CIVICUS speaks about repression in Equatorial Guinea with civil society activist Joaquín Elo. After being detained for almost a year in 2019, Joaquín is dedicated to advocating for the release of other jailed activists and the opening of civic space and a transition to democracy in Equatorial Guinea.
Is there any space for civil society in Equatorial Guinea?
There is no space in Equatorial Guinea for different voices, different ways of thinking or different ways of looking at life. This applies to civil society and political organisations.
Regimes like Equatorial Guinea’s are based on the total absence of freedom. President Teodoro Obiang has been in power since a coup in 1979, 45 years ago. The deprivation of freedom succeeds in destroying people, making them passive and lacking solidarity. When something happens to someone, it is common for neighbours to say ‘they must have asked for it’.
People know that the regime is barbaric and criminal. They don’t get involved because they know what the consequences can be; they have seen many people beaten up, spend years in prison in the worst imaginable conditions and even lose their lives.
What are the government’s tactics of repression?
The government uses all the textbook tactics: harassment, imprisonment, disappearances. It manipulates the law and uses violence to keep control. It uses economic resources to maintain its power and eliminate any opposition.
The regime has the upper hand as it maintains absolute control over all branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial. It criminalises activism by instrumentalising laws that have other, presumably legitimate, purposes. For example, at the moment I cannot leave the country because I am accused of money laundering and financing terrorism, which is completely absurd.
The regime has all the means of coercion at its disposal: the police, the gendarmerie and the army. Last but not least, it has a lot of money, which comes from oil revenue. These resources, instead of being used to improve people’s lives, are used to buy people’s wills, silence opponents and kidnap people abroad.
In recent years, many activists have been kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured. Among them is Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang, arrested on arson charges. Two months after his arrest we learned that he had been transferred to another prison because of an alleged complaint from a gendarmerie officer. This agent, who worked in the prison where Anacleto was held, tortured him and Anacleto denounced him when he got out. But his complaint was never investigated.
Also noteworthy is the number of young men detained as part of what the government calls Operation Clean Up, a campaign of arbitrary arrests launched by the vice-president in May 2022 in response to an alleged increase in crimes committed by youth gangs. Hundreds of young men have been arrested. We have a list of 55 documented cases who are all residents of Bioko Island, but the regime keeps them in detention on the mainland, making it difficult for their families to travel to see them.
The prisons truly are slaughterhouses. Sadly, I speak from firsthand experience. The notorious Black Beach prison, built for a maximum of 400 people, now holds 1,500. Prisoners are not allowed visitors and are dependent on government-provided food that leads to serious health problems. Imagine cramming 1,500 inmates, many with AIDS, hepatitis and TB, into a space designed for 400. Seriously ill inmates are taken to the nearest hospital just so the authorities can say they didn’t die in Black Beach Prison.
All this sends a sobering message to anyone toying with the idea of organising for rights, showing where such efforts can lead.
Has the opposition attempted to organise itself politically?
In the last election held in November 2022, in which the president won an implausible 99.7 per cent of the vote, an opposition political group attempted to participate. The Citizens for Innovation party, which had been legalised, called on its supporters to organise themselves to stand as candidates, either as a party members or independents, as the legal framework in principle allowed them to do so.
The regime’s repressive response was disproportionate. Two months before the election, security forces carried out an armed raid on the party’s premises. The attack was so brutal that the building had to be demolished and no longer exists. The group claims that more than 20 people were killed. The regime itself acknowledged four, but to this day it is not known what happened to the bodies.
In June 2023, a military court sentenced the leader of Citizens for Innovation to almost 30 years in prison on charges of murder, ‘insulting the armed forces’ and ‘abusing fundamental rights’. Nine other party supporters were sentenced to between nine and 11 years in prison on charges of unlawful association, unlawful assembly, illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, assaulting law enforcement officers, causing grievous bodily harm and murder.
The party leader and other party members have been held in secret prisons and their families don’t know where they are and can’t get any news of them. For all intents and purposes, they are disappeared. The intention is clear: to discourage anyone who tries or dares to challenge the regime by showing this is the fate that awaits them.
I understand people may sometimes feel guilty for not taking action, but I also understand their fear. If a legalised political organisation is treated in such a way with total impunity, what can everybody else expect?
How can the international community support a transition to democracy in Equatorial Guinea?
That’s the big question. Democratic countries must act. Totalitarian regimes create discontent and manipulate discourse to blame colonial or western powers for impoverishing continents like Africa and countries like Equatorial Guinea. In this context, democratic countries and the international community should rethink their stance towards dictatorships, in ways similar to how they did during decolonisation.
We urge people to talk about Equatorial Guinea so the world knows what is really going on here. The problem in the current global context is that more visible crises, such as those in Gaza, Syria and Ukraine, are always prioritised, while others are ignored.
In Equatorial Guinea there’s no separation of powers. There is just one man with absolute power. He is the opportunist, the paymaster and the treasurer. No one is allowed to break out of the mould. Those who do, like my comrade Anacleto and many others, end up in prison.
We must make our situation visible so the international community acts and helps us to put an end to these injustices.
Civic space in Equatorial Guinea is rated ‘closed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
