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### Viewing cable 09MALABO48, EQUATORIAL GUINEA RAW, PAPER 6: REFINING OUR APPROACH

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09MALABO48 | 2009-05-21 17:05 | 2011-02-10 21:09 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Malabo

`

    VZCZCXRO0266
    OO RUEHMA
    DE RUEHMA #0048/01 1411729
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    O 211729Z MAY 09
    FM AMEMBASSY MALABO
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0499
    INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
    RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
    RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC
    RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
    RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE IMMEDIATE 0292
    RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID 0124
    RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0083
    RUEHSB/AMEMBASSY HARARE IMMEDIATE 0031
    RUEHC/USAID WASHDC
    RUEHMA/AMEMBASSY MALABO 0570

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MALABO 000048

    SENSITIVE

    SIPDIS

    HARARE FOR F. CHISHOLM; YAOUNDE FOR DATT LTCOL M. SOUSA

    E.O. 12958: N/A

    TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PHSA ENRG EPET EK KCOR ECON SOCI
    SUBJECT: EQUATORIAL GUINEA RAW, PAPER 6:  REFINING OUR APPROACH

    REF: MALABO 19, 21, 26, 27, 31

    ¶1. (U) Triggered by changes underway in Washington D.C.,

    upcoming personnel rotations in Embassy Malabo and animated by

    the recent attack on the capital, this is the final in a series

    of cables intended to update our perspective on Equatorial

    Guinea, and to provide a ground-level view of one of the world's

    most-isolated and least-understood countries to interested

    readers.

    ¶2. (SBU) Background:  Equatorial Guinea (EG) suffered a brief,

    brutal colonial period under its fascist Spanish overseers, and

    then, a generation ago, fell off the cliff with its first

    elected leader; the paranoid, cruel Macias, who did more

    proportional harm to the country's already-miserable population

    than Pol Pot did in Cambodia.  The 1979 coup brought changes in

    leadership and a few improvements, but the country remained

    extremely poor and isolated until U.S. wildcatters, encouraged

    by a once-active U.S. Embassy, found commercial quantities of

    oil and gas offshore in the mid-90s.  Sudden riches did nothing

    to immediately address capacity challenges, and the country's

    search (and acute need) for a mentor left it disappointed.

    Given its well-established bad reputation, those who have not

    focused on EG lately will likely find that it is now bigger than

    it looks, and better than it sounds.   Authoritarian structures

    are undergoing transformation and the quality of life for

    average citizens willing to make the effort is improving.  The

    U.S., without the baggage of the former colonialist powers

    active in the region or the econo-colonialism of the Chinese, is

    widely looked to by EG to provide a moral compass for this

    development.  The recent change in the U.S. administration -- in

    the country with the highest per capita density of "Obamas" in

    the world -- was received as a herald of warmer relations.  U.S.

    involvement is needed to shape EG's future.  Relatively minor

    U.S. technical assistance and advice in key areas (justice,

    human rights and democracy, social development, education,

    conservation, maritime security) will be effective in giving EG

    the future we want it to have.  It is time to abandon a moral

    narrative that has left us with a retrospective bias and an

    ambivalent approach to one of the most-promising success stories

    in the region.

    ¶3. (SBU) Summary Questions:  What do we really want for

    Equatorial Guinea?  Do we want to see the country continue to

    evolve in positive ways from the very primitive state in which

    it found itself after independence?  Or would we prefer a

    revolution that brings sudden, uncertain change and

    unpredictability?  The former is clearly the path the country is

    on, and the latter has potentially dire consequences for our

    interests, most notably our energy security.

    ¶4. (SBU) In the plus column, 1) the government is increasingly

    populated by young, forward-looking actors, 2) the physical

    environment and public services are rapidly improving for EG

    citizens, 3) hundreds of millions of dollars are going into

    social spending, 4) the government is opening its books in order

    to obtain membership in the Extractive Industries Transparency

    Initiative (EITI), 5) recent elections showed marked improvement

    over those in the past, and 6) both skilled and unskilled job

    opportunities have mushroomed.  U.S. engagement can accelerate

    the positive change already underway.  On the other hand, by

    remaining aloof we cede a fertile field to others (e.g., the

    Chinese) whose objectives differ from our own while we increase

    the potential for a sudden shift that might put American lives

    and interests at risk.  Despite recent improvements, it is not

    difficult to imagine an EG in which U.S. FDI has been

    nationalized and/or turned over to others to operate, in which

    Americans are reviled, in which our influence withers.   Worse,

    but imaginable, would be a chaotic change in which the hundreds

    of Americans here are targeted, billions in U.S. investment

    destroyed and lost, and -- by virtue of where EG sits on the map

    -- 20% of our national energy imports threatened.  Several

    scenarios are possible:  e.g., metastasis of the Niger Delta

    troubles, replication of the Gulf of Aden piracy, or

    "Venezuela-ization" of EG.  Our involvement in helping EG

    improve its security -- particularly maritime security where our

    MALABO 00000048  002 OF 003

    interests so firmly overlap -- and to overcome suspicion of its

    neighbors, will be crucial to avoid drift in these directions.

