The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative

Morning Edition, the morning news program heard nationwide on National Public Radio, today featured a story on the U.S. Justice Department's Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. The story, reported by Jackie Northam, noted the Justice Department's case against property--including an estate in Malibu, expensive cars, and a collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia--that Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator, purchased in the United States.

The biggest case brought thus far by the Justice Department under this program was announced in July. It involves the misappropriation of $3.5 billion from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), an $8 billion government fund intended to promote economic development in Malaysia. The U.S. Government alleges that $1 billion from the fund was spent in the United States on yachts, hotels, and art works. Some of the money even went toward the financing of The Wolf of Wall Street, a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that was released in 2013.

The FBI website describes the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative in these terms:

The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative was established in 2010 to curb high-level public corruption around the world. Led by a team of Department of Justice prosecutors working in tandem with the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies, its mission is to forfeit the proceeds of corruption by foreign officials and, where appropriate, to use recovered assets to benefit the people who were harmed.

The Case in France

On Thursday, the French corruption case against Teodoro Nguema Obiang--second vice president of Equatorial Guinea and heir apparent to his father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo--cleared a procedural hurdle as prosecutors signaled their willingness to move forward. A 36-page indictment has been filed and may now be reviewed by both the defense and the prosecution before a panel of judges determines (in about a month) whether to allow the case to proceed to trial.

The French investigation into the financial affairs of the ruling families of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon--known informally as les biens mal acquis (the ill-gotten gains) case--began in December 2010. In February 2012, cars, art works, wine, and other goods were seized from Obiang's Paris home. Five months later a warrant for Obiang's arrest was issued.

Rethinking the Islamic State

On Tuesday, the New York Times ran a story on the evolution of the Islamic State. While it might be better to characterize what has been happening as an evolution in Western thinking about the Islamic State, a point that the story (if not the headline) attempts to make, there is some useful information to be gleaned from the pastiche of interviews and expert analyses presented in Tim Arango's narrative.

First, individuals living in areas controlled by the Islamic State and experts on the region make the point that the Islamic State, while extremely repressive, has brought a measure of stability to parts of Iraq and Syria that have long been in turmoil. This stability is, at least to some extent, due to the elimination of the corruption that existed under the region's dictators and, all too often, its supposed liberators as well. As a man from Raqqa put it, "You can travel from Raqqa to Mosul, and no one will dare to stop you even if you carry $1 million." Sadly, neither the forces favored by the West in Syria nor the governments that succeeded Saddam Hussein in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan have been convinced that good governance--clean governance--is essential to the state-building enterprise. This seems to be something that the Islamic State, for all of its horrors, understands.

Second, three of the experts quoted in the article--Harvard's Stephen Walt, the Brookings Institution's William McCants, and former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin--find parallels between the violence of the Islamic State and that of revolutionary France, Bolshevik Russia, Maoist China, and some other modern states. If these parallels are meaningful--and I would argue that they are--then Western discourse needs to abandon the rhetoric of fighting terrorism where the Islamic State is concerned, unless those using that rhetoric intend "terrorism" to mean what it did when the term was coined in connection with the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. A state that conducts beheadings--whether with a guillotine or a sword--should be condemned, but we misconstrue what is happening if we call the beheadings acts of terrorism while using that term in its modern sense.

A few weeks ago, while working on the third edition of Seeking Security in an Insecure World, I wrote the following about the Islamic State for the section of the book that deals with failed states:

At the heart of the Peace of Westphalia was an agreement to eliminate religion as a reason for warfare by establishing a rule of mutual tolerance among (if not within) states. Both the Holy Roman Empire’s bid to subdue Protestant principalities and the effort of Protestant rulers to extend their control to Catholic territories were delegitimized by their joint acceptance of a principle encapsulated in the Latin phrase cuius regio eius religio (the ruler of the territory determines the religion practiced in it). While religious differences have factored into conflicts many times in the Westphalian era, now the basic principle is being threatened. 

