What's the worst place in the world? If one were to judge strictly by media hype, Zimbabwe, Somalia, and Sudan would seem to be the prime contenders. Some pieces of terra firma, however, are so Godforsaken and blood-soaked that they are ignored by the media lest they be allowed to trouble the Western world's already guilt-ridden conscience. This is why you never read anything about Equatorial Guinea, a country of such Dantesque absurdity as to scarcely be believed.
Physically, Equatorial Guinea is an odd and remote country. Slightly smaller than Maryland, it is nestled firmly in the armpit of Africa's western coast between Gabon and Cameroon, and bordering the Bight of Biafra. But there are also five inhabited islands. The largest of these, known as Fernando Pó or Bioko, houses the capital, Malabo, and is located 150 miles from the mainland off the coast of Cameroon. Equatorial Guinea has the second smallest population on continental Africa.
It was a Spanish territory for 190 years, though Spain repeatedly tried to offload it on other nations for a meager price. Graham Greene, who did clandestine work for the British government in western Africa during World War II, simply called it "the little dreadful Spanish island." Spain was a callous colonial ruler, but it at least kept up the cocoa plantations and encouraged commerce. It was when the Spaniards left in 1968 that things really went south, and Equatorial Guinea came to be known as the "Dachau of Africa." One aid worker declared, "On a scale
of one to ten, even an African scale, it's a zero." In Malabo in 1971, an American diplomat stabbed his gay lover and embassy colleague 10 times with a pair of scissors. His (unsuccessful) defense was that living in Equatorial Guinea drove him insane.
So what happened? Well, stop me if you've heard this one before, but in the latter part of the 20th century, a colonial power became indifferent to its African territory. Independence loomed. The colonial power propped up the local leader they perceived to be most friendly to their interests. Elections were held. The newly elected African leader immediately began consolidating power. Democracy was strangled in the crib, and a brutal dictator emerged.
Where Equatorial Guinea departs from the standard African narrative is in exactly how brutal and capricious its newly installed dictator proved to be. The son of a witch doctor, Macías Nguema began as a populist politician among the Fang, the country's largest ethnic group. His election in 1968 was hailed by Spain as "a peaceful, friendly, and constructive development." He promptly kicked off an 11-year reign of terror.
Nguema flattened the cocoa plantations, outlawed fishing in an island nation, and destroyed all the industry. He had 10 of his original 12 cabinet ministers killed, banned Western medicine, and let cholera run amok in regions whose political support he doubted. He declared that "intellectuals are the greatest problem facing Africa today" and then forbade use of the word "intellectual." He established links with the Soviet Union and kidnapped foreigners for ransom. He referred to himself as "God's Unique Miracle," shut down nearly all the country's schools and churches-in the overwhelmingly Christian country-and once, according to the Financial Times, "unskillfully hanged" 150 people in a soccer stadium "to the strains of Mary Hopkin singing 'Those Were the Days' over the loudspeaker system." A bit showy, you think? Perhaps, but it was Christmas. Reports indicate that Nguema was a keen practitioner of one of the local anthropological curiosities-cannibalism. This taste may explain his cherished skull collection.
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