Kuwait Of Africa?

[seemslikeadream]

President Obiang has won big since oil was discovered – and now he is bestowing on himself and his family the lifestyle of the rich and famous. (Photo: CBS)
(CBS) With gas prices hitting record levels this summer, and violence in the Middle East unabated, America has been scouring the globe searching for new sources of oil.

And one could be Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation that's been dubbed the Kuwait of Africa because it has so few people and so much oil.

It used to be called the armpit of Africa because it was so desperately poor. But since the discovery of oil 10 years ago, that has started to change.

In fact, as Correspondent Bob Simon reported last fall, African countries like Equatorial Guinea will provide as much as 25 percent of America's oil in the next decade.

And giants like Exxon-Mobile are pumping out more of it all the time.


more
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/14/60minutes/main583700.shtml

UPDATE: Since this story first aired last fall, federal investigators have reportedly been looking into American oil companies and their real estate dealings in Equatorial Guinea -- to determine whether they improperly benefitied President Obiang.

Sources close to the investigation are examining whether the oil companies paid prices so far above market value that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.


African countries like Equatorial Guinea will provide as much as 25 percent of America's oil in the next decade. (Photo: CBS)


http://www.globalwitness.org/

more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x691609

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Great site

Excellent... confirms even more to me that they really do hate us for our "freedom".

http://www.globalwitness.org/
>>Global Witness campaigns to achieve real change by challenging established thinking on seemingly intractable global issues. We work to highlight the link between the exploitation of natural resources and human rights abuses, particularly where the resources such as timber, diamonds and oil are used to fund and perpetuate conflict and corruption.<<

[Snazzy]

4. Great org--They have EG in one report

http://www.globalwitness.org/reports/show.php/en.00049.html

At bottom of the page is the actual report in dif. formats.

It is a great site/mission--exactly the issue I seem to be on these days, money laundering, lack of 'transparency' in all the places that have resources to secretly exploit and fund our perpetual wars.

You know, somehow 'follow the money' has been lost. I mean, investigative journalism is largely gone in Western press, with a few outstanding exceptions (Hersh, Palast top of my list). Occasionally, obvious facts about corruption that become public require SOME follow-up by the rest of the well spun and heavily cocktail party'd media.

Seems to me that 'follow the money' is just automatically dismissed on account of several factors. Perception by media that the public is too stupid, or lacks attention span to follow. Not sexy. Likewise, with most actual j-school's having devolved into classes on whiter teeth and elocution, the vast majority of the media is guilty of the same thing--just not educated enough to follow the finances. And the natural bias for anyone in the media who gets that knowledge, finance, is on the lapdog side of business. I'm just trying to get at the why. With our limited supply of any investigations from journos, there is no 'follow the money' with 9/11 or anything else. I, of course, realize the vast majority of the media, investigative or not, is completely corrupt and/or ignorant.

The many giant Plame threads have had me thinking a bit about what is different now vs. Watergate. This is one big problem--the dumbing down of the news, the ADD of 24 hr cable. 'Follow the money' is dead, and I really think that's what broke Watergate. And it has been dead for a while. That's how BCCI, by other names, is so happily continuing on; that's also why almost all of this corruption is so blatently out in the open, and sometimes even quasi legal. The money people must feel unassailable--immortal. No one cares, they are sloppy. It's all the same day and the same tainted money. And it will keep going on, defeat Whistleass or not, the money and deals will live-on, like it has lived-on, unless someone steps up and explains this to the American people. And friggin' follow-through. Where will the Riggs money go now? It's just a small part of the beast, but we got to see it, bust open, in some fleeting moment of sunshine. Funny that Deloitte & Touche was setting up shell companies for Riggs in the Bahamas for Pinochet, at the same time they are the receiver for BCCI. Where will the Riggs embassy and offshore accounts go? PNC says they don't want them. Follow the damn money.

[al bupp]

5. Well Put /eom

[Snazzy]

6. Global Witness in VOA report yesterday

...

A campaigner with London-based rights group Global Witness, Sarah Wykes says the Senate report supplies clear evidence of corruption.

"It seems that none of the country's oil wealth, which is about several-billion dollars since the mid <19>90s, none of that wealth seems to actually have gone to the country's development," she said. "And, now we have very clear evidence of why that is, that most of the money has been kept off-shore, out of sight and there seems to be a total confusion as to what in fact is state revenues and what is personal wealth to be used by the president and his family."

Ms. Wykes says it has been clear for years that the recently oil-rich nation has not been developing, despite the wealth from oil revenues.

"Equatorial's human development indicators have actually gone backwards since oil came on stream in the mid <19>90s. So it is actually deteriorated, despite having billions of dollars in oil wealth," she said. "So where has that money gone? It definitely has not gone to the development of the country."

...

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=51EA7E45-9E74-42BB-9652E3C2734868AA

[mandyky]

2. CBS 60 Minutes just did a piece

on Equatorial Guinea.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Yes that's were this is from - online

When Ambassador Bennett named one of the torturers and highlighted these abuses in the State Department's annual human rights report, he received a death threat. He's convinced it came from a member of the ruling clan. Not only that, he says American oil executives were not happy with him.
“And one of them just really was irritated. To the point of yelling at me,” says Bennett. “Because it interfered with the way they wanted to do business with the government.”

But now that there are a lot of U.S. oil men in Equatorial Guinea, does Bennett think this will be an indication of how they will react to the continuing human rights abuses?

“It (hasn't) bothered investments, certainly. Investment has gone up over $5 billion if I understand correctly, from U.S. firms,” says Bennett.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And how close are the U.S. firms to the president? Well, for starters, oil company compounds are built on land owned by the president, and leased from him for a princely sum. And when the president comes to the states, the companies entertain him lavishly.

As first reported by the Los Angeles Times, American oil companies have been depositing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil royalties into an account controlled by President Obiang at a branch of the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/14/60minutes/main583700.shtml