    Moreover, better security will help EG relax its de facto state

    of martial law and lead to improvements in the area of human

    rights and democracy.  We will only strain bilateral relations

    with EG if we continue to raise the bar in response to EG

    efforts and overtures.

    ¶5. (SBU) Indeed, EG could be one of the easy ones.  It has a

    compact, relatively homogenous population with very high per

    capita income levels.  It has a stern but mellowing leadership,

    one clearly trying to atone for past sins, one that is

    pro-American, and one which is undergoing a positive

    generational shift away from the authoritarian structures that

    were its birthright.  Meanwhile, the vestiges of those

    structures serve to maintain one of the safest, most-secure

    societies in the region.  And its requests for help from us

    (democratization, justice system reform, public finance reform,

    social development, conservation, security assistance) almost

    always come with burden-sharing arrangements, and are aimed at

    gaining our technical assistance and capacity-building

    expertise.  EG is paying its own way.

    ¶6. (SBU) As indicated in previous messages, dinosaurs and

    fossils do remain in EG, and they continue to wield power.

    However, President Obiang has set a course for integrating EG

    with the world and, by fits and starts, is moving the country in

    that direction.  Within the current array of alternative

    leaders, here in Malabo it is not obvious there is anyone else

    with the vision and influence to see this transformation

    through.  However, Obiang is not a young man.  Accelerating

    positive change while the conditions are right is a job that

    only the U.S. is positioned to undertake.

    ¶7. (SBU) Bigger Than it Looks:  Taking away U.S. energy imports

    from North America (i.e., those from our immediate neighbors

    Canada and Mexico), we find that over 30% of our imported oil

    and gas comes from the Gulf of Guinea region -- more, for

    example, than from the Middle East.  The largest portion of the

    Gulf of Guinea maritime territory belongs to little EG.  To

    ignore the security implications associated with the country at

    the heart of this key region would leave a gaping hole in the

    map of our national strategy.  Yet, with crypto-sanctions in

    place and a tiny embassy contingent severely constraining our

    engagement, that is essentially our policy at the moment.

    ¶8. (SBU) A handful of U.S. oil companies have significant

    investment stakes in EG, not to mention the several hundred

    American workers they place in the field and the direct energy

    imports the country's oil fields supply to U.S. markets.

    Marathon Oil is reported to have around 30% of its capital at

    risk in EG.  Hess' exposure is slightly less.  During our

    extended official absence ('95 to '06), U.S. oil companies

    painstakingly laid the groundwork for U.S. influence.

    Impressing Equatoguineans, they built a reputation for Americans

    of "doing what [we] say, and doing it right" (this is a quote

    from President Obiang himself).  The door is wide open for

    additional American involvement, both official and private.

    After all, we (via U.S. oil companies) pay all the bills - and

    the EG leadership knows it.

    ¶9. (SBU) Better Than it Sounds:  Yet there is something peculiar

    about our policy toward EG.  The country is certainly no worse

    than many of our energy allies, and better than some.  Given the

    strategic issues in play, our policy is dangerously indifferent

    and/or misinformed.  From our vantage point here in Malabo,

    witnessing close-up the yawning capacity gaps and huge

    distractions EG faces, it is clear we will only solve the
    problems important to us by engaging -- and yet we refuse to do
    so despite repeated, open invitations.  Our reluctance to become
    more involved appears to be rooted in our acceptance of a

    MALABO 00000048  003 OF 003

    narrative being supplied by a rapacious diaspora, its co-authors
    among disaffected Spanish imigris, and oppugnant NGOs who have
    taken up the story for their own purposes.  This storyline is
    supplied by Equatoguineans who left long ago and who have lost
    touch with progress here, and/or by Europeans with colonialist
    perspectives and memories of lost empire.  This narrative
    maintains that Equatoguineans are primitive and ignorant people
    whose government is a sinister, repressive, blood-thirsty cabal.
     It suggests that by helping them we would only dirty our hands,
    because positive change is impossible.  However, this embassy
    can report, based on renewed direct experience in EG, this story
    is largely fiction -- however accurate parts of it may have been
    at points in the past.  This narrative is no longer a fit guide
    for our approach toward EG.  It is, in fact, so misguided that
    it is more likely to wreck the relationship.

    ¶10. (SBU) A more appropriate guiding narrative comes from our
    own experience, in which we learned that discrimination --
    against people who are culturally different, historically
    disadvantaged -- is wrong, untenable.  EG's hand is not clenched
    in a fist.  It is reaching out for assistance.  Our own history
    has taught us that aiding those who ask for help can heal
    historical wounds and promote integration.  This is the story we
    must help tell again.  We cannot punish a people dealt a bad
    hand by history simply because they are behind.  Money alone
    does not change this rule.  There is a simple calculus at work.
    There are good guys and bad guys here.  We need to strengthen
    the good guys -- for all his faults, President Obiang among them
    -- and undercut the bad guys.  By doing so, we can help the
    country succeed.  We won't accomplish this by accepting a story
    contrived by someone else.  This is one we will have to write
    ourselves.
    SMITH

`