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FM AMEMBASSY MALABO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0499
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE IMMEDIATE 0292
RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID 0124
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0083
RUEHSB/AMEMBASSY HARARE IMMEDIATE 0031
RUEHC/USAID WASHDC
RUEHMA/AMEMBASSY MALABO 0570

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MALABO 000048 
 
SENSITIVE 

SIPDIS 

 

HARARE FOR F. CHISHOLM; YAOUNDE FOR DATT LTCOL M. SOUSA 

 

E.O. 12958: N/A 

TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PHSA ENRG EPET EK KCOR ECON SOCI
SUBJECT: EQUATORIAL GUINEA RAW, PAPER 6:  REFINING OUR APPROACH 

 

REF: MALABO 19, 21, 26, 27, 31 

 

¶1. (U) Triggered by changes underway in Washington D.C., 

upcoming personnel rotations in Embassy Malabo and animated by 

the recent attack on the capital, this is the final in a series 

of cables intended to update our perspective on Equatorial 

Guinea, and to provide a ground-level view of one of the world's 

most-isolated and least-understood countries to interested 

readers. 

 

 

 

¶2. (SBU) Background:  Equatorial Guinea (EG) suffered a brief, 

brutal colonial period under its fascist Spanish overseers, and 

then, a generation ago, fell off the cliff with its first 

elected leader; the paranoid, cruel Macias, who did more 

proportional harm to the country's already-miserable population 

than Pol Pot did in Cambodia.  The 1979 coup brought changes in 

leadership and a few improvements, but the country remained 

extremely poor and isolated until U.S. wildcatters, encouraged 

by a once-active U.S. Embassy, found commercial quantities of 

oil and gas offshore in the mid-90s.  Sudden riches did nothing 

to immediately address capacity challenges, and the country's 

search (and acute need) for a mentor left it disappointed. 

Given its well-established bad reputation, those who have not 

focused on EG lately will likely find that it is now bigger than 

it looks, and better than it sounds.   Authoritarian structures 

are undergoing transformation and the quality of life for 

average citizens willing to make the effort is improving.  The 

U.S., without the baggage of the former colonialist powers 

active in the region or the econo-colonialism of the Chinese, is 

widely looked to by EG to provide a moral compass for this 

development.  The recent change in the U.S. administration -- in 

the country with the highest per capita density of "Obamas" in 

the world -- was received as a herald of warmer relations.  U.S. 

involvement is needed to shape EG's future.  Relatively minor 

U.S. technical assistance and advice in key areas (justice, 

human rights and democracy, social development, education, 

conservation, maritime security) will be effective in giving EG 

the future we want it to have.  It is time to abandon a moral 

narrative that has left us with a retrospective bias and an 

ambivalent approach to one of the most-promising success stories 

in the region. 

 

 

 

¶3. (SBU) Summary Questions:  What do we really want for 

Equatorial Guinea?  Do we want to see the country continue to 

evolve in positive ways from the very primitive state in which 

it found itself after independence?  Or would we prefer a 

revolution that brings sudden, uncertain change and 

unpredictability?  The former is clearly the path the country is 

on, and the latter has potentially dire consequences for our 

interests, most notably our energy security. 

 

 

 

¶4. (SBU) In the plus column, 1) the government is increasingly 

populated by young, forward-looking actors, 2) the physical 

environment and public services are rapidly improving for EG 

citizens, 3) hundreds of millions of dollars are going into 

social spending, 4) the government is opening its books in order 

to obtain membership in the Extractive Industries Transparency 

Initiative (EITI), 5) recent elections showed marked improvement 

over those in the past, and 6) both skilled and unskilled job 

opportunities have mushroomed.  U.S. engagement can accelerate 

the positive change already underway.  On the other hand, by 

remaining aloof we cede a fertile field to others (e.g., the 

Chinese) whose objectives differ from our own while we increase 

the potential for a sudden shift that might put American lives 

and interests at risk.  Despite recent improvements, it is not 

difficult to imagine an EG in which U.S. FDI has been 

nationalized and/or turned over to others to operate, in which 

Americans are reviled, in which our influence withers.   Worse, 

but imaginable, would be a chaotic change in which the hundreds 

of Americans here are targeted, billions in U.S. investment 

destroyed and lost, and -- by virtue of where EG sits on the map 

-- 20% of our national energy imports threatened.  Several 

scenarios are possible:  e.g., metastasis of the Niger Delta 

troubles, replication of the Gulf of Aden piracy, or 

"Venezuela-ization" of EG.  Our involvement in helping EG 

improve its security -- particularly maritime security where our 

 

MALABO 00000048  002 OF 003 

 

 

interests so firmly overlap -- and to overcome suspicion of its 

neighbors, will be crucial to avoid drift in these directions. 

Moreover, better security will help EG relax its de facto state 

of martial law and lead to improvements in the area of human 

rights and democracy.  We will only strain bilateral relations 

with EG if we continue to raise the bar in response to EG 

efforts and overtures. 

