Speaker condemns injustice, profiteering and corruption in Equitorial Guinea

“Silence makes me nervous,” Tutu Alicante said at the Poverty, Petroleum and Politics event last night in Thomson Hall.

The silence Alicante was referring to was an uncomfortable moment created by technological difficulties, but it couldn’t have been more fitting to the event.

Alicante, a native of Equatorial Guinea and founder of EG Justice, a human rights organization focusing on redistributing Equatorial Guinea’s oil wealth, is trying to pressure oil companies to report their quarterly earnings and break the silence about profits. This would allow the citizens of Equatorial Guinea to see their country’s oil-revenues.

Alicante said that oil companies often make deals with local governments in secret. The government then siphons money away from important services.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s brother just bought a $45 million mansion in Miami.

“This happens where secrecy is allowed to thrive,” Alicante said.

He spoke of schools without roofs and a failing health care system.

The life expectancy of Equatorial Guinea is 43 years, unemployment is more than 40 percent and most of the country’s citizens earn less than one dollar a day.

“This is hard to comprehend in the richest country in Africa,” Alicante said. “Why do we have a country that produces that much wealth but doesn’t provide for its citizens?”

Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil-producing country in Sub-Saharan Africa and has one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world, greater than that of Switzerland, the U.K. or Canada.

Alicante teamed up with Ian Gary to bring equality to Equatorial Guinea’s citizens. Gary works with the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM).

Gary spoke at last night’s event about what he calls the “resource curse” that exists in countries like Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea’s oil is detrimental to its citizens, he said. He gave an example of the country’s agricultural sector, which is now nonexistent because it has been crowded out by oil.

OXFAM recently launched a program titled “Right to Know, Right to Decide.” The citizens of Equatorial Guinea should have the right to see the financial flows created by oil, Gary said.

“Communities can then do cost-benefit analyses, assessing the ways governments spend money,” Gary said.

Both speakers reiterated that Equatorial Guinea is not a democratic country. Alicante said the president came to power after killing his political opposition.

“The United States will have to serve as a proxy,” Gary said.

They urged the event’s attendees to write to Sen. Maria Cantwell to sponsor an act that would force oil companies to make their earnings transparent.

“This will change lives all over the world,” Alicante said.