The Islamic State--also called the Islamic State in Iraq and ash-Sham (the term for Syria in classical Arabic) or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)--has capitalized on state failure to inject into the modern world a distinctively pre-modern understanding of the way religion and the state are to interact. On June 29, 2014, the Islamic State publicly proclaimed a caliphate with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the first caliph since the days of the Ottoman Empire. It is a theocratic state that considers itself unbound by the Westphalian principle of sovereignty with its corollaries of non-aggression and non-intervention. In fact, the formation of the caliphate signaled the Islamic State’s intent to pursue a policy of expansion that would, according to prophecies in the Qur’an, lead to the Day of Judgment with its divinely foreordained apocalypse. For Muslims who subscribe to the most literal reading of the Qur’an, the establishment of the caliphate was a pivotal event; thousands began traveling from all over the world to the lands controlled by the Islamic State to lend their support to its efforts, military and political, to impose divine judgment on both Muslim and non-Muslim apostates. 

By the middle of 2015, and in spite of armed opposition on the ground supported by American and British airstrikes, the Islamic State controlled a swath of territory roughly equivalent to the size of the British Isles with a population estimated at six to eight million. Its territory, primarily in the most ineffectively governed regions of Iraq and most war-torn parts of Syria, demonstrates well the hazards posed by failed states and the tendency for conditions in them to threaten other states. To be clear, in the territories it controls the Islamic State exercises many of the functions associated with modern states. It enforces law, collects taxes, maintains both military and police forces, and even seeks to build alliances with like-minded organizations. (In March 2015, Boko Haram offered--and the Islamic State accepted--a pledge of allegiance that, in theory, extends the caliphate to West Africa.) In many respects, the Islamic State exercises more effective control over the territories it occupies than the states it has displaced did. However, the Islamic State does not have, and will likely never obtain, the recognition of other states. It exists as a quasi-state (due to the absence of the critical element of recognition) only because the recognized states whose territory it occupies are themselves quasi-states (due to their inability to exercise effective control). Nation-building, therefore, appears as an essential element of any strategy to defeat ISIS, a point recognized by President Obama in his pledge at the June 2015 G-7 meeting in Germany to accelerate efforts to train the Iraqi army to fight Islamic State units.

In working on a book that deals with contemporary issues, there is a constant concern that the period between writing and publication will witness changes that render even the most careful analyses obsolete. Our powers of prediction in international politics are severely limited. In this instance, however, I suspect the Islamic State will still be around next spring when the new edition of Seeking Security appears. It will likely be looking more and more like a "real" state. And some in the West will probably still be trying to figure out why it doesn't really make sense to call it a terrorist organization.

Adios, Teodoro

Visits to Malibu by Equatorial Guinea's dictator-in-waiting may be coming to an end. On Friday, a federal judge approved a settlement in the Justice Department's civil suit against assets belonging to Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, the second vice president of Equatorial Guinea and the first son of the country's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mangue. The settlement, under which Obiang will forfeit approximately $30 million in property held in the United States (including an estate on fifteen acres in Malibu, a Ferrari, and items from an extensive collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia), ends one of the more prominent--and challenging--cases filed by the Justice Department in recent years under its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. As part of the settlement, the Justice Department dropped its efforts to seize additional property that is believed to be located in Equatorial Guinea, including a Gulfstream jet and the bulk of the memorabilia collection.

The Malibu home, purchased in February 2006 by a shell corporation controlled by Obiang, has been a primary focus of attention for journalists, human rights and anti-corruption organizations, and Justice Department attorneys. It was purportedly the scene of lavish parties when Obiang was in residence. It was also the home base for Obiang's American fleet of luxury automobiles. Obiang is said on occasion to have chosen which car to drive (from among Ferraris, Bentleys, and Bugatti Veyrons, among others) based on whether a particular car matched his wardrobe for the evening.

In its suit, the Justice Department alleged that Obiang purchased the Malibu estate, the cars, the jet, and the Michael Jackson memorabilia with the proceeds of corrupt business dealings in Equatorial Guinea. Obiang's father gave him control over the state's large timber holdings while also making him Minister of Forestry and Agriculture. Corporations doing business in Equatorial Guinea have long complained that they are forced to pay bribes or kickbacks to government officials and that none is worse than Vice President Obiang. President Obiang has also been accused of amassing a vast personal fortune by treating the proceeds of Equatorial Guinea's oil leases as his own personal income, but he has been somewhat more discreet in his overseas spending. This, at least, has been true since a congressional hearing in 2004 revealed that Obiang family accounts in the now-defunct Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. totaled over $700 million. Riggs was forced to merge with a rival bank after a record-setting fine was levied against by federal regulators for its failure to report the large cash deposits made by the Equatorial Guinean embassy on behalf of the Obiang family.

