In UNSC Guterres Supports Equatorial Guinea 40 Year Ruler Obiang Like Biya of Cameroon

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR LetterPFT Q&A

UNITED NATIONS GATE, February 4 – When the Presidency of the UN Security Council was taken over by Equatorial Guinea on February 1 its Ambassador Ndong Mba held a press conference to take questions. But it was only from the media NOT banned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, his Alison Smale and spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Now on February 4 Equatorial Guinea is holding and Guterres has performed at a Security Council meeting on “Mercenary activities as a source of insecurity and destabilization in Africa," chaired by 40 year ruler Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who, not unrelatedly, faced a bid to overthrown him in December 2017. He fought it off with the help of his friend, 36 year Cameroon ruler Cameroon, with verbal support from Guterres. On February 4 Guterres said in the Security Council - after UNTV was told not to film him on the way in - that "Equatorial Guinea itself has reported serious attempts against its own government.  Indeed, last year, Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba of Equatorial Guinea underscored to this Council the need for 'vigilance and control of groups that sow insecurity and instability.'" In the run up to the noon briefing Inner City Press was banned from for the 215th day, Evelyn Leopold a retired Reuters correspondents said loudly that she didn't understand why there was a meeting about mercenary; she has previously said of Cameroon, video here, "the Anglophone did some shooting today" then acknowledged she never wrote about the country. This is today's UN. In the Press-less February 1 press conference, one of the few remaining independent minded journalists asked Mba why there is no meeting this month on Cameroon (where Paul Biya is slaughtering Anglophones daily). Mba archly replied, video here, that he had no comment as Cameroon is not on the Council's agenda (colonial power France, and turncoat UK haven't even asked, as UK Minister Liam Fox bragged about a New Age natural gas deal with Biya). Remarked on only by banned Inner City Press: Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema was the firstto congratulate Paul Biya on his seventh term, on 20 October 2018, two full days before the dubious results were announced. But who's counting? Now this, from Chinese state media: Officials of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea said on February 2 that they have agreed on plans to construct a bridge to link both countries.  "It is an integrating project that establishes the possibility of movement between the two countries. Once this project is realized, we will have another possibility of traveling by land through Cameroon and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea," said Paul Tasong, Cameroonian ministerial delegate from the Ministry of Economy Planning and Regional Development.  At the end of the day, the agreement was reached during a meeting in Cameroon's commercial capital Douala between delegations led by Tasong and Baltasar Engonga Edjo, Equatorial Guinean minister in charge of regional integration.  The bridge will be constructed over the Ntem River, on the corridor linking Kribi, Campo in Cameroon and Bata in Equatorial Guinea.  A memorandum of understanding will be signed between both countries on March 15. One Belt One Road?  On Cameroon, Mba said he could not comment on Cameroon because "it is not on the program of work of the Security Council." Video here. But there IS no program of work, still - so it's a strange defense, a bridge to nowhere. On February 1 in the mere eight questions taken there was not one about human rights in Equatorial Guinea, which has had the same president for forty years. The first question was taken by the United Nations Correspondents Association, whose Valeria Robecco said there are two issues in Africa: Boko Haram and the DR Congo. That'll all? This UN Correspondents Association - which at most represents 10% even of the journalist who come into the UN each year, and did nothing about its partners Guterres, Dujarric and Smale's censorship - has said nothing about, for example, the automatic exclusion by Guterres' UN of journalists from Taiwan. We'll have more on this UNCA and the permanent seat they devote to China. On February 1, Inner City Press live-tweeted the increasingly craven "press conference" until, at the end, one of the few independent thinking and asking correspondents made it a point to ask why Cameroon was not on the agenda. Ngong Mba answered archly that he would not say anything about Cameroon, since it is not on the Security Council's agenda. That's deference, from a country with a 40 year president to another with a 36 year ruler, currently slaughtering Anglophones with very little said by UNSG Antonio Guterres including in his meetings with Mba's Cameroonian counterpart when he was chair of the UN Budget Committee where Guterres wanted favors. Mba to his credit did reveal that Kuwait has asked for an Any Other Business meeting about Hebron. The session was brief, perhaps in part because there was no Program of Work handed out. Those who want to knock Kosovo off the quarterly reporting schedule refused to agree to a February 7 meeting. Mba cited the US in September as also not having a program of work. But there was a hand out of the rest of the schedule. Not so with Equatorial Guinea. They should be sending their information to Inner City Press which covers the UN Security Council closely - in person until roughed up and banned by Guterres amid its questions about his spending and silence on Cameroon, Obiang style -  but we'll see. Watch this site, daily.  In the eight questions there was no follow up on the expulsion of Guterres' envoy Nicholas Haysom from Somalia.  Nothing on Burundi, or Gabon or Togo.  But on those, the answer presumably would have been the same. This is today's UN, so far unchanged by the other "new" UNSC members Germany, Indonesia, South Africa and Belgium...

