History of Equatorial Guinea

Bioko seen from the Cameroonian coast.

The history of Equatorial Guinea rests on the roots of loosely organized medieval tribal kingdoms. These kingdoms arose under the influence of more advanced proto-state structures that developed in parallel in the area: the Oyo Empire, the Kingdom of Dahomey, the Kingdom of Benin, the Kingdom of Loango, the Kingdom of Kongo, the Benga kingdom of the island of Mandj (later called Corisco), the organization of the Bubi clans on the island of Bioko, and the village-states of the Fang clans on the mainland.

The Gulf of Guinea area may have been visited by Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian general who sailed along the coasts of Africa toward the end of the 6th century BC or the beginning of the 5th century BC.

Precolonial period

Ethnic groups of Río Muni

The mainland part of the territory of Equatorial Guinea, known as Río Muni (Mbini) and currently divided into four provinces (Litoral, Centro Sur, Kié-Ntem and Wele-Nzas), was settled much earlier than the islands. All the known historical peoples of these territories are Bantu peoples. They belong to different branches of the Bantu language family, which suggests a complex history of settlement, resettlement and displacement among peoples. The main ethnic group is the Fang, who occupy the innermost region. Their language, the Fang language, is a dialectal variety of Beti, and the Fang are currently the majority ethnic group in Equatorial Guinea. Other ethnic groups, located mainly on the coast, are:

• the Molengue (Kele group)
• Peoples who speak Sawabantu languages, whose origin appears to be the coast of Cameroon. These groups include:
  • the Ndowe, who speak Kombe or Ngumbi.
  • the Batanga, whose language is Noho.
  • the Benga, whose language is Benga.
• the Ngumba, the Kwasio, the Gyele and the Mabi, who all speak Kwasio (Makaa-Njem group) and appear to come from southeastern Cameroon.

Settlement of the island of Corisco

During the Iron Age (50 BC – 1400 AD) the Island of Corisco was densely settled. The most important evidence of human occupation comes from the area of Nanda, near the eastern coast of the island, where dozens of prehistoric burials have been excavated. These finds belong mainly to two periods: the Iron Age (50 BC – 450 AD) and the Middle Iron Age (1000–1150 AD). During the first period, the island's inhabitants deposited, for example, heaps of human bones and iron objects (axes, bracelets, spears, spoons, iron currency) in shallow pits dug in the sand. Ritual burial tombs from the second period have also been documented.

The island was apparently abandoned around the 14th century. After more than three centuries of abandonment, during which European and African sailors visited the island sporadically, Corisco was again permanently occupied by clans of the Benga people. In the second half of the 18th century the Benga spread there from the coastal area of the Muni River, drawn by the prospect of trade with European navigators.

Settlement of the island of Bioko

Human settlement of Bioko, the main island of present-day Equatorial Guinea, took place roughly between the 5th and 6th centuries AD. It was carried out by small expeditions from different points on the coast of the Gulf, which over time formed a socio-cultural group distinct from its Bantu origins: the Bubi clans. Popular mythology has preserved the name Momiatú as the legendary leader of the first settlements. The clan structure that took shape over time maintained regular but weak communications with the mainland. The early Bubi settlers gave the island the name Etulá.

Portuguese rule (1471–1777)

Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans known with certainty to have explored the Gulf of Guinea, in 1471. That year the Portuguese Fernão do Pó, who was seeking a route to India, placed the island of Bioko on European maps. He named it "Formosa" (beautiful), but it soon became known by its discoverer's name.

Around 1493, Dom John II of Portugal added to his royal titles those of Lord of Guinea and first Lord of Corisco. In 1494 the Portuguese began colonizing the islands of Bioko, Annobón and Corisco, which became "factories," or posts for the slave trade.

At the beginning of the 16th century (1507), the Portuguese Ramos de Esquivel made a first attempt to colonize the Island of Bioko. He established a factory at Riaba and developed sugarcane plantations, but the hostility of the island's Bubi people and disease quickly put an end to the venture. The island's rainy climate, extreme humidity and changes in temperature killed most of the European settlers within a few weeks. Centuries would pass before the next attempt to establish a colony.

The arrival of the Portuguese explorer Fernando Po changed the life of the native Bubi drastically. Some sources state that up to 80% of the Bubi died from diseases brought by the Europeans. Other sources suggest that such a high death rate was the result of genocide. For several centuries Europeans tried to penetrate the Island of Bioko. However, they met great resistance and supposed savagery on the part of the Bubi. A merchant from the Brandenburg colony of the Gold Coast wrote that "the island of Fernando Pó is inhabited by a savage and cruel people," and that Europeans did not dare land on its beaches for fear of surprise attacks by natives armed with bows; attacks on explorers and settlers were common at that time. Indeed, the Bubi had a social hierarchy that depended largely on how many rivals a man had killed by stealth or subterfuge. Because of this, the Bubi were not conquered by European imperialism until the beginning of the 20th century. Led by their kings, the Bubi were aware of the slave trade in the region and for centuries kept themselves out of foreigners' reach. This deliberate isolation would diminish once the island's leaders began trading with Europeans, who in this way managed to infiltrate the island's socio-political structures.

Settlement of the island of Annobón (1592)

On January 1, 1475, the Portuguese oceanic expedition of João de Santarém and Pêro Escobar rediscovered the island of Annobón while seeking safe ports of call for the slave trade and the route to the Indies around the south of Africa. Ano Bom, which they called "Ilha do Annobom" (or "Island of the Good Year"), had already been discovered during the reign of John II, hypothetically in 1484 by Diogo Cão. On December 21, 1474, João de Santarém discovered the island of São Tomé, and on January 17, 1475, Pêro Escobar discovered the island of Príncipe.

