If ever a country were a candidate for regime change, it must surely be Equatorial Guinea. The people of that troubled strip of West Africa are among the poorest on the planet, ravaged by AIDS and lacking access to basic healthcare. It is ruled over by a corrupt dictator who is said to have pan-fried the testicles of his political opponents. Not even Saddam Hussein, amid all the baroque tales of his cruelty and barbarism used to justify an invasion, has ever been accused of doing that.
Yet, like Iraq, Equatorial Guinea is rich in oil deposits. It produces 350,000 barrels a day, most of which is exported to the United States. Thanks to this oil wealth, the economy grew at 16.5% last year, and GDP per capita is over $4,000, one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. US oil companies pay some $600m a year in royalties to the government. Yet the people of Equatorial Guinea have seen little of this oil wealth. Instead, it lines the pockets of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies.
One can only speculate why President Bush and Tony Blair decided to focus their mission of mercy on Iraq, with all its religious, historical, and tribal complications, rather than bringing deliverance to the longsuffering people of Equatorial Guinea, which might have been a rather more straightforward prospect. But we should hardly be surprised that others should have seen the possibilities of regime change in that country and decide to take matters into their own hands.
A regime change we could all applaud
The mercenary plot to overthrow Nguema was a breathtakingly audacious scheme, even if it was not one that anyone who cares for international law should condone. An Africa in which private armies roam the continent armed to the teeth in search of bounty would quickly descend into anarchy. There have been reports in the press suggesting that the US government gave its tacit approval to the plan, which, if true (and it would never be admitted), would say a great deal about the double standards in US foreign policy. The reports have the ring of truth about them, since the US has huge investments in the country and no successor regime would be likely to last long without US approval.
But either way, the fact that the coup plot got as far as it did is an indication of just what is at stake in sub-Saharan Africa. Three years ago, Tony Blair promised to "heal the scar of Africa", much to the amusement of many of his opponents, who took it to be another of the prime minister’s messianic ramblings. But the truth is that healing the scar of Africa should not be seen as simply a humanitarian act of charity. It should be an absolute moral, economic and political priority for all of us.
The fact that living standards in vast parts of Africa have barely risen in 1,000 years is a matter that should shame us all. Africa’s poverty is all the more tragic for being so unnecessary, given that the continent is rich in natural resources. And even if the poverty does not arouse our moral indignation, it should at least appeal to our sense of selfpreservation.
Africa’s poverty has been the breeding ground for disease, not least an AIDS pandemic that now threatens to engulf the rest of the world. Poor countries and failed states are also breeding grounds for terrorism. There is no point getting tough on terrorism if you are not prepared to get tough on the causes of terrorism.
There is a tendency in some circles to pin much of the blame for Africa’s predicament on Africans themselves. Certainly, corruption is endemic, institutions are weak and an enormous amount of aid has been squandered or misappropriated.
But rich countries cannot evade their share of culpability. During the Cold War, both sides propped up some appalling regimes, buying their loyalty with enormous loans that could never be repaid and which were used to buy arms that were subsequently used to terrorise their populations and their neighbours, feeding the cycle of war and bloodshed.
Potential Investment : Debt forgiveness could mark the beginning of the best investment of the 21st century
Even after the end of the Cold War, the west has continued to make matters worse in much of Africa. Huge arms sales continue, usually backed by export credit guarantees that inevitably end up adding to a nation’s outstanding debt.
Much of sub-Saharan Africa is today technically insolvent, reliant on World Bank and IMF loans to pay the interest on their loans. Worse, it is now widely accepted that World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programmes have been a disaster, contributing to falling national incomes.
Healing the scar of Africa is not going to be easy. But as an essential first step, the west must urgently find a way to relieve the burden of debt. It is outrageous that some sub-Saharan African countries spend more on servicing their debts than they do on health and education. Since 1996, the UN’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries Programme (HIPC) has managed to relieve $33bn of debt from 27 of he world’s poorest countries.
But this process has not gone nearly far enough. At last month’s annual meeting of the World Bank and IMF, the US and British governments put forward rival plans to relieve substantially all of the debt burden of the world’s poorest countries, but no deal was done.
Debt relief is not in itself the solution to Africa’s problems. But it is the litmus test of whether the west is truly serious about discharging its responsibilities to Africa, rather than abandoning it to be plundered by mercenaries. The fact that both the US and UK governments are now actively promoting plans for debt relief is hugely encouraging. A deal looks tantalisingly close. If and when it comes, it could be a giant step towards helping Africa to realise its potential. Investors should take note.