Heading UNSC Equatorial Guinea Dodged on Cameroon Despite No Program Now Bridge In Chinese State Media

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFT Q&A

UNITED NATIONS GATE, February 3 – When the Presidency of the UN Security Council was taken over by Equatorial Guinea on February 1 its Ambassador Ndong Mba held a press conference to take questions. But it was only from the media NOT banned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, his Alison Smale and spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Nevertheless, one of the few remaining independent minded journalists asked Mba why there is no meeting this month on Cameroon (where Paul Biya is slaughtering Anglophones daily). Mba archly replied, video here, that he had no comment as Cameroon is not on the Council's agenda (colonial power France, and turncoat UK haven't even asked, as UK Minister Liam Fox bragged about a New Age natural gas deal with Biya). Remarked on only by banned Inner City Press: Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema was the firstto congratulate Paul Biya on his seventh term, on 20 October 2018, two full days before the dubious results were announced. But who's counting? Now this, from Chinese state media: Officials of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea said on February 2 that they have agreed on plans to construct a bridge to link both countries.  "It is an integrating project that establishes the possibility of movement between the two countries. Once this project is realized, we will have another possibility of traveling by land through Cameroon and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea," said Paul Tasong, Cameroonian ministerial delegate from the Ministry of Economy Planning and Regional Development.  At the end of the day, the agreement was reached during a meeting in Cameroon's commercial capital Douala between delegations led by Tasong and Baltasar Engonga Edjo, Equatorial Guinean minister in charge of regional integration.  The bridge will be constructed over the Ntem River, on the corridor linking Kribi, Campo in Cameroon and Bata in Equatorial Guinea.  A memorandum of understanding will be signed between both countries on March 15. One Belt One Road?  On Cameroon, Mba said he could not comment on Cameroon because "it is not on the program of work of the Security Council." Video here. But there IS no program of work, still - so it's a strange defense, a bridge to nowhere. On February 1 in the mere eight questions taken there was not one about human rights in Equatorial Guinea, which has had the same president for forty years. The first question was taken by the United Nations Correspondents Association, whose Valeria Robecco said there are two issues in Africa: Boko Haram and the DR Congo. That'll all? This UN Correspondents Association - which at most represents 10% even of the journalist who come into the UN each year, and did nothing about its partners Guterres, Dujarric and Smale's censorship - has said nothing about, for example, the automatic exclusion by Guterres' UN of journalists from Taiwan. We'll have more on this UNCA and the permanent seat they devote to China. On February 1, Inner City Press live-tweeted the increasingly craven "press conference" until, at the end, one of the few independent thinking and asking correspondents made it a point to ask why Cameroon was not on the agenda. Ngong Mba answered archly that he would not say anything about Cameroon, since it is not on the Security Council's agenda. That's deference, from a country with a 40 year president to another with a 36 year ruler, currently slaughtering Anglophones with very little said by UNSG Antonio Guterres including in his meetings with Mba's Cameroonian counterpart when he was chair of the UN Budget Committee where Guterres wanted favors. Mba to his credit did reveal that Kuwait has asked for an Any Other Business meeting about Hebron. The session was brief, perhaps in part because there was no Program of Work handed out. Those who want to knock Kosovo off the quarterly reporting schedule refused to agree to a February 7 meeting. Mba cited the US in September as also not having a program of work. But there was a hand out of the rest of the schedule. Not so with Equatorial Guinea. They should be sending their information to Inner City Press which covers the UN Security Council closely - in person until roughed up and banned by Guterres amid its questions about his spending and silence on Cameroon, Obiang style -  but we'll see. Watch this site, daily.  In the eight questions there was no follow up on the expulsion of Guterres' envoy Nicholas Haysom from Somalia.  Nothing on Burundi, or Gabon or Togo.  But on those, the answer presumably would have been the same. This is today's UN, so far unchanged by the other "new" UNSC members Germany, Indonesia, South Africa and Belgium...