In 1525 the Spanish expedition of García Jofre de Loaísa made a stop on the Island of Annobón, which they named "San Mateo." In 1592 the Portuguese sent to Annobón a governor subordinate to the governor of the Island of São Tomé, together with a schoolmaster and some Africans whom they described as semi-civilized. In 1656, Diego Delgado, a resident of São Tomé of Spanish origin, tried unsuccessfully to establish sugarcane plantations on the Island of Annobón.

Today Annobonese Creole (Fa d'Ambu), a Portuguese-based creole, is still spoken by some five thousand people on the island of Annobón.

Dutch presence (1641–1648) and return of the Portuguese (1648–1777)

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1729 map showing the geographic area of the Gulf of Guinea where the Bubi, Fang and Benga cultures, among others, developed.

In 1641 the Dutch East India Company established itself on the Island of Bioko without Portuguese consent and for a time centralized the slave trade of the Gulf of Guinea there. Between 1642 and 1648, while Portugal was fighting Spain to maintain its independence, the Dutch took possession of the islands of the Gulf of Guinea. The Portuguese returned to the island in 1648 and replaced the Dutch company with one of their own, the Corisco Company, which engaged in the same type of trade. For this purpose they built one of the first European structures on the island, the fort of Punta Joko.

Between 1713 and 1753, Portugal sold slave labor from Corisco under special contracts to France (to which it supplied up to forty-nine thousand Guinean slaves), to Spain and to England. The main collaborators in this trade were the Benga, a people devoted to razzias (raids to capture people). The Benga had good relations with the European colonial authorities (who, in turn, did not intervene in the country's internal politics, which undoubtedly helped), and they also had their own slave-based economic system, their personal servants generally being the Pamue and the Nviko.

Over the course of this same 17th century, an embryonic kingdom formed by the Bubi clans slowly took shape, above all after the efforts in this direction of some local chiefs such as Molambo (c. 1700 – c. 1760). This took place during a period of intense enslavement in the area at the hands of the Portuguese, a situation that forced the Bubi clans to abandon their coastal settlements and move to the island's interior.

Spanish rule (1777–1968)

Beginning of the Spanish presence (1777–1827)

Main articles: First Treaty of San Ildefonso, Treaty of El Pardo (1778), and Governorate of Fernando Poo and Annobón

The mainland territory and the islands that currently make up Equatorial Guinea remained in Portuguese hands until March 1777. That year the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777), followed by the Treaty of El Pardo (1778), was concluded between Queen Maria I of Portugal and King Charles III of Spain. Under these treaties the islands of Ano Bon and Fernando Pó (renamed Annobón and Fernando Poo, respectively, by the Spanish) were ceded to Spain, together with slave-trading and free-trade rights on a stretch of the coast of the Gulf of Guinea between the Niger and Ogooué rivers, along with the disputed Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. In exchange, Portugal received the area of the island of Santa Catarina and the area of the Patos Lagoon, as well as recognition of the Amazon as Portuguese territory, all of which became part of the Portuguese colony of Brazil. With this, Spain sought to gain access to the source of slaves from which the British had been supplying the Spanish dominions in America.

Map showing the 1777 division between Portugal and Spain.

From that moment on, the Spanish territory of Guinea was part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (founded in 1776). It remained so until the Viceroyalty's definitive breakup with the May Revolution (1810), since the last concern of the First Governing Junta in Buenos Aires was to assume political responsibility for the territory of Equatorial Guinea, given the mass of problems it faced and the lack of any concrete relationship between Buenos Aires and that region.

On April 17, 1778, an expedition consisting of the frigates Santa Catalina and Soledad and the brigantine Santiago set out from Montevideo to take possession of Fernando Poo and the rest of the territories in the name of Spain. It was led by the Spanish Brigadier Felipe de Santos Toro, 7th Count of Argelejo, who was charged with receiving and taking possession of Equatorial Guinea from the Portuguese in the name of the Spanish Crown and with establishing its government, subject to the authority of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The Count of Argelejos landed at Boloko Bay (Bioko) on October 24, 1778, and took possession of the place in the name of Charles III. The small settlement of San Carlos (present-day San Carlos de Luba) was built there. From then on, the island was administratively part of the Governorate of Fernando Poo and Annobón, which, together with the rest of the Spanish territories of Guinea, was integrated into the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata; a Spanish Governor would be established from October 1778 to November 1780.

The Count of Argelejos died on November 14, 1778, on Annobón, and Joaquín Primo de Rivera was left in command. On October 31, 1780, a mutiny of his troops (80% of whose men had died of disease) took him prisoner. The mutineers abandoned the settlement of Concepción, the first and provisional administrative center, and moved to the island of São Tomé, which belonged to Portugal. After this event the two islands were left abandoned by Spain, which had doubts about their usefulness and decided not to invest in them; instead, they were visited and occupied by the British. However, although Spain decided for the time being not to colonize Fernando Poo and Annobón, it did continue to use them as a center from which to direct the slave trade on the nearby mainland coasts, with the support of British merchants.

On Bioko, the figure of a local chief, Lorite (circa 1760–1810), stands out dimly during this period; he was succeeded by Lopoa (circa 1810–1842?). The period of the latter's hegemony over the island's various clans would include (or partly coincide in time with) the British intervention. At the beginning of the 19th century Bioko was a vital point for the transfer of slaves from Africa to the Americas. However, the flow of people on the island was constantly disrupted by indigenous groups who organized to steal and free as many slaves as possible. The British government would close the island to human trafficking during the first half of that century, occupying it militarily for a decade and a half.

British presence (1827–1843)

Unwilling to invest in the development of Fernando Poo, from 1827 to 1840 the Spanish allowed the United Kingdom to establish a base in the Malabo area, since the British were interested in setting up a base in the region to control the Atlantic slave trade. Spain's decision to abolish slavery in 1837 at Great Britain's insistence greatly reduced the value the authorities placed on the colony, so ceding naval bases was an effective way of earning revenue from an otherwise worthless colony. As early as 1801 Spain had granted the United Kingdom the right to use the island of Annobón as a port for taking on fresh water, and a small fort was built there.