 

 

 

¶5. (SBU) Indeed, EG could be one of the easy ones.  It has a 

compact, relatively homogenous population with very high per 

capita income levels.  It has a stern but mellowing leadership, 

one clearly trying to atone for past sins, one that is 

pro-American, and one which is undergoing a positive 

generational shift away from the authoritarian structures that 

were its birthright.  Meanwhile, the vestiges of those 

structures serve to maintain one of the safest, most-secure 

societies in the region.  And its requests for help from us 

(democratization, justice system reform, public finance reform, 

social development, conservation, security assistance) almost 

always come with burden-sharing arrangements, and are aimed at 

gaining our technical assistance and capacity-building 

expertise.  EG is paying its own way. 

 

 

 

¶6. (SBU) As indicated in previous messages, dinosaurs and 

fossils do remain in EG, and they continue to wield power. 

However, President Obiang has set a course for integrating EG 

with the world and, by fits and starts, is moving the country in 

that direction.  Within the current array of alternative 

leaders, here in Malabo it is not obvious there is anyone else 

with the vision and influence to see this transformation 

through.  However, Obiang is not a young man.  Accelerating 

positive change while the conditions are right is a job that 

only the U.S. is positioned to undertake. 

 

 

 

¶7. (SBU) Bigger Than it Looks:  Taking away U.S. energy imports 

from North America (i.e., those from our immediate neighbors 

Canada and Mexico), we find that over 30% of our imported oil 

and gas comes from the Gulf of Guinea region -- more, for 

example, than from the Middle East.  The largest portion of the 

Gulf of Guinea maritime territory belongs to little EG.  To 

ignore the security implications associated with the country at 

the heart of this key region would leave a gaping hole in the 

map of our national strategy.  Yet, with crypto-sanctions in 

place and a tiny embassy contingent severely constraining our 

engagement, that is essentially our policy at the moment. 

 

 

 

¶8. (SBU) A handful of U.S. oil companies have significant 

investment stakes in EG, not to mention the several hundred 

American workers they place in the field and the direct energy 

imports the country's oil fields supply to U.S. markets. 

Marathon Oil is reported to have around 30% of its capital at 

risk in EG.  Hess' exposure is slightly less.  During our 

extended official absence ('95 to '06), U.S. oil companies 

painstakingly laid the groundwork for U.S. influence. 

Impressing Equatoguineans, they built a reputation for Americans 

of "doing what [we] say, and doing it right" (this is a quote 

from President Obiang himself).  The door is wide open for 

additional American involvement, both official and private. 

After all, we (via U.S. oil companies) pay all the bills - and 

the EG leadership knows it. 

 

 

 

¶9. (SBU) Better Than it Sounds:  Yet there is something peculiar 

about our policy toward EG.  The country is certainly no worse 

than many of our energy allies, and better than some.  Given the 

strategic issues in play, our policy is dangerously indifferent 

and/or misinformed.  From our vantage point here in Malabo, 

witnessing close-up the yawning capacity gaps and huge 

distractions EG faces, it is clear we will only solve the 
problems important to us by engaging -- and yet we refuse to do 
so despite repeated, open invitations.  Our reluctance to become 
more involved appears to be rooted in our acceptance of a 
 
MALABO 00000048  003 OF 003 
 
 
narrative being supplied by a rapacious diaspora, its co-authors 
among disaffected Spanish imigris, and oppugnant NGOs who have 
taken up the story for their own purposes.  This storyline is 
supplied by Equatoguineans who left long ago and who have lost 
touch with progress here, and/or by Europeans with colonialist 
perspectives and memories of lost empire.  This narrative 
maintains that Equatoguineans are primitive and ignorant people 
whose government is a sinister, repressive, blood-thirsty cabal. 
 It suggests that by helping them we would only dirty our hands, 
because positive change is impossible.  However, this embassy 
can report, based on renewed direct experience in EG, this story 
is largely fiction -- however accurate parts of it may have been 
at points in the past.  This narrative is no longer a fit guide 
for our approach toward EG.  It is, in fact, so misguided that 
it is more likely to wreck the relationship. 
 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) A more appropriate guiding narrative comes from our 
own experience, in which we learned that discrimination -- 
against people who are culturally different, historically 
disadvantaged -- is wrong, untenable.  EG's hand is not clenched 
in a fist.  It is reaching out for assistance.  Our own history 
has taught us that aiding those who ask for help can heal 
historical wounds and promote integration.  This is the story we 
must help tell again.  We cannot punish a people dealt a bad 
hand by history simply because they are behind.  Money alone 
does not change this rule.  There is a simple calculus at work. 
There are good guys and bad guys here.  We need to strengthen 
the good guys -- for all his faults, President Obiang among them 
-- and undercut the bad guys.  By doing so, we can help the 
country succeed.  We won't accomplish this by accepting a story 
contrived by someone else.  This is one we will have to write 
ourselves. 
SMITH