At UN, Gabon's Ali Bongo Faces Libya Questions & Obiang of Equatorial Guinea

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 25 -- When the world's #16 dictator, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was slated Friday to meet up-and-coming son Ali of the #11 dictator, Omar Bongo and the UN's Ban Ki-moon, the treaty signing photo op was set for 12:45.

But when Inner City Press got there, the UN announced in French, Spanish and English that there had been a delay. The largely African media contingent wanted to ask Ali Bongo about his Libyan friend Gadhafi and his mercenaries; Inner City Press wanted to ask Bongo about the UN playing host to Gabonese opposition figure Mba Obame. (The UN has dodged questions on this for weeks.)

Obiang, meanwhile, had his representatives waiting. Inner City Press spoke with Obiang's lobbying, for today with an Equatorial Guinea Diplomat pass from the UN, Gregory Lagana. After introductions, he told Inner City Press he used to be with the US State Department. This checked out -- assigned for the UN to San Salvador, Quito and Rome. He was also the spokesman for DynCorp, the private military contractor a/ka/ mercenary firm.

Now flush with oil, and head of the African Union, Obiang is trying to rehabilitate his image. He tried to get a prize from UNESCO but this was shot down after opposition. Now he comes to the UN to sign a treaty with his neighbor Gabon, where the opposition figure has had to seek physical protection from the UN.

At Friday's noon briefing, Inner City Press again asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky if Ban would raise to Ali Bongo the crackdown on opposition protests, and the UN's hosting of Mba Obame. I don't want to pre-judge what will happen, Nesirky said, promising a read out later in the day. But with the treaty signing photo op put off, nothing was assured. Watch this site.

At UN, Equatorial Guinea President's Son's $ 100 Million is “Just Business,” Pro Moroccan

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 1 -- With Equatorial Guinea under scrutiny for executions and locking up reporters, it's Permanent Representative to the UN Anatolio Ndong Mba spoke to the Press on Wednesday.

Inner City Press, which covered the Equato-guinean response to the US Senate's report on corrupt finance six months ago, asked Anatolio Ndong Mba where the son of President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue got the $100 million he transferred into the US. Video here, from Minute 26:03.

Anatolio Ndong Mba replied that the president's son Teodorin is “free to do his business.” But Inner City Press asked, what is his business? Video here, from Minute 30:04.

“He could make buildings, he could rent houses,” Anatolio Ndong Mba said. But the president's son has a $30 million mansion in Malibu and a recording studio.

Anatolio Ndong Mba argued that with so much money coming into the country from oil companies, with so much “development,” money could not be diverted. “Morocco invests,” he said, giving an example.

Beyond the executions, what about crack downs on the media, Inner City Press asked, including the imprisonment of Rodrigo Nguema, the only foreign correspondent in Malabo? Video here, from Minute 33:44.

To this was was no answer except that the country aimed to improve. Anatolio Ndong Mba mentioned the Emirates, saying that in other counties, no on asks where money comes from.

After the press conference, after the applause of the mission's ringers, Inner City Press asked Anatolio Ndong Mba if his country for example supported a referendum in Western Sahara with independence as an option. No, Anatolio Ndong Mba said.

What about Kosovo, Inner City Press asked. Anatolio Ndong Mba said Equatorial Guinea's foreign policy favors Kosovar independence. Both positions are America's. But a staffer of Anatolio Ndong Mba explained that it comes down to relations with Morocco. Consistency be damned. Watch this site.