Thus the British occupied the island of Bioko between 1827 and 1840 on the formal pretext of "fighting the slave trade" (even though the British position in previous decades had been favorable to that trade). Accordingly, in 1827, and without Spanish permission, the seat of the Mixed Commission for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, charged with capturing slave ships and pursuing traffickers, was moved from Sierra Leone to Fernando Poo, until it was moved back to Freetown following an agreement with Spain in 1843.

In 1827 the settlement of Port Clarence (later Santa Isabel and today Malabo) was founded, named in honor of the Duke of Clarence. A post was also established in the San Carlos de Luba area. Both were placed under the supervision of William Fitzwilliam Owen. During his three-year command, his forces claimed to have detained twenty ships and freed two thousand five hundred people who had been abducted to work as slaves, many of whom settled in Port Clarence.

In 1841 the United Kingdom, interested in controlling Fernando Poo and Annobón, proposed to the Spanish government the purchase of the islands for sixty thousand pounds sterling. The sale of the colony was thwarted by the opposition of public opinion and the refusal of the Chamber of Commerce to allow the initiative to go forward.

Restoration of the Spanish presence (1843–1900)

To secure Spain's rights, the expedition of Juan José Lerena y Barry was sent. In March 1843 it raised the Spanish flag at Port Clarence (Malabo), renamed it Santa Isabel and received the formal submission of several local chiefs. Lerena established the administrative life of the colony, which he named "Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea," and left the Briton John Beecroft as governor (Beecroft, who had previously been appointed British Consul in Benin and Biafra, would set out from Santa Isabel in 1851 for the reduction of Lagos, thus marking the first British incursion into Nigeria). The Benga kingdom of the island of Corisco and the Cape San Juan area also established a protectorate agreement with Spain in 1843, as the result of an arrangement between Juan José Lerena y Barry and the Benga King, Bonkoro I, who died in 1846. Earlier, in 1836, the Spanish navigator José de Moros had already visited the island of Annobón, ruled by King Pedro Pomba, reaffirming Spanish sovereignty over the island. Finally, in 1844 the United Kingdom abandoned its claims to the Island of Fernando Poo in favor of Spanish sovereignty.

Because of the terrible epidemics that ravaged the area, Spain still would not commit to developing the colony through economic subsidies for the arrival of settlers, which is why it would take another decade to establish this direct control. The capital, Santa Isabel, was already more dynamic, and the Protestant religious missions were proving very successful. Both factors helped change Spain's attitude, in addition to the internal reasons already mentioned. Accordingly, on September 13, 1845, the Royal Order was made public by which Queen Isabella II authorized the transfer to the region of all free blacks and mulattoes from Cuba who voluntarily wished to go, in the belief that black people had greater resistance to tropical diseases. On June 20, 1861, the Royal Order was published that turned the island of Fernando Poo into a Spanish penal colony. In October of the same year, since no emancipated blacks from Cuba had volunteered to emigrate to Guinea, a Royal Order was issued providing that, if no volunteers came forward, two hundred sixty Cuban blacks should be shipped there without their consent; political prisoners would later be added to them. The following year, in 1862, an outbreak of yellow fever killed a large part of the white settlers who had settled on the island. Even so, throughout the last third of the 19th century the number of plantations established by private citizens kept growing.

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Santa Isabel (present-day Malabo), circa 1857, in El Museo Universal.

During the British period, the British brought to Bioko some two thousand freed slaves and Sierra Leoneans, who would end up establishing their own plantations and forming a black Creole elite that would dominate island society together with the Europeans: the Fernandinos. After the British left, limited immigration from West Africa and the West Indies had continued. For this reason, throughout the 19th century most of Fernando Poo's plantations were largely in the hands of this Creole elite. A number of freed Angolan slaves, Luso-African Creoles and immigrants from Nigeria and Liberia also began to settle in the colony, where they quickly became part of Fernandino society. Also added to the ethnic mix were several hundred Afro-Cubans, two hundred eighteen Filipino rebels (of whom only ninety-four would survive) and several dozen Spanish intellectuals and politicians deported to Fernando Poo for political reasons and other crimes, in addition to a small number of voluntary settlers. There was also constant immigration of runaway slaves and fortune seekers from the neighboring Portuguese islands of São Tomé and Príncipe.

In 1870 living conditions for whites on the island improved thanks to the recommendation that they move to live in the highlands, and by 1884 a good part of the sparse colonial administration and of the large plantations had been transplanted to Pico Basilé, hundreds of meters above sea level. Henry Morton Stanley called Fernando Poo "a jewel that Spain does not polish" because of its refusal to apply more aggressive colonization policies. Despite the greater chances of survival for Europeans on the island, Mary Kingsley, who spent some time there, described it as "an uncomfortable form of execution" for the Spaniards sent there.

A West Indian freedman who had been moved to Sierra Leone, named William Pratt, was the first to establish a cacao plantation on Fernando Poo, thus sowing the seeds of the colony's economic future. At the end of the 19th century Spanish, Portuguese, German and Fernandino landowners began to develop large cacao plantations. With the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and by the forced labor they resisted, the economy came to depend on imported agricultural workers.

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Map of Fernando Poo in 1897.

During these years Spanish power gradually took hold among the natives as well, often with bad consequences. Beginning in 1855, Benga society on Corisco and Cape San Juan went through a turbulent period of internal struggles over the question of local chieftainships, caused by Spanish influence. These struggles ended in 1858 with the arrival of the first Spanish governor, Carlos de Chacón y Michelena, who appointed Munga I, an opponent of Bonkoro II, as lieutenant governor of Corisco. Between 1859 and 1875 there was a Spanish garrison on the island, which was later moved to the island of Elobey Chico. It would not be until 1906 that the Benga kingdoms of Corisco and Cape San Juan were reunified, during the reign of Santiago Uganda, after multiple civil wars between supporters and opponents of the Spanish. As part of this same policy of interventionism, in 1864 Governor Ayllón appointed the local chief Bodumba King of Elobey Grande.

