>>8143324

Annobon Island – Equatorial Guinea’s Political Corruption and Toxic Waste Dumping

The brutal central African dictator whose playboy son faces French corruption trial (Sept 12, 2016)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/teodoro-obiang-nguema-mbasogo-equatorial-guinea-french-corruption-trial-a7238501.html

The financial workings of one of the most opaque regimes in the world could be about to be subjected to unprecedented scrutiny, after it was decided the son of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea should face trial for corruption in France.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled Africa’s richest country per capita for almost 40 years, amid persistent accusations of corruption, electoral fraud and even cannibalism.

President Obiang describes his regime’s management of Equatorial Guinea’s vast oil revenues as a “state secret” and in the past two years the country has been deemed too opaque to include on Transparency International’s global corruption index.

Yet the outside world could be about to get its first look into how the country’s elite siphon off public funds - through the finances of President Obiang’s son.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang has already had $71 million worth of his assets seized by the US, including a $30 million Malibu mansion, a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet, a Ferrari worth more than $500,000 and Michael Jackson memorabilia worth almost $2 million.

And the 47-year-old playboy prince, who was named his father’s Vice-President earlier this year, looks set to be tried by a Paris court on charges including corruption, money-laundering and embezzlement of public funds.

The court is yet to announce a date for the trial, but sources close to the investigation told the AFP news agency the hearing will go ahead.

The process began when a French judge launched a landmark investigation in May 2009 into whether President Obiang and two other African leaders used state money to buy luxury cars and homes in Paris and on the French Riviera. It became known as the case of "ill-gotten gains".

Transparency International filed a complaint against the leaders, who denied any wrongdoing.

Lawyers for the Obiang family have repeatedly tried to scupper the proceedings, and achieved some success when a French court of appeal ruled activists couldn’t sue foreign heads of state.

But a subsequent ruling authorised the investigation, and in July 2012 they ordered the seizure of Mr Obiang’s vast Paris mansion, which featured gold-plated taps, a spa and an in-house nightclub, reportedly worth more than €100 million.

Other possessions, including a fleet of Feraris, Bugattis and other luxury cars and a clock which was alone worth €3 million, were also seized.

Despite its huge oil wealth and that of its ruling elite, Equatorial Guinea is also home to some of the most deprived communities in Africa. More than half the population lives beneath the poverty threshold.

President Obiang seized power of the country in 1979, overthrowing President Francisco Macias Nguema, a leader whose rule since independence saw the deaths of thousands. The former leader was tried and executed.

The accusations of cannibalism against the dictator stem from an interview with an exiled political opponent, Severo Moto, on Spanish radio in 2004.

In it, Moto said President Obiang was a demon who “systematically eats his political rivals”.

Making clear he wasn’t just speaking in metaphors, Moto said the ruler was “an authentic cannibal”.

“He has just devoured a police commissioner,” he is quoted as saying. “I say devoured as this commissioner was buried without his testicles and brain.”

More substantiated claims suggest President Obiang licensed foreign companies to dump toxic waste on the pristine Atlantic island of Annobon.

And ex ministers have testified as to how the Obiang regime encouraged diplomats to use their immunity to smuggle large amounts of illicit drugs all over the world, even in the president’s own baggage.

Earlier this year, Equatorial Guinea filed a lawsuit with the The Hague asking it to end the French investigation. But even if it goes ahead, as now seems likely, Mr Obiang probably won’t see his day in court. French officials say the trial is expected to take place without the defendant attending.

>>8143324

Annobon Island - Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa

Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa (NYT July 17, 1988) part 1 of 3

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/17/world/waste-dumpers-turning-to-west-africa.html

In this African delta port, where children run barefoot through oil palm plantations and men pilot dugout canoes through mangrove swamps, the arrival of a ship from Europe has often meant disruption.

Two local place names recall the first contacts with Europe. Escravos and Forcados are the Portuguese words for slaves and indentured. Today, a collection of steel drums stacked behind a villager's family compound here speak of the latest trade with Europe - 10,000 barrels of toxic waste.

As safety laws in Europe and the United States push toxic disposal costs up to $2,500 a ton, waste brokers are turning their attention to the closest, poorest and most unprotected shores - West Africa. Offers for a Dump Site

From Morocco to the Congo, virtually every country on West Africa's coast reports receiving offers this year from American or European companies seeking cheap sites to dispose of hazardous waste. Fees offered African recipients have gone as low as $3 a ton.