The settlement announced on Friday does not end Obiang's legal problems. He faces criminal charges in France in a case popularly called biens mal acquis, or ill-gotten goods.

For more on the settlement, see this story in the Los Angeles Times story or this piece on the CNBC website.

TNO's Legal Problems

Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Equatorial Guinea's second vice president (and oldest son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo), was notified this week that French authorities are putting him under formal investigation for money laundering. The move is roughly the equivalent of an indictment in an American court.

France has been investigating corruption involving the leadership of three African states--Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon--in a case known as les biens mal acquis--"the ill-gotten gains"--since December 2010. As part of the investigation, France has seized property belonging to the younger Obiang, including a fleet of expensive cars and an estate in central Paris.

Beehive Radio

In today's New York Times, Thomas Fuller profiles a 72-year-old Cambodian--Mam Sonando--who is into Lil Wayne, Eminem, and Jay Z, but not Hun Sen, Cambodia's longtime leader. (Hun Sen has led Cambodia since 1985. His Cambodian People's Party won a majority of seats in parliament last summer in an election that most believe was fraudulent.)

Mam Sonando owns and operates Beehive Radio in Phnom Penh, a station that provides a platform for his pro-democracy, anti-corruption message. It is a message that has gotten him arrested three times.

Ou Virak, the president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, says of Beehive Radio that "there's nothing else out there that is so critical of the government." This, no doubt, explains why the station has been repeatedly denied its requests to expand its operating range.

A New African Oil Play

After negotiating for years, Uganda's Ministry of Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with three multinational oil companies to provide for the development of the nation's oil reserves. The three companies involved in the deal announced on February 6 are Tullow Oil PLC (UK), Total SA (France), and CNOOC Ltd. (China). Plans call both for crude oil production and the construction (by another company yet to be selected) of a refinery with a capacity of 60,000 barrels a day. In all, total investment in Uganda's oil sector is expected to reach $15 billion.

Uganda's oil reserves, estimated at 3.5 billion barrels, are fourth largest among states in sub-Saharan Africa (after South Sudan, Angola, and Nigeria). Graham Martin, executive director of Tullow Oil, has said that he expects Ugandan production to reach 220,000 barrels per day based on 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. The total value of the oil to Uganda could reach $50 billion, a figure equivalent to the country's present annual GDP. (Uganda's GDP per capita--$1,400--ranks it 205th among the 229 states and other jurisdictions listed in the CIA World Factbook.)

There are, of course, significant costs associated with petroleum production, especially on such a scale. Oil reserves are located in an environmentally sensitive area that can't help but call to mind the ecological disasters in the Niger Delta of Nigeria and the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. The government of Uganda has already begun relocating people from the rich farmland near Lake Albert where the refinery is to be built. Then there's the resource curse. A non-democracy like Uganda (where Yoweri Museveni has ruled since 1986) has little chance of liberalization--or, perversely, of significant economic development--while oil is being produced. Uganda's GDP per capita will rise, but there's no guarantee this will improve the lives of anyone in Uganda other than those in the ruling elite.

Meanwhile, in a move widely interpreted as siding with the forces of corruption in his country, Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, has fired Lamido Sanusi, the governor of Nigeria's central bank. Sanusi proved himself to be unfit for a responsible government position in Nigeria by attempting to draw attention to the fact that billions of dollars from oil revenues are missing from the state treasury.

Some are about to become fabulously wealthy in Uganda. It's a safe bet to say that ordinary Ugandans will not be among them.

Christiane Amanpour Interviews Obiang

Since the opening of the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly last week, Equatorial Guinea's longtime dictator (33 years and counting) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been making the rounds in the United States in an effort to burnish his image. Yesterday he sat for an interview with CNN's veteran reporter Christiane Amanpour. The video is available here.