Meanwhile, on Bioko, the native Bubi, who had historically managed to keep foreigners at a distance and protect themselves from slavery and exploitation at European hands, came under increasing pressure from the Spanish administration and the plantation owners. Madabita (c. 1842–1860) and Sepoko (1860–1874/1875) were the main local leaders in this period of growing Spanish intervention. Finally, in the second half of the 19th century all the Bubi clans were unified under King Moka (1875–1899) as a defensive measure against colonialism, a situation that would not last long because of growing Spanish colonial interventionism. During the period 1887–1897, several Spanish representatives established relations with King Moka of Bioko. He was followed by Sas Ebuera (1899–1904) and Malabo (1904–1937). The latter king was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities in 1937 and died that same year, bringing the monarchy to an end; ever since his accession to the throne in 1904, it had played a merely symbolic role subordinate to the Spanish authorities.

In turn, the mainland region of the Bight of Biafra was extensively explored by explorers such as Manuel de Iradier y Bulfy. In charge of two expeditions (in 1875 and 1884), his mission was to put an end to the uprisings of several Fang village-states and to secure their submission with the aim of establishing a Spanish presence in Equatorial Africa. This laid the foundations that would eventually give rise to the colony of Río Muni, although for the moment Spain did not ratify the protection agreements signed by Iradier with the local chiefs by establishing a stable presence in the region.

Early 20th century (1900–1926)

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Benga inhabitants of Corisco (1910).

Spain had not taken steps to occupy the large area of the Bight of Biafra that belonged to it under the Treaties of El Pardo and San Ildefonso, and France had instead been colonizing the areas claimed by Spain. Madrid had not followed up on the explorations of men such as Manuel Iradier, who had signed protection treaties with tribal chiefs over large territories in Cameroon and Gabon, leaving most of these lands without effective occupation under the terms stipulated at the Berlin Conference of 1885. The subsequent events in Cuba and the Philippines and the war against the United States distracted the Spanish government from the colonial enterprise at a critical moment. What meager support there was for annexing territories in mainland Africa was due exclusively to public opinion and to the need for labor for the plantations of Fernando Poo. During the last third of the 19th century, and from 1885 onward, the villages of the Equatoguinean mainland coast that had signed treaties with Spain were under its protectorate; in 1900 the area under Spanish control was officially unified as a colony. Likewise, in 1903 the colony of Elobey, Annobón and Corisco was also created.

The eventual Treaty of Paris of 1900 defined and established the precise boundaries between the French and Spanish territories in Western Sahara and in the Gulf of Guinea. It left Spain with a meager enclave centered on the Río Muni, a mere 26,000 km² out of the 300,000 it had originally claimed, extending east to the Ubangi River. This small enclave was much smaller than what the Spanish had considered theirs on the basis of their rights and the Treaty of El Pardo. The humiliation of the Franco-Spanish negotiations, combined with the Disaster of '98, led the head of the Spanish negotiating delegation and governor of Río Muni, Pedro Gover y Tovar, to commit suicide on the return voyage to Spain on October 21, 1901. Iradier himself died in ignominy in 1911, and only decades later would his achievements be recognized by Spanish popular opinion, when the town of Cogo was renamed Puerto Iradier in his honor.

According to the text of the 1900 Treaty, the administration of the territories exchanged under the delimitation established in the text would be transferred on March 27, 1901, or earlier if possible. In this regard, the political and administrative structure of the colonial territories covered by the Treaty theoretically rested on the survival of traditional pre-Western structures rooted in the society of the time and based on clans:

Art. 9. - The two contracting Powers mutually undertake to treat with benevolence the Chiefs who, having concluded Treaties with one of them, come under the sovereignty of the other by virtue of this Convention.

— Convention between Spain and France

(Gaceta of March 30, 1901)

The first years of the 20th century saw a new generation of Spanish immigrants. The land regulations approved in 1904–1905 favored the Spanish, and most of the large plantations created from then on belonged to Spanish settlers. All of this put the Fernandinos on the defensive. At that time most of the plantations were still theirs, and although a handful of Fernandinos were Catholic and Spanish-speaking, roughly nine out of ten were still Protestant and English-speaking at the beginning of the First World War, and an English pidgin was the island's lingua franca. For this reason they often showed their opposition to the control that the Spanish colonial administration sought to establish over the island, making Spain's colonizing task even more difficult. The Sierra Leoneans had a particularly well-established position as plantation owners, since they continued recruiting laborers in present-day Ivory Coast thanks to their good connections and continued contact with their relatives there, so they were not affected by the problem of the constant labor shortage. The Fernandinos proved to be good merchants and intermediaries between the natives and the Europeans.

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One-centimo stamp of the colony of Elobey, Annobón and Corisco (1907).

On the island of Bioko and in the rest of the territories, the exploitation of their resources began and a true colonial government was established. The great problem of the colony was, as always, the chronic shortage of labor. The indigenous Bubi population, pushed into the island's interior and decimated by alcoholism, forced labor, venereal diseases, smallpox and sleeping sickness, had always done everything possible to avoid working on the plantations. Working their small cacao farms gave them a considerably greater degree of autonomy and allowed them to earn enough income to subsist without having to be exploited. Moreover, from the end of the 19th century the Bubi were protected from the landowners' demands by the Spanish Claretian missionaries, who had great influence in the colony and eventually organized the Bubi into small theocratic missions similar to the famous Jesuit reductions of the 17th–18th centuries in Paraguay and the Banda Oriental, in Spanish America, where the Jesuits had acted in a similar way with the indigenous Guaraní.