Some West African countries rank among the poorest in the world, and the offers have been tempting.

In February, officials in Guinea-Bissau signed a five-year contract to bury 15 million tons of toxic wastes from European tanneries and pharmaceutical companies. In return, Guinea-Bissau would receive a yearly payment of $120 million - slightly less than the country's gross national product of $150 million. North Europe's Waste

Two thousand miles to the south, in Congo, Government officials signed a contract to store a million tons of chemical waste from northern Europe in return for $84 million.

But when a furor erupted over what African newspapers now call toxic terrorism, both African governments quickly repudiated the contracts.

Dozens of letters from angry readers have been inclined to regard the dumping of toxic wastes as the lastest in a series of historical traumas for the continent, read an editorial last month in West Africa, an English-language weekly. The traumas cited were slavery, colonialism and unpayable foreign debts. 'Garbage Dump' for West

Similar outrage has surfaced in the pages of Jeune Afrique, the region's largest-circulation French-language magazine.

It is no longer a secret for anyone that some African leaders, eager to see their Swiss bank accounts grow, would not hesitate to transform the African continent into a garbage dump for industrial wastes from industrialized countries, wrote one reader, Basi Nanchi Ya Rwin-Cin, a Zaire student.

From Niger, which received offers in May from a Dutch company to store chemical waste, Adamou Seybou wrote: Evidently, the Westerners explain that these wastes, once buried, will no longer be dangerous. If that's true, why aren't they happy to bury the wastes in their own countries?

In a Nigerian magazine, African Concord, Sam Omatseye wrote: That Italy did not contemplate Australia or South Africa or some other place for industrial waste re-echoes what Europe has always thought of Africa: A wasteland. And the people who live there, waste beings. Firing Squad in Nigeria

Outrage is particularly strong in Nigeria, where officials now warn that people caught importing toxic waste will face the firing squad.

We are prescribing the death penalty for any Nigerian, any foreigner, caught in the act of bringing in toxic waste, Duro Onabule, Nigeria spokesman, said in an interview in Lagos. There will be no concession to appeals from foreign governments.

In another stern reaction, the Ivory Coast adopted a law in early July that provides for prison terms up to 20 years and fines up to $1.6 million for individuals who import toxic or nuclear waste into the Ivory Coast.

On West Africa's coast, there are two confirmed cases of toxic dumping, and each has led to the jailing of European businessmen.

>>8143324

>>8143493

Annobon Island - Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa

Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa (NYT July 17, 1988) part 2 of 3

In March in Guinea, a Norwegian shipping company, A.S. Bulk Handling Inc. dumped 15,000 tons of a substance officially listed as raw material for bricks in an abandoned quarry on Kssa, a resort island near Conakry. Ash From Philadelphia

But soon weekenders from the mainland noticed that the island's vegetation was starting to shrivel. A Government investigation discovered that the material was incinerator ash from Philadelphia, the first shipment under a contract to dispose of 85,000 tons of chemical wastes in Guinea.

On July 2, a Norwegian freighter completed removal of the waste. But Sigmund Stromme, Norway's Honorary Consul and a shipping agent in Conakry, remains in jail, accused of being a brain behind this affair.

Here, in this backwater port on the Benin River, oceangoing ships usually dock here only three or four times a year. But between September 1987 and last May, five ships docked here with loads of hazardous waste.

Their destination was a dirt lot in a residential area off Koko's one paved street. Sunday Nana, who lives next door, said that he first asked the Italian importer, Gianfranco Raffaelli, for a monthly rent of $200. After some haggling, they settled for $100 a month. Not Told What Barrels Contained

We were paid 10 naira a day to work unloading the barrels, said a neighbor named Daniel, who was found on a recent afternoon padding around Mr. Nana's compound in rubber thongs. Ten naira is the equivalent of $2.50. Looking at the multicolored steel drums, some of which had fallen over and started to leak, Daniel said that the white man never told him what the barrels contained.

In Lagos, Nigeria's Health Minister, Ransome Olikoye Kuti, said in an interview: It's terrible because Africans are not very aware of the dangers of toxic wastes. Many of our people are not literate and could easily become contaminated by the waste.

According to a diplomat who talked to a team of experts from the United States Environmental Protection Agency who visited the site last month, the most dangerous poisons are polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB's. [ On Friday, Nigeria's news agency reported that three of the drums contained a highly radioactive material, according to experts from the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Agency. On Wednesday, Nigerian health officials reported that three workers suffered severe chemical burns while moving the waste. ] Leaves a Partner in Jail On June 2, the day Nigerian newspapers broke the news about the dump here, Mr. Raffaelli, a long-term resident of Nigeria, boarded an airplane for Europe. He left behind an Italian partner, Desiderio Perazzi, who is now in a Nigerian jail.

