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