Catholic penetration was reinforced by the Bubi's armed resistance to the conscription of forced labor for the plantations. Notable among these acts of resistance was the 1898 rebellion led by Sás-Ebuera, who formed nationalist and anticolonialist militias. He was captured by Spanish forces, and his refusal to accept the authority of the colonial governor led him to go on a hunger strike; he died on July 3, 1904. Malabo Lopelo Melaka (king between 1904 and 1937), son of Moka, also began a moderate assertion of his rights. The last confrontation between the Bubi and the Spanish colonizers took place in 1910 in the region of San Carlos, beginning after the killing of the Spanish corporal León Rabadán and two native policemen. Some one thousand five hundred Bubi, civilians and insurgents, died in that episode. Immediately after the 1910 insurrection, the colonial forces pressured King Malabo to use his influence over the local chiefs to prevent new confrontations. Finally, in 1917 the Spanish disarmed the Bubi, which left them entirely dependent on the missionaries.

Because of the labor shortage, a contract was signed with the Republic of Liberia in 1914, under which nearly fifteen thousand Liberian workers were transported to the Spanish colonies over sixteen years, the transport being handled by the German shipping company Woermann-Linie. This greatly favored the large landowners, since it gave them easy and cheap access to the ever-scarce labor. The growing exploration and colonization of Río Muni through the plantation model, together with its territory, much larger than that of Fernando Poo but sparsely populated, made the agreement with Liberia even more beneficial for the settlers. In 1940 it was estimated that only 20% of local cacao production came from land owned by Africans, and of this 20%, almost all the land was in the hands of the Fernandinos, who had been displaced from their niche of power by the arrival of large numbers of Spaniards. Nevertheless, the agreement was canceled in 1930 after a commission of the International Labour Organization uncovered the conditions of slavery in which the imported Liberian workers lived, revelations that brought down the government of the country's President Charles D. B. King.

Following the Franco-German agreements of 1911 to resolve the second Moroccan crisis, Río Muni was completely surrounded by the German colony of Kamerun and not far from French Equatorial Africa. In those years the Spanish presence was almost purely nominal, limited almost entirely to the coast and concentrated in the capital, Bata (founded in 1900 by the French as a trading post before the territory passed into Spanish hands under the Treaty of Paris, and which in 1914 had a population of only a few dozen white settlers). The troops of the colonial guard barely reached two hundred men, and the mainland territory was inhabited by the Fang tribes, who were still in the process of being subdued.

First World War

When war broke out in 1914 and fighting began between the colonial troops, the Spanish authorities feared that the fighting would spread to Río Muni. To solve the problem, Governor Ángel Barrera had four very basic military posts set up (Mibonde, Mikomeseng, Mongomo and Ebibeyín), without radio transmitters or machine guns and with very few soldiers. They were nevertheless enough to mark the symbolic limits of Spanish sovereignty and fulfilled their purpose, preventing the war from spreading into Continental Guinea. Later these bases became centers of commercial growth, and from them attacks were launched against the Fang who resisted colonization. Although there were fears for the integrity of the colony given the possibility that the fighting might cross the borders between the German and Spanish colonies, this never happened. At that time Río Muni was just beginning to be explored, and Spanish control was slowly being imposed on the inland territories.

With the German defeat in Cameroon in February 1916, a contingent of some one thousand Germans, soldiers and civilians, and forty-six thousand natives, including Askari soldiers, porters and civilians, took refuge in Bata. This created serious problems of housing and supply for the Spanish colonial authorities, as well as enormous difficulties in organizing their repatriation. The two hundred Spanish troops were overwhelmed, although the Germans surrendered and handed over their weapons peacefully, so Governor Barrera decided to send twenty-five thousand of the Cameroonians back across the border, leaving some twenty-seven thousand refugees in his territory. Of the more than twenty-five thousand people who remained in Guinea, between eight hundred and one thousand were Germans (only half of them soldiers), six thousand were askaris, and the rest were service personnel (such as porters, butlers or interpreters) and civilians (mainly the soldiers' families). Under pressure from France and the United Kingdom, which feared that the soldiers would rejoin the fighting, half of the refugees (including all the Europeans) were moved to Fernando Poo and placed in camps near Santa Isabel. Some one thousand people died because of the poor conditions in the refugee camps. During their stay on Fernando Poo, the native Cameroonians served to temporarily ease the labor shortage on the cacao plantations.

In the end, on December 30, 1916, Spain sent an expeditionary company of Marine Infantry to take charge of the German and Cameroonian refugees. Most of the Cameroonians returned to their country in 1917, although some stayed to live on the island, while the German civilians were moved to the Iberian Peninsula and the German officers remained in the Spanish colony until the war ended. During this period there were some clashes with the local Fang population of the mainland, such as those that led to the 1918 punitive expedition to Río Muni, or those caused by the forced labor imposed by Lieutenant Julián Ayala Larrazábal.

Spanish Guinea (1926–1968)

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First Iberia flight between Santa Isabel and Bata, in June 1941.

Main article: Spanish Guinea

Colony of Spanish Guinea (1926–1956)

Main article: 1936 military uprising in Spanish Guinea

King Malabo of Bioko in 1930.

Both the island and mainland territories were united in 1926 as the colony of Spanish Guinea. By this time the earlier traditional structures of the tribal kingdoms had finished dissolving, and the European-style administration imported by the Spanish was consolidated, under the nominal reign on Bioko of King Malabo between 1904 and 1937, the latter being the year in which the king was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities.

However, Spain lacked the wealth and interest needed to develop significant economic infrastructure during the first half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Spain developed large cacao plantations on the island of Bioko with thousands of laborers imported from neighboring Nigeria.