Regarding the corruption charges in France and the United States against his son and vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, President Obiang contended that these were the work of his country's enemies. (All dictators have enemies--sometimes unnamed, as in this case--who provide a rationale for repression and an excuse for external criticisms.) He said that his son's wealth was earned from businesses that he owned in Equatorial Guinea and Malaysia. In fact, according to the Justice Department's filing in its suit to recover proceeds of corruption from the younger Obiang, President Obiang granted his son a timber concession in Equatorial Guinea (involving public lands) that he then used to sell timber to a Malaysian lumber company. This arrangement continued even after the younger Obiang was appointed to the newly created position of Minister of Forestry and Environment (later designated Minister of Forestry and Agriculture), a position involving oversight of the timber industry in Equatorial Guinea.

Amanpour asked Obiang about the special referendum under which a limit of two seven-year presidential terms was added to Equatorial Guinea's constitution. Specifically, she wondered if Obiang was prepared to step down in 2016 as this new constitutional provision would seemingly require. Obiang, while noting that the law would not be retroactive (i.e., it would not apply to him), said that the people would decide. (Dictators generally promote the illusion--and sometimes come to believe themselves--that they are the embodiment of the will of the people.) Interestingly, at the United Nations Treaty Event last week, Obiang urged respect for the rule of law in his brief remarks. The government's press release about those remarks says that in Equatorial Guinea "respect for the rule of law is a firm principle and constant aspiration of the government. Upholding the law is the primary responsibility of a nation's political system."

Obiang has clearly become more comfortable addressing diplomatic gatherings and reporters, but the message, which is the same as it's always been, is the message of dictators everywhere: My people love me but everyone else is out to get me.

Equatorial Guinea v. France

Equatorial Guinea has filed an application with the International Court of Justice seeking an order that would compel France to end its corruption investigation against the country's president and vice president. France, in an investigation known popularly as biens mal acquis or ill-gotten gains, has seized a Paris estate valued at approximately 150 million euros along with several million euros worth of art, wine, and automobiles owned by Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Equatorial Guinea's second vice president and son of long-time president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. A similar forfeiture case involving property in the United States was filed last year by federal prosecutors and is now being litigated.

A press release issued by the ICJ today states,

Equatorial Guinea asserts that those procedural actions violate the principles of equality between States, non-intervention, sovereignty and respect for immunity from criminal jurisdiction. The Republic of Equatorial Guinea therefore asks the Court "to put an end to these breaches of international law" by ordering France, inter alia, to "bring a halt to [the] criminal proceedings" and to "take all measures necessary to nullify the effects of the arrest warrant issued against the Second Vice-President of Equatorial Guinea and of its circulation”. In its "request for provisional measures", Equatorial Guinea requests the Court, in particular, to "order  . . . the return . . . of the property and premises . . . belonging to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea" and seized by the French judges in the context of the investigation.

Equatorial Guinea has argued that the estate that was seized in Paris, along with its contents, is a diplomatic residence--and thus protected by diplomatic immunity--as a result of the fact that its principal resident Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue is, in addition to his other responsibilities, the Equatoguinean representative to UNESCO, which is headquartered in Paris. French authorities have taken the position that Obiang's diplomatic responsibilities were created in an effort to extend diplomatic immunity after the corruption investigation was well under way.

Before the ICJ can proceed with a case based on Equatorial Guinea's application, France must consent to the jurisdiction of the Court.

There has been no comment from the French government regarding Equatorial Guinea's application.

A Milestone for Transparency

For over a decade, a global campaign to promote government accountability in resource-rich states--some of which are dictatorships and, more to the point, kleptocracies (like Equatorial Guinea)--has been underway. The name of the campaign, as well as its premise, is simple: Publish What You Pay (PWYP). The idea is that if oil and mining companies reveal what they pay to governments for the right to extract natural resources, the veil of secrecy that often facilitates corruption will be lifted. The people of the state--and the governments of other states--will be in a better position to compare government expenditures on education, health, and other social goods to the income the government derives from the sale of natural resources that are also national resources.

As I have often noted here, Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea has spent thirty-three years in power amassing a fortune for himself and his family while the country as a whole remains mired in poverty as bad as any in Africa. Obiang's son--less discreet in his spending than his father, whom he is being groomed to succeed--is under investigation in the United States, France, and Spain for corruption. In the U.S., a $30 million mansion in Malibu, a $38 million jet, and a $2 million collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia are at stake in a Justice Department lawsuit. In France, a $180 million estate has been seized by authorities. The staggering dimensions of Equatorial Guinea's corruption are, in large measure, a product of its petroleum wealth, which, in the 1990s, launched the Obiang family into the ranks of the super-rich (and super-corrupt). The American oil companies that have operated in Equatorial Guinea for the past twenty years have not been required to reveal what they pay in royalties to the Obiang family (also known as the Equatoguinean government)--until now.