Two Italian ships are expected to dock here later in July to remove the waste. In June, to press Italy to act, the Nigerian authorities seized an Italian ship in Lagos harbor that had nothing to do with the waste.

According to European environmentalists, the Guinean and Nigerian dumping cases share similar elements with toxic disposal contracts drawn up in other West African countries - the Western disposal companies rarely have track records of safe waste disposal, the proposed disposal sites are not studied for their geological suitability and the receiving countries are not accurately informed.

European businessmen offering disposal contracts to West Africans this year represented companies incorporated in the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein - places having minimal requirements for incorporation.

Intercontrat, a company which has proposed deals in Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Benin, is based in Switzerland and consequently is exempt from European Community regulations that require countries importing toxic waste to give their informed consent. Fishing Grounds Susceptible

In Equatorial Guinea, a London newsletter, Africa Analysis, reported in May that the President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, had approved a plan by a British company to store 10 million drums of toxic waste on Annobon, a small island. The inhabited island is of porous volcanic rock and seepage would have threatened the rich fishing grounds of the Gulf of Guinea if the contract had gone through.

>>8143324

>>8143498

Annobon Island - Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa

Waste Dumpers Turning to West Africa (NYT July 17, 1988) part 3 of 3

Furthermore, the Western companies have not practiced truth in labeling when sending wastes to Africa.

Complex organic matter and ordinary industrial wastes were phrases used in a 10-year toxic waste disposal contract Benin authorities signed Jan. 12 with Sesco, a company registered in Gibraltar.

Koko's deadly shipment entered Nigeria under an import permit for nonexplosive, nonradioactive and non-self-combusting chemicals. A 'Dump Watch' Planned

Since late May, African leaders have condemned the practice at a series of multinational forums - the Organization of African Unity, the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States.

In late June, at the West African meeting, each of the 16 member states pledged to enact stiff penalties for toxic dumpers. At the urging of Nigeria, a leader in the anti-dumping campaign, West African countries agreed to set up a monitoring system, a dump watch.

By mid-July, two countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, had announced discoveries of foreign toxic waste dumps in their territories.

Today, dozens of African officials -in Guinea, in Congo and in Nigeria -are in jail on charges of working with European disposal firms.

In the case of Koko, the Italian press started publishing reports of the dump in March, but Nigerian diplomats in Italy apparently never contacted Lagos. The issue only became known here in June when Nigerian students in Italy sent English translations of the articles to Nigerian newspapers.

On a a recent visit here, this reporter was detained and questioned for six hours by the Nigerian police. The police seized his film and notes and warned him not to write about toxic waste in Nigeria.

Later in Lagos, Mr. Onabule, the Government spokesman, apologized for the local official's actions and said that the Government wants international attention drawn to the problem of toxic dumping in Africa.

>>8143324

Annoban Island - Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa

Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa (Der Speigel Sept 18, 2006) (part 1 of 3)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/toxic-waste-ship-probo-koala-profits-for-europe-industrial-slop-for-africa-a-437842.html

Europe wouldn't take the ship's stinking, poisonous cargo. So it sailed to Africa and dumped the toxic mess into an Ivory Coast lagoon. Just the most recent example of western nations using Africa as a toxic waste dump.

The worst is when it rains. The water flows through the streets of Abidjan, the capital city of Ivory Coast, located next to a series of lagoons. With the water comes a toxic soup of industrial poison – a dark, glistening mess reeking of sulfur and rotten eggs. The caustic fumes it releases cause vomiting, nosebleeds, headache and rashes.

The hospital in Cocody, a downtown neighborhood in this city of 4 million, is in a state of high alert. Women stand waiting in the hallways, pressing paper masks tightly against their noses and mouths. Masks are currently a hot commodity in the Ivory Coast, where street dealers sell them for 20 West African centimes apiece.

A little over a month ago, a fleet of tanker trucks loaded with a toxic brew of cleaning chemicals and gasoline and crude oil slop was dispatched into the streets of Abidjan. Under cover of night, the drivers secretly dumped their loads in 14 locations around the city – near vegetable fields, fisheries and water reservoirs. All told, the cargo amounted to 528 cubic meters (18,857 cubic feet) of toxic waste that had reached the West African coast on board an oil and cargo freighter.