In the 1930s Equatorial Guinea remained loyal to the Second Spanish Republic until September 1936, when, with the Spanish Civil War already under way, it joined the Uprising against the Republic. In 1942 the so-called Operation Postmaster took place in Equatoguinean territory.

Province of the Gulf of Guinea (1956–1959)

Until 1956, the islands of Bioko, Annobón and Corisco, together with the mainland part (Río Muni), formed part of the Territory of Spanish Guinea. On August 21, 1956, these territories were organized into a province under the name of Province of the Gulf of Guinea.

During this period the first pro-independence movements in the country began to emerge tentatively, such as the one led by Acacio Mañé Ela.

Provincial Councils of the Equatorial Region (1959–1968)

In 1959 the Spanish territories of the Gulf of Guinea acquired the status of Spanish overseas provinces, similar to that of the metropolitan provinces. Under the law of July 30, 1959, they officially adopted the name of Spanish Equatorial Region and were organized into two provinces: Fernando Poo and Río Muni.

As such, the region was governed by a Governor General who exercised all civil and military powers. The first local elections were held in 1960, and the first Equatoguinean deputies to the Cortes were elected. In September 1960 the Provincial Council of Fernando Poo (chaired by Alzina de Bochi) and the Provincial Council of Río Muni (chaired by José Vedú) were constituted. The Provincial Councils would continue during the subsequent autonomous stage, their presidents being Enrique Gori (Fernando Poo) and Federico Ngomo (Río Muni).

Autonomous Region of Equatorial Guinea (1963–1968)

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Region administered by Spain from 1901 to 1968.

Main article: 1963 Equatorial Guinean autonomy referendum

On December 15, 1963, the Spanish Government submitted to a referendum among the population of these two provinces a draft of Bases on Autonomy, which was approved by an overwhelming majority. Consequently, these territories were granted autonomy and officially adopted the name of Equatorial Guinea, with bodies common to the whole territory (General Assembly, Governing Council and Commissioner General) and bodies specific to each province. Although the commissioner general appointed by the Spanish government had broad powers, the General Assembly of Equatorial Guinea had considerable initiative in drafting laws and regulations. Its first and only president was Bonifacio Ondó Edu. The Equatoguinean General Assembly, for its part, was chaired by Enrique Gori from 1964 until June 1965, when he handed the post over to Federico Ngomo.

In November 1965, the Fourth Committee of the UN Assembly approved a draft resolution asking Spain to set a date for the independence of Equatorial Guinea as soon as possible. In December 1966 the Council of Ministers of the Spanish Government agreed to prepare the Constitutional Conference. In October 1967 that Conference was inaugurated, chaired by Fernando María Castiella, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs; Federico Ngomo headed the Guinean delegation.

Independent state (1968–present)

Proclamation of independence (1968)

Francisco Macías Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea.

Main articles: 1967 Constitutional Conference of Equatorial Guinea, 1968 Constitution of Equatorial Guinea, 1968 Equatorial Guinean constitutional referendum, 1968 Equatorial Guinean general election, and Independence of Equatorial Guinea

In March 1968, under pressure from Equatorial Guinean nationalists and the United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant independence. A Constituent Convention was formed, which produced an electoral law and a draft constitution. Once the second phase of the Constitutional Conference (April 17 – June 22, 1968) had ended, the vote was held. The referendum on the constitution took place on August 11, 1968, under the supervision of a team of observers from the United Nations. 63% of the electorate voted in favor of the new constitution, which provided for a government with a General Assembly and a Supreme Court with judges appointed by the President.

On September 22 the first presidential election was held, and none of the four candidates obtained an absolute majority. A week later Francisco Macías Nguema was elected President of Equatorial Guinea; the runner-up in the election was Bonifacio Ondó Edu.

In September 1968, Francisco Macías Nguema was elected the first President of Equatorial Guinea with the support of nationalist movements such as the IPGE (Popular Idea of Equatorial Guinea), part of MONALIGE (National Liberation Movement of Equatorial Guinea) and the Bubi Union. The independence of Equatorial Guinea was proclaimed on October 12, 1968. The country adopted the name Republic of Equatorial Guinea. It was admitted to the UN as the Organization's 126th member.

1969 crisis

Main article: 1969 diplomatic crisis between Spain and Equatorial Guinea

In January 1969, the leader of the opposition to Macías, Bonifacio Ondó Edu, who was under house arrest, was murdered. Instability in the country increased.

In March 1969, Macías announced that he had put down a coup attempt led by the opposition figure Atanasio Ndongo (accounts vary: while some authors maintain that it never existed, others claim that the attempt did take place). The Equatorial Guinean President used this pretext to do away with all opposition and establish a sinister dictatorship. Atanasio Ndongo's followers were arrested or murdered. The failed coup or false coup generated a wave of anti-Spanish popular indignation (encouraged by the government), so that the Spanish community felt threatened. This whole situation resulted in a diplomatic crisis between Spain and Equatorial Guinea.

On March 28, 1969, the Spanish troops stationed in Río Muni re-embarked. The same would happen on April 5, when they left the island of Fernando Poo. The Spanish presence in Equatorial Guinea had come to an end.

The Macías dictatorship (1970–1979)

Macías did not take long to concentrate all the powers of the State in his own person, and in July 1970 he created a single-party regime, the PUNT (United National Workers' Party); the People's Republic of China sent 400 experts (doctors, engineers and builders) to the country, as well as economic assistance. The Soviet Union sent armaments and military advisers, receiving in exchange fishing rights and rights to use the port of San Carlos de Luba. In May 1971 crucial parts of the Constitution were abrogated. An Educational Cooperation Agreement was signed with Cuba at the end of 1971, and North Korea began sending military instructors for the militias created by Macías and for the National Guard. The uniform of the Militias and the PUNT Youth came to resemble that of the Maoist Red Guards, and the President ordered all books published in the West to be burned, as well as the libraries dating from the colonial era, in an imitation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976); and in July 1972 he proclaimed himself president for life.