Two weeks ago, on August 22, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) issued rules required by the Cardin-Lugar Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Amendment, cosponsored by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), is also called the Extractive Industries Disclosure Provision. (For the text of the amendment as enacted, go here.) Under the SEC's new rules (available here), all companies involved in resource extraction (oil production and mining) that are required to file reports with the SEC--all publicly traded companies involved in extractive industries, in other words--must "include in an annual report information relating to any payment made by the issuer [the company], a subsidiary of the issuer, or an entity under the control of the issuer, to a foreign government or the Federal Government for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals." The data provided must be broken down by payee, project, and type of payment and must be presented in a format that facilitates automated search functions.

Intense lobbying by oil companies delayed the rules for sixteen months beyond the deadline mandated by Congress. The companies claimed that disclosure was not permitted in some of the countries where they operate and that the cost of data collection and reporting would be prohibitive. These arguments were undercut by the fact that some companies--including Newmont Mining, an American company, and Norway's Statoil--voluntarily disclose the information being required by the SEC rules with no apparent effect on either operations or profits. (James North, writing in The Nation, has more on industry opposition to the rules.)

Rather than putting American corporations subject to the reporting requirements at a competitive disadvantage, there are indications that the SEC's PWYP rules will establish an international standard that will be adopted by other resource-importing countries. In May 2011, the G8 Summit in Deauville, France expressed support for mandatory reporting rules for extractive industries. In October 2011, the European Commission proposed legislation for the European Union similar to the Cardin-Lugar Amendment. There are proposals for similar rules in Canada and Australia. In this respect, American leadership in the promotion of transparency in the resource sector may mirror the experience with the adoption of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which led to a global movement to ban the payment of bribes. In any event, the decision to put the weight of the United States government behind the international effort to promote transparency in extractive industries is a welcome addition to the global campaign against corruption.

"Quite Spectacular"

Today's New York Times provides an overview of the French government's property seizures in the biens mal acquis case involving Equatorial Guinea. The money quote comes from William Bourdon, founder of Sherpa, which was one of the organizations that brought the original complaint in the biens mal acquis case:  "We didn't wish to target the Obiang clan particularly, but their looting of public funds is quite spectacular."

France Gets Serious

According to multiple sources, on July 19 French authorities seized the Paris home of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.  Obiang is the subject of a French arrest warrant issued in connection with a corruption investigation.

The home, a six-story mansion near the Arc de Triomphe, is estimated to be worth between 100 and 150 million euros.  Last year, eleven luxury automobiles were seized as part of the same investigation.

The arrest warrant and most recent property seizure came after Obiang failed to appear in response to a summons for questioning.  According to his attorney, "Mr. Obiang has judicial immunity as he is the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea and therefore could not attend the summons."  His appointment as vice president in his father's government came in May.

For more on the property seizure, see BBC News, Reuters, or AFP.

The French Arrest Warrant Appears

France has issued an arrest warrant for Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president of Equatorial Guinea and son of the country's president.  (The existence of the warrant, previously concealed, was first reported in April.)  Obiang failed to appear for questioning as ordered in France's Biens Mal Acquis case in which it is alleged that millions of Euros worth of goods, including a lavish home near the Arc de Triomphe, were acquired with the proceeds of corruption.  Obiang is currently facing a civil action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice last fall that seeks to seize American property, including an estate in Malibu, and almost $2 million worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia, for the same reason.

Silverstein on Obiang

As usual, Ken Silverstein has Teodorin Obiang in his sights and is right on target.  As he points out in his New York Times op-ed today, there's more that the United States needs to do to make it difficult for dictators--and their families--to launder their ill-gotten gains here.

Investing in Corruption

Having recently restructured the family business--the limited partnership known as Equatorial Guinea--Teodoro Obiang came to the United States seeking investors willing to funnel more money into his private bank accounts.  According to a government press release, "The government of Equatorial Guinea laid out the welcome mat in Houston Monday [June 11] for U.S. investments in information technology, telecommunications, fisheries, construction, agriculture and agroindustry, mining and hydrocarbons."

