when a Navy ship made a port call there, a U.S. news release called<\/a> Equatorial Guinea \u201can important partner of the United States.\u201d A visit by another ship in 2022 prompted Navy commander Tim Rustico to highlight<\/a> the \u201cgreat opportunity to continue building our partnership with Equatorial Guinea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cU.S. forces worked \u2026 with the government of Equatorial Guinea to facilitate this engagement signifying sustained relations between the two nations,\u201d reads an Army news release<\/a> about the February donation of $24,000 worth of supplies, including baby formula and first-aid kits to the country where most of the population lives on less than two dollars a day, but where the president has a reported net worth of $600 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tutu Alicante, the head of EG Justice, a nonprofit organization that promotes human rights in Equatorial Guinea, said that the Biden administration\u2019s high-level engagement with the Obiang government was even more damaging than providing aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Biden took office, Obiang, his son, or both have met with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee<\/a>, Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer<\/a>, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen<\/a>, and Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman, the director of strategy, engagement, and programs at AFRICOM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Center for Strategic and International Studies\u2019s Hudson said, \u201cEquatorial Guinea seems blatant about the fact that they are very much for sale to the highest bidder. They are very happy to be courted by Washington and Beijing because they occupy a strategic spot in the world and sit on a strategic resource and they have the money to allow them an independence that other countries in the region don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following rigged presidential elections in 2022 \u2014 in which Obiang won 95 percent<\/a> of the vote \u2014 Phee wrote a letter to the newly reelected president. Posted to X <\/a>by an Equatoguinean government official,<\/a> the letter shows that Phee welcomed \u201cclose collaboration\u201d in which their countries would \u201cact together\u201d and seize \u201copportunities to strengthen\u201d and \u201cenhance our mutual security.\u201d (The State Department verified the authenticity of the letter to The Intercept, but did not respond to other questions about engagement with Obiang\u2019s government.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe United States is committed to a world in which human rights are protected \u2026 and those who commit human rights abuses are held accountable,\u201d said Phee\u2019s boss, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a 2021 statement defining<\/a> the Biden administration\u2019s core principles. \u201cPresident Biden is committed to a foreign policy \u2026 centered on the defense of democracy and the protection of human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts said engagement with Equatorial Guinea makes a mockery of this pledge and undermines U.S. credibility across Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe hypocrisy of publicly saying that democracy, human rights, and anticorruption are the cornerstone of your foreign policy and then to go down a path that does not put those values into any kind of real practice is most troubling,\u201d Hudson told The Intercept. \u201cIt sends a message to everyone on the continent that everything we say is negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Squeezed by African Coups, Biden Cozies Up to the World\u2019s Worst Dictator<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Famous for its repression and torture, Teodoro Obiang\u2019s Equatorial Guinea got an aid delivery from U.S. Special Operations forces.<\/p>\n The post Squeezed by African Coups, Biden Cozies Up to the World\u2019s Worst Dictator<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":535,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[383,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/535"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1572526,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572524\/revisions\/1572526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cThis seems to run counter to every value that the Biden administration publicly espouses when it comes to democracy, human rights, and anticorruption.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Corruption and Torture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Pentagon\u2019s China Fears<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Biden Engages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEquatorial Guinea seems blatant about the fact that they are very much for sale to the highest bidder.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n