Spanish Connections
My Diplomatic Journey from Venezuela to Equatorial Guinea
by
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What was I doing accepting The Order of the Grand Cross of Independence of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea from Africa’s longest-serving dictator? That’s a question I’ve asked myself many times since that memorable day in September 2015, one of my last as an American diplomat. The event took place in the presidential palace’s cavernous ballroom. With its dark, mahogany- paneled walls, Carrara marble floors, and massive chandeliers, it hardly seemed possible that this grand, Italianate room was on a small island off the coast of West Central Africa. The ceremony had begun with the president draping a bright red, green, and white sash over my left shoulder. The sash bore a large, enameled Maltese Cross set on a gilt metal sunburst background. After bestowing the award, the president delivered brief remarks commending me for my three years of diplomatic service as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. This was followed by a toast with Cristal, the president’s favorite, four-hundred-dollar-a-bottle French champagne. For any ambassador, and especially for one like me who was about to retire, receiving the host country’s highest award should have been a capstone career achievement. And on a certain level, I certainly appreciated the recognition from the president for what had been three years of exceptionally challenging and often contentious diplomatic work. But there was something disquieting about accepting such an award. Then again, it was perhaps in keeping with the country’s tumultuous history. What became Spanish Guinea in West Central Africa had been ceded by Portugal to Spain in 1778. Three centuries earlier, Portuguese explorer Fernando Po, for whom its principal island was once named, had claimed this large territory for Portugal. The colony’s capital, which the Spaniards christened Santa Isabel, was on the island of Fernando Po, half the size of my native Rhode Island. At the time, there was also a huge mainland portion of the colony called Rio Muni, which is between present-day Cameroon and Gabon. After nearly two centuries of harsh, dictatorial, colonial rule, the newly named Republic of Equatorial Guinea, now far smaller than the original concession from Portugal, was reluctantly granted independence by Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1968. Neighboring countries that had been under Great Britain’s and France’s colonial rule had their independence carefully guided by democratic governments. But that was not the case for Equatorial Guinea. Its democratic constitution and parliamentary government structure were the products of a fascist dictatorship. The country’s first president was a former minor, colonial functionary named Francisco Macias Nguema, who was chosen through elections that generally were deemed free and fair by the United Nations and others. But what followed under Macias was an eleven-year reign of terror that combined the worst elements of Idi Amin’s and Pol Pot’s savage rule, with an Hispanic dash of Franco’s Spain. In 1979, Macias was overthrown in a military coup directed by his nephew, then Lt. Col. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who had served in Macias’ government as one of his most brutal henchmen. Obiang has ruled the country with an iron fist ever since. And now, on short notice, he had decided to give me this impressive-looking medal. But why? During my first year as ambassador in Equatorial Guinea, I was constantly pushing the envelope with the government, asking it to release unjustly imprisoned regime opponents and criticizing it for the absence of free media and other basic rights for its citizens. I insisted both in private and public that I was not an advocate for any political party, but rather in favor of “democratic principles” that would include respect for human rights and opening political space to opposition parties. In response, regime officials made it clear that my ambassadorial tenure might be a brief one. No, I didn’t think the government was threatening to do me in. Rather, it occurred to me that I would be declared “Persona Non Grata,” a term applied to an ambassador no longer welcome in the country and required to leave within a matter of days. But such was not to be my fate. Part of the reason may have been that U.S. oil and gas companies are Equatorial Guinea’s largest investors and provide the major source of the elite’s immense wealth in a country where, according to reliable estimates, over 70 percent of the population live on less than two dollars a day. Perhaps given the importance of U.S. investment, EG’s government had concluded that declaring a U.S. ambassador “Persona Non Grata” was not a good idea. So. in the end, my outspoken advocacy of democracy and was tolerated and I managed to finish my three-year assignment. Having served as a diplomat in other countries with authoritarian leaders including Panama, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Sudan, I took a long, patient view of what constitutes success in a place like Equatorial Guinea. In short, I came to measure it in quite small increments. For example, I was frequently able to gain the release of Equatoguineans who had been unfairly imprisoned through appealing to the government’s image consciousness. For as much as Equatorial Guinea’s rulers claimed they cared little, if at all, when it came to what the rest of the world thought about them, this was far from the truth. The country paid public relations firms like Qorvis Communications in Washington, D.C. hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to portray Equatorial Guinea’s actions in the most favorable light possible. Those and so many other thoughts went through my mind that afternoon as I stood in the ornate, presidential palace ballroom. It was the one and only time I would ever wear that lovely medal with its accompanying silk sash. Of the many memories, both good and less so, that I have from my thirty-seven-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, that moment in time remains perhaps the most unusual and haunting one. As I write this several years later, it still inspires in me an odd combination of satisfaction, pride, and ambivalence. But I have gotten ahead of my story. How was it in the first place that I came to spend those three years as U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea? Further, given my brief description of the country’s unusual and brutal history, you might wonder why I would ever want to serve there. You would hardly be the first to raise this question, which I will try to answer in the coming pages.
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About the Book
This is a memoir about my diplomatic journey to Equatorial Guinea, an ill-fated small Spanish-speaking country. I discuss the many stops along the way that finally led to my serving as U.S. ambassador to Spain’s only former colony in sub-Saharan Africa. This is the story of a lifelong fascination with Spain that began with a strange tale my mother told me about a mysterious uncle who fought in the Spanish Civil War. My assignment to Equatorial Guinea was the last piece needed to complete a full circle in my professional life that began in Franco’s Spain.