If, as the press release indicates, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) was indeed present at the event (along with Rep. Al Green [D-TX]), then an explanation is necessary.  On May 10, 2007, the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, together with the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, held a hearing under the heading, "Is There a Human Rights Double Standard?  U.S. Policy Toward Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia."  In a statement prepared for the hearing  (see page 62), Rep. Jackson-Lee made the following comments:

     Mr. Chairman, I believe it is crucial that we practice what we preach.  In this country, we struggled to achieve democracy, fought for our own human rights, and we now call for the observance of these same values around the world.  Yet we persist in providing support to non-democratic regimes in exchange for their cooperation on strategic issues.
     Citizens of Equatorial Guinea do not enjoy the freedoms that we as Americans would believe to be crucial.  According to a Freedom House report, "the country has never held a credible election," and freedom of the press, as well as the rights of association, assembly, collective bargaining, and travel abroad are all limited.  Coupled with a lack of an independent judiciary, the nation's citizens have little constitutional or legal protection or recourse.

Rep. Jackson Lee should know that there have been no significant changes in Equatorial Guinea that would negate the validity of her statement since it was presented five years ago.  On the contrary, there has been another sham presidential election since then and members of the Obiang family are now subjects of corruption investigations in the United States, France, and Spain.  President Obiang may believe that Equatorial Guinea is "now considered a model country in African development," but this is true only if by "model country" he means one that illustrates what not to do to promote freedom and prosperity for ordinary citizens.

On Friday, Obiang met with representatives of four civil society groups that have been critical of his regime's record on human rights and corruption:  Human Rights Watch, Global Society, the Open Society Foundation, and Oxfam America.  The meeting was arranged by the State Department and the Woodrow Wilson Center.  The meeting was off the record, but going into it the four organizations had promised to "press Obiang to take concrete steps to increase public transparency, combat corruption, prioritize anti-poverty spending, cease political repression, enact judicial reforms, and permit domestic and foreign civil society activists and journalists to operate freely."  It is worth asking whether Rep. Jackson Lee and Rep. Green pressed Obiang in the same way on Monday.

In all likelihood, Obiang received some advice on how to handle human rights NGOs the night before his meeting.  Josh Rogin reports that Carlton Masters, the CEO of a firm called GoodWorks International (not, as its name might suggest, a non-profit), hosted a dinner party in Obiang's honor Thursday night.  Masters, a former banking executive, founded GoodWorks International with Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to represent American companies seeking to do business in Africa and the Caribbean.  The company was particularly successful in parlaying personal ties with former Nigerian dictator Olusegun Obasanjo into lucrative contracts for American oil companies.  (See this interesting story dated April 18, 2007, in the New York Times.)  In short, Masters' interest in Obiang is more pragmatic (read "profit-oriented") than principled.

No doubt the same can be said of Rep. Jackson Lee and Rep. Green, whose interest in potential contracts for Houston-based firms caused them to overlook the abysmal human rights record of the Obiang regime.

An Arrest Warrant for Teodorin

Reuters reports that a French prosecutor has approved the request of two investigating magistrates for an international arrest warrant targeting Teodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's long-time dictator.  Obiang is accused of corruption in connection with his ownership of a lavish estate and millions of dollars worth of luxury goods in Paris.

Obiang's father told an interviewer this week that his son, the country's minister of agriculture and forestry, has earned his money from the forestry and road-building enterprises he owns.  Teodorin's spending, however, has been more in line with what one would expect from involvement in Equatorial Guinea's much more lucrative oil industry.

A Warrant for TNO's Arrest

Reuters is reporting this morning that two French judges have sought an international warrant for the arrest of Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the playboy son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.  According to the story, "The two judges, Roger Le Loire and Rene Grouman, consider there are grounds to suspect that Teodorin Obiang, who is agriculture minister in the small oil-rich central African country, acquired real estate in France by fraud."

The story cites an unnamed judicial source.

Le Loire and Grouman are the investigating judges in the BMA case that has targeted corruption in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Congo-Brazzaville.  In 1998, Le Loire issued an international arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and in 2001 he issued a summons tor Henry Kissinger, then visiting Paris, to testify in court about American involvement in Operation Condor.  (The summons, delivered to Kissinger at his hotel, was ignored as the U.S. State Department suggested to the French that such requests should be submitted through official channels.)