Now many residential neighborhoods adjoining the dumpsites are all but deserted. When news broke of the first casualties, thousands packed their belongings onto donkey carts and buses and moved to the nearby forests – from which many had only recently fled to escape the violence of the country's civil war. Angry demonstrators poured through Abidjan's streets. The transportation minister, who had resigned over the scandal, was seriously beaten in broad daylight. The toxic slop has already claimed the lives of seven people, four of them children, and more than 9,000 have fallen ill, according to official figures. And although the vapors are gradually becoming less toxic, this is no reason for optimism. The disaster has crippled the city's garbage collection, prompting fears in the medical community of epidemic disease.

The disaster is instructive: This is what happens when affluent western societies run out of places to dump their waste; when increasingly stringent environmental laws at home mean skyrocketing waste disposal costs; when criminal profiteers seek low-cost solutions.

The dead and sick in Abidjan demonstrate the failures of government agencies, of the unscrupulousness of businessmen and the dubious nature of international agreements like the Basel Convention, which has in fact banned the international transport of toxic waste to developing countries since 1989. For Achim Steiner, director of United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the toxic shipment dumped in the Ivory Coast is "a particularly painful example of how illegal waste disposal causes human suffering."

Removing European waste

Some experts see Abidjan's toxic cocktail as Africa's biggest environmental scandal yet. But the odyssey of the Probo Koala reveals the scandal as a sordid story that unfolded in the heart of Europe.

It began on the afternoon of July 2. As the ship was unloaded in Amsterdam's petroleum port, a west wind carried its sharp stench into nearby residential neighborhoods, where residents notified the police. "This is the worst stench we have ever experienced here," said an employee of Amsterdam Port Services (APS), a waste disposal company. APS took a sample of the black substance from one of the ship's tanks.

>>8143324

>>8143582

Annoban Island - Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa

Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa (Der Speigel Sept 18, 2006) (part 2 of 3)

Though declared as "waste water" used to clean gasoline shipping tanks, chemical analysis told a different story. The hydrocarbons in the material contained high concentrations of a substance known as mercaptan – a substance which is found in some crude oils and is produced by decaying vegetable matter, which is highly toxic – and smelly – in high concentrations. Authorities halted the unloading of the waste. The captain of the ship, which was Greek-owned and registered in Panama, angrily turned down a proposal by APS officials to dispose of the waste properly at special facilities in Rotterdam. The cost would have been about $250,000, plus another $250,000 in contractual penalties for the ship's likely delayed arrival at its next port of call in Estonia.

For executives at Trafigura, a Dutch oil trading company with annual sales of $28 billion, that cost was too high. Management decided to send the ship on its way.

Three days later, the Probo Koala set sail again, now bound for Estonia. Under international regulations governing the cross-border shipping of hazardous waste, German authorities should have been notified of the ship's passage to German and Danish waters. Amsterdam port officials did send an urgent message to their counterparts in Paldiski, an Estonian port, informing them that a ship with a "suspicious cargo" was headed their way. The Probo Koala was also unable to get rid of its chemical soup in Paldiski, where it took on a shipment of gasoline bound for Africa. After unloading the gasoline in Nigeria, the Trafigura-chartered vessel arrived in the Ivory Coast in August. A company called Tommy, which had just been established in July, took delivery of the slop which the European ports had turned away.

Part II: The "Ivorian Chernobyl"

The Ivorian media was filled with speculation over the incident. Was Tommy established specifically for this deal? And did Trafigura play a role? Both Trafigura and members of the president's family held shares in a company called Puma Energy, which awarded Tommy the contract to dispose of the toxic sludge the ship was carrying. Officials at Trafigura's headquarters in the Netherlands have denied any involvement in Tommy.

Local papers came under pressure for reports on what they described as the "Ivorian Chernobyl." Two journalists were arrested, along with seven employees of the waste disposal companies. Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, who may be involved in the waste scandal through his family members, promptly dismissed the entire government.

SPIEGEL has obtained a copy of a confidential fax the captain of the Probo Koala sent to his African partner company, in which he writes that the load was "not waste water from normal shipping operations," but "chemical waste water" that exceeded allowable limits.

Records documenting the ship's movement show that the Probo Koala spent a lengthy period of time this year off the coast of Gibraltar and the Spanish city of Algeciras, where it served as a sort of "bunker ship" for chemical wastes from other ships – a claim Trafigura has denied.

