Equatorial Guinea
Arbitrary arrests of Equatoguinean opposition

Misanet.com / IPS, 16 May - The political atmosphere in Bata, the country's second city, is charged. The government has deployed police units to monitor the activities of opposition leaders. Three opposition leaders have been accused by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of conspiring with outlawed political groups against his government. 

Felipe Ondo Obiang and Guillermo Nguema Ela, founding members of the outlawed groups, the Democratic Republican Front, and Emilio Ndong of the Popular Union, were arrested on 15 March and sent to prison in Bata.

Denouncing the arrests, as well as the torture of prisoners, the influential Catholic Church - around 95 percent of the country's population is Catholic - has dubbed President Obiang Nguema's crackdown on opposition "state terrorism".

Rights groups also have criticised the clampdown on the opposition. "We are concerned about the climate of fear and intimidation which is stifling freedom of speech in Equatorial Guinea," says Gaston Nzogho, president of the 'Jobs For All', a non-governmental organisation.

Mathias Bibang of the Convergence for Social Democracy says opposition parties "reject the accusations levelled against" them by the ruling Equatorial Guinea Democratic Party. "They are part of a campaign of intimidation, which has now escalated to arbitrary arrests and detentions."

- The authorities are threatening to dissolve opposition parties, and that's very serious, says Bibang, whose secretary general, Placido Moco Abogo, has been placed under house arrest by Obiang Nguema. "What will happen to the political landscape in Equatorial Guinea if there is no strong opposition?" he wonders. 

The press has already been gagged, and radio and television stations, belonging to the president's estranged son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Jr, who is Minister for Water, Forests, and the Environment, also have been threatened. For more than a year now, the minister has been at loggerheads with his influential paternal uncles. One of them, General Antonio Mba Nguema, director general of the criminal investigation department, in June 2001, ordered the closure of Radio Assonga, which belongs to his nephew. 

- We must fight for our rights, says Rev Mvela Albert of the Pentecostal Church. 

In April, Gustavo Gallon, of the UN Human Rights Commission, criticised the government for excessive use of force against political opponents. "The excessive use of force by the authorities, and the fact that officials often ignore the existence of judicial authority and the limits of their power as set by law, bolster the impunity that government officials enjoy," he said.

The core of the country's radical opposition is centred on the city of Mongomo, the birthplace of the president, on the border with Gabon. "The country is in the grip of the generals, and nothing will change after the departure of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema," says a former army officer who requested anonymity.

Considered as the heir apparent to his father, Nguema Obiang Jr has been issuing anti-government statements for the past few months. The statements have enraged his father and uncles, all generals in the security forces. "The real battle for the presidency, in case the President withdraws after the 2003 election, will be between the generals and their nephew," comments Fabien Nsue Nguema, secretary general of the Popular Union.

- The country might first be led by the chief-of-staff of the army, Jesus Ngomo, or the military head of the Bata area, Augustin Ondo Ona, before handing over power to the president's son, he explains.

Such a scenario, in the middle of an oil boom, would hardly please the country's opposition leaders, who too harbour ambitions to rule this oil-rich central African nation of about half-a-million people. The current climate of political harassment, arrests and detentions in Equatorial Guinea heightened after an alleged military coup in March.

By Antoine Lawson, IPS (reporting from Bata)

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