Denying Corruption of Citigroup and BofA, Obiangs Cite Obama, ExxonMobil's Investment

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/banks1eguinea021510.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 15 -- Ten days after the release by the U.S. Senate of a reporting on evasion by the son of Equatorial Guinea's President for Life Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue of anti-money laundering controls by and at Citigroup, Bank of America, Wachovia / Wells Fargo and others, the Obiang regime fired back, calling the report racist and citing in its defense the election of Barack Obama.

Inner City Press is putting the Obiangs' memo online, here.

The Senate report exhaustively shows how Teodorin and his lawyers moved tens of millions of dollars through Citibank and Wachovia (owned by Wells Fargo since the financial meltdown), and used accounts at Bank of America, City National and other banks. The report described how Teodorin

"brought over $100 million into the United States using wire transfer systems at just two U.S. financial institutions, Wachovia Bank and Citibank. Neither system had been programmed to detect or block wire transfers bearing his name. In 2009... Citibank declined to take the same action due to projections that identifying, freezing, and investigating these wire transfers would generate too much work for its anti-money laundering staff...From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Obiang used accounts at three U.S. banks, Union Bank of California, Bank of America, and Citibank, often with Mr. Berger’s assistance, to deposit, transfer and spend nearly $10 million. Most of these funds were wire transferred from accounts in Equatorial Guinea held in the name of Mr. Obiang or two EG companies he controlled, Somagui Forestal and Socage."

To this, the Government of Equatorial Guinea in a communique sent to the Press on February 15, the President's Day holiday in the U.S., argues that

"According to Equatoguinean legislation, as occurs exactly in the most of the world, the natural and legal persons, as occurs in this case with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, are perfectly authorized to do business and maintain other types of jobs at the margin of their Ministerial obligations."

Teodorin's "marginal" business includes a $30 million mansion in Malibu, a jet and recording studio, among other things. Previously he and his president for life father Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo moved their money, like Pinochet, into the U.S. through Riggs Bank.

Inner City Press and its Fair Finance Watch dug into these connections, including to Spain's Santander Bank and HSBC, when the Obiang disgraced Riggs was being sold to PNC Bank. Click here for coverage in Le Monde, in French.

The U.S. Federal Reserve did little at that time. With the major banks it regulates now implicated again in corrupt money laundering, what will the supposedly chastened Federal Reserve do?

The "Equatoguinean" response complains at the Senate report deals only with African corruption -- Angola with HSBC, Gabon's Omar Bongo with Citigroup, Nigeria's Abubakar with Suntrust and the ubiquitous Citibank -- and not any other continent. In this, it echoes the defenders of Sudan's Omar al Bashir, that the International Criminal Court and its prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo have so far indicted only African defendants.

But Equatorial Guinea goes further. Its cover email to Inner City Press argues that "it can be considered as an authentic insult to Africa, and more so after the people of the United States have voted in the majority for a President of African origin."

Then, in capital letters, Equatorial Guinea screams that

"In Africa and in Equatorial Guinea we are tired of BEING TREATED FOR CENTURIES LIKE INHUMAN BEASTS, ON WHICH ALL THE BRUTAL AND EVIL BEHAVIOURS POSSIBLE ARE BLAMED. This is again so verifiable in this case that even different media of the United States have written these days, in regards to this case, THAT THE FAMILY OBIANG PRACTICES CANNIBALISM."

Another of the ICC's and Ocampo's indictees, Jean Pierre Bemba the previous Vice President of the Congo, argued during his campaign against Joseph Kabila that, "I am not a cannibal!"

The Equatoguinean defense that's closest to the mark is that

"We also wish to put on the record that the United States is the country from which comes the highest foreign investment in Equatorial Guinea, which exceeds 12 billion USA dollars, and that no American corporation has complained of fraudulent behaviour of the Government. We also expect the Senate Subcommittee to be consistent with the criteria of the North American companies."

Or should it be the other way around? Major U.S. investors with the Obiangs include ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Hess Corporation, and Noble Energy. We will have more on all this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/banks1eguinea021510.html