Earrings on a Hog

Former Texas agriculture commissioner, author, lecturer, activist, and raconteur Jim Hightower often says "you can put earrings on a hog, but it won't hide the ugliness."  Teodoro Obiang, dictator of Equatorial Guinea for the last three decades, has expended considerable time and effort--not to mention millions of dollars--to burnish his image.  After four years of controversy, part of the effort succeeded yesterday as the executive board of UNESCO voted 33 to 18 (with 7 abstentions) to accept a donation from Obiang to establish the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences.

Supporters of the award on the executive board included representatives of African states, China, India, Russia, and Brazil.  European members, the United States, and others voted "no" on accepting the donation for the award.  Representatives from Europe and the United States have consistently opposed the award on the grounds that (1) the money being donated is apparently from Equatorial Guinea's public treasury, in spite of the fact that the country has serious unmet public sector needs, and (2) the abysmal human rights record of the Obiang regime makes it inappropriate for a UN body to accept such a donation.

Earlier this week, the UNCAC Coalition, a network of over 300 NGOs, issued a letter to UNESCO on the subject of the prize.  In part, the letter reads:

The UNCAC Coalition strongly opposes the establishment of this award, funded from the public treasury of Equatorial Guinea and yet named after its long-term head of state. As we already communicated in 2010, we believe that the award and its endorsement of Mr. Obiang are fundamentally contrary to the spirit and principles of the United Nations, as well as to UNESCO’s constitutional goals. President Obiang heads a country that has been ranked by Transparency International as among the most corrupt in the world, whose government is known for well-documented brutality and whose citizens live in poverty despite the country’s oil riches. In more than 30 years of government, Mr. Obiang has missed the opportunity to use oil revenues, and other sources of government income, to improve the life of the people in Equatorial Guinea or even to make transparent what those revenues are.

Freedom House, which has named Equatorial Guinea among the "Worst of the Worst" in terms of civil and political rights, opposed the award, as did a coalition of seven civil society organizations including the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España, Association Sherpa, the Committee to Protect Journalists, EG Justice, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, and the Open Society Justice Initiative.  Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “The UNESCO-Obiang prize is irreversibly tainted by its association with the repression and high-level corruption of President Obiang’s government.”

Obiang seems to have overcome the pressure exerted by Western democracies and human rights NGOs by framing the issue as a matter of Africa against the West.  The New York Times quoted Zimbabwe's UNESCO representative, David Hamadziripi, to this effect: “We believe that the decision we’ve just taken will send a very important message, that a lot of good comes out of Africa, and that Africa can and does contribute in international cooperation and is not just a recipient of the good will of others.”

Score one for the dictators.

Obiang Responds . . . Foolishly

According to a report by RFI, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, whose Paris residence was raided last month by French authorities as part of the biens mal acquis investigation, plans to sue Daniel Lebègue, president of the French branch of Transparency International.  TI in France and a second French NGO, Sherpa, played key roles in pursuading the government to undertake the biens mal acquis investigation that is targeting French assets of the ruling families of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon.  Obiang alleges that Lebègue has libeled him by publicly accusing him of stealing money from the public treasury of Equatorial Guinea.

RFI reports that French police took 200 cubic meters worth of objets d'art from the Obiang estate on Avenue Foch.  Equatorial Guinea claims that the building was used for diplomatic purposes, making the French seizures a violation of diplomatic immunity, and that the lavish furnishings were appropriate expenditures given the diplomatic function.  French authorities counter that the estate contained a nightclub, a hair salon, and other rooms not normally found in diplomatic properties.

If the suit against Mr. Lebègue proceeds, Transparency International and other NGOs will no doubt relish the opportunity to prove in a court of law that the Obiang family is using Equatorial Guinea's petroleum income for private purposes.  This, in fact, is what they have fought to have happen since 2007.

From Ogoniland to the U.S. Supreme Court

Today the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., a case that has its origins in the hanging of the Ogoni Nine in 1995.  But that story, too, has a history.  It begins with a June 1993 presidential election that returned a mandate for Moshood Abiola.  The result was annulled by the military dictatorship; the subsequent political crisis brought Gen. Sani Abacha to power.  It was Abacha's oppressive rule that led to the hanging of the Ogoni Nine.