At the beginning of 1973, all Catholic and Protestant priests, foreign or not, were placed under house arrest, and a persecution of believers in those religions also began, in the form of the crime of subversion, punishable by a fine of 1,000 Equatorial Guinean pesetas and the obligation to make a statement affirming that "God does not exist".

Constitution of 1973

Main article: 1973 Constitution of Equatorial Guinea

In July 1973 he promulgated a new Constitution (the country's second), tailored to his own needs, which created a unitary State, abolishing the previous status of a federation between Fernando Poo and Río Muni. He carried out a relentless repression against his political opponents. They were eliminated in the prisons by simple and brutal beating. Because of his dictatorial methods, more than 100,000 people fled to neighboring countries; at least 50,000 of those who remained in the country died, and another 40,000 were sentenced to forced labor.

On June 13, 1974, Radio Malabo and Radio Ecuatorial Bata announced the news of a plot prepared from Bata with material and financial help from abroad, and of acts by the subversive prisoners after breaking through the prison walls. At the same time, the official Government spokesman called on the population to denounce any suspect. The authorities held Estanislao Ngune Beohli and a group called the Liberation Crusade of Equatorial Guinea for Christ chiefly responsible for the alleged plot, naming as their collaborators Pelagio Mba, Antonio Edjo, Lucas Ondo Micha, Manuel Ncogo Eyui, Expedito Rafael Momo Bocara, Manuel Combe Madje, Lorenzo May, Ricardo Mba Mangue, Terencio Borico, Patricio Meco Nguema and Felipe Aseko, all of whom were tried by a People's Military Tribunal presided over by Fortunato Okenve Mituy and sentenced to death (except three of them, who received sentences of between 17 and 29 years in prison).

The Macías regime was characterized by the abandonment of all government functions except internal security. Owing to theft, ignorance and negligence, the country's infrastructure—electricity, water supply, roads, transport and health—fell into ruin. Schools were closed in 1975. The contracted Nigerian laborers, who carried out the bulk of the work on the cocoa plantations of Bioko, were deported en masse at the beginning of 1976. The Equatorial Guinean economy collapsed, and the most qualified citizens and the foreigners left the country. At the end of 1976 there was also another coup attempt.

Catholic worship was finally banned in June 1978. Nguema implemented a campaign of toponymic Africanization, superficially imitating the socio-cultural movement of Négritude, replacing the colonial names with native names: the capital Santa Isabel became Malabo, the Island of Fernando Poo was renamed "Island of Masie Nguema Biyogo" in honor of the dictator himself, and Annobón became Pagalú. As part of the same process, the entire population was ordered to change their European names to African names. The dictator's own name underwent several transformations, so that by the end of his rule he was known as Masie Nguema Biyogo Ñegue Ndong.

The regime of Teodoro Obiang (1979–present)

The "Freedom Coup" and the Supreme Military Council (1979–1982)

File:AOF001.JPG

One-franc coins of French West Africa from 1944 and 1948.

The dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema

On August 3, 1979, Macías was overthrown by a coup d'état directed by a group of officers who had graduated from the Military Academy of Zaragoza, among them Eulogio Oyó Riqueza, and led by Macías's nephew, Lieutenant General Teodoro Obiang, who had been warden of Black Beach prison. This group constituted itself as a Revolutionary Military Council presided over by Obiang himself.

The islands were renamed Bioko (formerly "Island of Macías Nguema Biyogo") and Annobón (formerly "Island of Pagalú"). The new regime faced an enormous task: the state coffers were empty and the population was barely a third of what it had been at the time of independence.

On August 25 the PUNT was dissolved and the Revolutionary Military Council was renamed the Supreme Military Council. Macías was tried, sentenced to death and executed on September 29, 1979. The 1973 Constitution of Equatorial Guinea was also abolished.

On October 12, 1979, Teodoro Obiang proclaimed himself President of the country. Spain and the African country signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in October 1980.

Constitution of 1982

Main article: 1982 Fundamental Law of Equatorial Guinea

Main article: 1983 diplomatic crisis between Spain and Equatorial Guinea

In July 1982, the Supreme Military Council appointed Obiang President of the Republic for a seven-year term, while at the same time a new constitution (the country's third) was promulgated, approved by referendum (August 15, 1982). The Supreme Military Council was dissolved on October 12, 1982.

On December 19, 1983, Equatorial Guinea joined the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and the Central African Customs and Economic Union (UEDAC), and shortly afterwards the Economic Community of Central African States, as a result of which in January 1985 it adopted the CFA franc as its currency.

Elections of 1983 and 1988

In 1983 and 1988 parliamentary elections were held, contested by a single list of candidates. In 1987, Obiang had announced the formation of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) with a view to the presidential elections to be held in 1989. As the sole candidate, Obiang was re-elected. However, he did not manage to lift the country out of the deep economic crisis in which it was mired.

In July 1988 single-list legislative elections to the Chamber of People's Representatives were called. On June 25, 1989, presidential elections were held.

Constitution of 1991

Main article: 1991 Fundamental Law of Equatorial Guinea

In 1991 a timid democratization began, indispensable for the continuation of economic aid from Spain, France and other countries. In November a new constitution (the country's fourth) was approved by referendum, establishing a system of parliamentary representation for political parties that were legalized. Upon the announcement of this timid opening, many political opponents returned to the country, only to be imprisoned by Obiang (January–February 1992).

