Vol. 72/No. 38      September 29, 2008

The island of Bioko was a staging post for the world slave trade well into the 19th century. The ports of what is now Equatorial Guinea came under Portuguese, Spanish, British, and Dutch colonial rule at different times. After the European colonial powers partitioned Africa among themselves in 1885, the region became the only part of the continent south of the Sahara “owned” by Madrid. Under Spanish rule there was little market activity beyond Spanish-dominated logging and the cultivation of cacao and coffee, virtually all for export.

Equatorial Guinea gained independence from Spain in 1968. The first Guinean government, headed by President Francisco Macías Nguema, became an 11-year reign of terror. Declaring himself president for life, and sometimes referring to himself as a “socialist,” Macías cloaked his cruel, Pol Pot-like repression in anti-Spanish, anticlerical, and anti-“white” demagogy. Churches and schools were closed, and Guineans with even a few years of education became special targets. Many were jailed, tortured, or executed, and tens of thousands of Guineans fled into exile.

In a country that after centuries of colonial and imperialist domination was already one of the most ravaged in Africa, even minimal trade and production for the market collapsed. On Aug. 3, 1979, Macías was overthrown in a coup by young Guinean military officers led by Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who is today president of Equatorial Guinea. Most Guineans mark that date as the beginning of the work to initiate modern development of the country.

The discovery of vast reserves of oil and gas beneath the offshore waters of Equatorial Guinea some 15 years ago increased the strategic importance of the country as the 21st century began. Production and trade have expanded rapidly while economic and social contradictions have accelerated.

—MARTÍN KOPPEL