But perhaps Abacha's story requires its own historical background, one that would would include Nigeria's colonial past and its struggle to overcome poverty and knit together disparate ethnic groups in the aftermath of independence in 1960.  Or perhaps, as with so much of significance in the world, it all begins with the discovery of oil.

West Africa--and especially the Gulf of Guinea--is among the world's richest oil regions.  Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea are major oil producers and, not coincidentally, major centers of political repression and corruption.  Nigeria experienced an almost unbroken string of military dictatorships from 1966 to 1999 before returning, haltingly, to democracy; Angola experienced an extraordinarily destructive civil war from its independence in 1975 to 2002 and operates today with a deeply flawed political system; and Equatorial Guinea has been ruled by two dictators--from the same family--since its independence in 1968.  Several leaders of the three countries have amassed vast personal fortunes while allowing the abject poverty of their citizens to go unaddressed in any meaningful way.

In a state without solid democratic foundations, oil tends to turn control of the government into the one sure path to riches.  Those who rule control oil production contracts; these provide enormous sums of money that, in the absence of transparency and democracy, somehow never make it into the public treasury.  That kind of money is often thought to be worth fighting over, so coups d'etat, attempted coups, civil wars, and other forms of violence--or its opposite, which is severe repression designed to insure against coups d'etat and civil wars--is common.  (In a free-market economy, where oil wealth remains in private hands, direct control of the government is unnecessary, especially where corporate wealth can be used to influence the policy process in a nominally democratic system.)

But back to Nigeria, Gen. Abacha, and the Ogoni Nine.

The most important oil-producing region of Nigeria is the Niger Delta.  Those people living in the region, however, have reaped very few benefits and many hardships from the oil production that goes on all around them.  Natural gas--a by-product of oil production--is flared rather than captured in the Niger Delta, resulting in serious air pollution (and one of the single largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet).  Rivers and streams have been polluted making fishing, a key source of livelihood, impossible.  Villages have been uprooted and people have been dispossessed to clear areas for petroleum exploration and production.  And, in all of this, very little oil wealth has been returned to the people paying the economic, social, health, and environmental costs of the oil production going on around them.

Imagine BP ignoring the consequences of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.  Now imagine the government deploying the National Guard to keep the people harmed by the oil spill--or merely outraged by it--from interfering as BP and other oil companies continued to operate as if nothing had happened.  This gives a picture of the situation in the Niger Delta, one that Peter Maass has described well in his 2009 book Crude World:  The Violent Twilight of Oil.

Among those protesting conditions in the Niger Delta were members of a group called the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).  On May 21, 1994, four former leaders of MOSOP were murdered.  The Nigerian government accused nine current MOSOP leaders, including author and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, of responsibility for the murders.  The nine were tried in a special court--the Civil Disturbance Special Tribunal--under circumstances that Amnesty International condemned as "blatantly unfair."  All nine were convicted and sentenced to death.  In spite of an international outcry, the executions were carried out--by hanging--on November 10, 1995.  A number of witnesses later recanted their testimony saying they had been bribed by the government.  Two claimed to have been promised jobs with Shell Oil in exchange for testimony against the Ogoni Nine.

The international outrage over the executions led to the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations and variety of sanctions from other quarters.  It may have played a role in the end of military dictatorship in Nigeria with the election of Olesegun Obasanjo as president in 1999.  It also led to two noteworthy human rights cases, one of which never went to trial.

Relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa sued Shell for its role in his execution, relying on the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) as the legal foundation.  On June 9, 2009, just days before the trial was to have begun in New York, Shell, without admitting liability, agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle the case.  A second ATS case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., brought by Esther Kiobel, the wife of another of the Ogoni Nine, Barinem Kiobel, had meanwhile proceeded to trial.  The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, asked to decide whether a corporation could be held liable for violations of "the law of nations" under the ATS, decided in September 2010 that they cannot.  In October 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court granted cert.  Oral arguments were heard this morning.

The early read on the Supreme Court's position is that the five conservative justices are likely to decide that Big Oil cannot be held liable for human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute.  If so, an important tool in the global effort to enforce international human rights will have been lost.