According to an analysis by experts at Amsterdam's APS, the material's characteristics suggested that it was waste material from refineries. Trafigura, however, has said the oil waste on the Probo Koala had accumulated in the ship's lower tank after "multiple cleanings." The chemical cocktail, says Trafigura, developed as a result of "the addition of too much soda."

A trend in Europe

Whatever subsequent studies reveal, insiders are concerned about what is clearly a growing trend. Global trade will continue to generate waste scandals, says UNEP director Steiner, because "the smuggling of hazardous waste is becoming more and more lucrative." Steiner wants to see his agency better equipped to identify such "corrupt deals with deadly consequences" before they take place and to have "tough penalties" imposed on violators. The UN agency plans to send $13.5 million in immediate aid to the Ivory Coast.

>>8143324

>>8143595

Annoban Island - Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa

Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa (Der Speigel Sept 18, 2006) (part 3 of 3)

The international environmental organization Greenpeace also fears that emerging nations and their often corrupt regimes are once again offering the industrialized world inexpensive waste disposal options. Although the practice had subsided somewhat in recent years as a result of various treaties, there are now growing reports of attempts to export toxic waste. This has prompted Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, to warn of a new "toxic waste colonialism." As a number of recent cases illustrate, Leipold's concerns are not unfounded:

•Bales of sorted plastic remnants collected under Germany's Green Dot household recycling program ended up in the Egyptian desert.

•In Nigeria, a businessman was paid $100 a month to store thousands of containers of Italian toxic waste on his property.

•In a deal the government of the West African country of Benin signed with France, Benin gets an advance cash payment of $1.6 million and 30 years of development aid in return for accepting hazardous waste, including radioactive waste.

Often masked as the exportation of "valuable goods," large amounts of discarded computers, mobile phones and other electronic junk, as well as old cars and refrigerators are sent to Africa – all filled with hazardous substances, some of which are highly toxic, including oil, fire retardants, dioxins and PCBs.

A toxic-waste incident of frightening proportions could already be in the making in war-torn Somalia on Africa's eastern coast. The December 2004 tsunami also reached Somalia's sandy coast, where it claimed about 300 lives. German aid organization Caritas provided humanitarian aid through its Somali partner organization, especially to the Somali fishermen affected by the giant wave.

Somalis took the Caritas aid workers to the beach to show them a strange discovery. The tsunami had exposed large tanks in the sediment off the country's flat coast and pushed them ashore. The unlabeled containers of unknown origin are carefully welded shut. By knocking on the tanks, the workers discovered that they contained liquid.

Caritas hired Andreas Bernstorff, the former head of Greenpeace, to travel to Somalia, where he provided the local workers with protective suits. Initial plans to fill the tanks' presumably toxic contents into other containers were abandoned. Instead, the workers temporarily encased the mysterious containers in fiberglass mats.

Citing "security reasons" stemming from Somalia's civil war, UNEP declined to conduct an investigation. It is known that large shipments of toxic waste, especially from Italy and Switzerland, were taken to Somalia in the 1980s and may have been dumped off the coast. The matter can only be resolved by professionally drilling into the thick-walled tanks under stringent safety precautions. Nevertheless, any new information the tests could yield is unlikely to produce significant consequences after so many years.

But the Probo Koala case, on the other hand, has generated political pressure in the Netherlands, especially against Pieter van Geel, the Dutch State Secretary for the Environment, whose inspectors had certified the black sludge as relatively harmless "ship waste." Under the current plan, Abidjan's toxic waste will be recovered and burned in a French hazardous waste treatment facility.

Dutch investigators are not unfamiliar with oil trading company Trafigura, which was presumably behind the scandal. A court in Texas ordered the company, established in 1993, to pay penalties and repay profits of close to $20 million for breaking US laws and violating the embargo provisions of the "Oil for Food" program in Iraq.

A UN investigative commission also believes that Trafigura paid large sums of money to the son of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Kojo.

In the current case, the company insists "the cargo was properly disposed of." Nevertheless, say company spokesmen, Trafigura is "concerned" over "residue from the petrol cargo" in the Ivory Coast.

>>8143594

ThanQ

plus I was running out of leads on the Romania embassy digs and needed a break, KEK

>>8143607

>>8143484 Annobon Island – Equatorial Guinea’s Political Corruption and Toxic Waste Dumping

From independent.uk 2016

First posted article was more about the corruption and spending but a brief mention on Annobon at the end

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