Elections of 1993

Some months later various opposition political groups were legalized. However, in the legislative elections of 1993 ten of the fourteen registered parties were banned, which resulted in an abstention rate of around 80%. The official results gave victory to the PDGE, whereby Obiang remained in power as head of State and of Government. After these elections, not only did the regime fail to democratize, but in 1995 the opposition leader Severo Moto Nsá was imprisoned on charges of corruption and slander. Likewise, a repression was carried out against the political opposition population on September 17, 1995, in the village of Miboman in Ebebiyín.

Elections of 1996

The year 1996 was a crucial year for the future evolution of the country. That year the American multinational Mobil began extracting oil in Equatorial Guinean territory, which would result in a considerable increase in revenue for the country (monopolized by Obiang and the ruling clique).

The presidential elections of 1996 were strongly questioned internationally. The candidate of the Joint Opposition Platform (POC), Amancio Nsé, was not allowed to take part in them, by means of an electoral law tailored to the President. Consequently, Obiang was re-elected with 98% of the vote. To counter the criticism, Obiang appointed a new government in which opposition figures held some minor posts. In 1998 a trial without any procedural guarantees was held against 117 members of the Bubi ethnic group (the Nguema family belongs to the Fang, the majority in the country) close to the opposition group MAIB (Movement for the Self-Determination of Bioko Island), allegedly involved in an assassination attempt against the head of state. The sham trial ended with fifteen death sentences. That same year a constitutional law was approved, amending article 4 of the Fundamental Law of the State, establishing that the official languages of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea are Castilian Spanish and French, and recognizing the indigenous languages as part of the national culture (Constitutional Law No. 1/1998 of January 21).

The legislative elections of March 1999 saw another crushing victory for the President's party, the PDGE (which went from 68 to 75 seats in a chamber of 80). The main opposition parties, the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) and the Popular Union (UP), which won four seats and one seat respectively, refused to take them up.

The local elections of May 2000 meant another sweeping victory for the PDGE, which thus controlled all the important municipalities of the country. The main opposition parties described the elections as rigged and boycotted them.

Elections of 2002

On December 15, 2002, the four main opposition parties of Equatorial Guinea withdrew from the country's presidential election. Despite the opposition's allegations of fraud, Obiang won the election and was re-elected, renewing his mandate for another seven years (until 2009). These elections were widely considered fraudulent by members of the Western press.

In 2003 a Government of Equatorial Guinea in Exile was formed, headed by Severo Moto. Apparently, they hired a company based in the Channel Islands to overthrow Obiang's government. In March 2004, 64 alleged mercenaries were detained at the airport of Harare (Zimbabwe) after concealing information about the cargo and the crew. In 2004, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Mark Thatcher, was arrested in South Africa on the charge of collaborating with a failed coup attempt.

That same year 2003 President George W. Bush resumed diplomatic relations with the Equatorial Guinean government, which had been interrupted in 1995 when President Bill Clinton's ambassador, seeking to promote the cause of human rights, was threatened with death and ordered to leave the country. A year later the 2004 Equatorial Guinean coup attempt took place.

Equatorial Guinea was accepted as an associate observer in July 2006 in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), and in July 2007, Teodoro Obiang announced his government's decision that Portuguese would become a co-official language of Equatorial Guinea, in order to meet the requirements to apply for full membership of the CPLP.

In March 2008, several members of the opposition Progress Party were arrested, among them the former secretary of Severo Moto (the party's President), Gerardo Angüe Mangue. One of them, Saturnino Nkogo, died during his detention in strange circumstances. Six other PP activists, Cruz Obiang Ebele, Emiliano Esono Michá, Juan Ecomo Ndong, Gumersindo Ramírez Faustino and Bonifacio Nguema Ndong, were tried together with Simon Mann, a British citizen who had helped organize a coup attempt in 2004. The members of the group were sentenced to prison terms of one to five years each. Their imprisonment was protested by the U.S. Department of State and Amnesty International. A few months later legislative elections were held.

In September 2008 the Equatorial Guinean ambassador in Cameroon, Florencio Mayé Elá, became involved in the kidnapping of the political opponent Cipriano Nguema Mba, after which the ambassador was declared persona non grata.

Elections of 2009

Main article: 2009 Equatorial Guinean presidential election

In December 2007 and February 2009, the Nigerian group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta was blamed for two armed incursions into the country, for the purpose of plunder, among them an attempted assault on the presidential palace. For the attempted assault of February 17, 2009, José Abeso Nsue, Manuel Ndong Anseme, Jacinto Micha Obiang and Alipio Ndong Asumu were detained, accused of attempting a coup d'état.

In October of the same year there was a diplomatic incident with Cameroon: the Government in Yaoundé banned Equatorial Guinean airlines from flying to its territory, two weeks after Malabo suspended the flights of a Cameroonian company to Equatorial Guinea, and in parallel with the meetings held to delimit the maritime border between the two countries.

In November 2009 presidential elections were held, and Teodoro Obiang remained in power. In July 2010 it applied to become a full member of the CPLP, without success, and in 2011 Obiang's government introduced reforms to make Portuguese official. In 2011 the government announced the creation of a new capital for the country, Djibloho. On July 20, 2012, the CPLP again rejected Equatorial Guinea's application to be considered a full member.

2010s

In 2011 a constitutional referendum was held, in which reforms were approved such as the restoration of the office of Vice President, the creation of the Senate and the limitation of the presidential mandate to two terms.

In the 2013 legislative elections, the PDGE won 69 of 70 seats in the Senate and 99 of 100 members in the Chamber of Deputies. The CPDS denounced the elections as fraudulent.

On April 24, 2016, new presidential elections took place, in which Obiang obtained 93.5%.

In 2017, the prominent cartoonist and Obiang opponent Ramón Esono Ebalé was detained and imprisoned in Black Beach Prison. That same year Vice President Teodorín Nguema Obiang was sentenced in Paris to a suspended sentence of three years in prison for corruption.

The 2017 legislative elections resulted in another victory for the PDGE, which won all the senators and 99 of the 100 deputies, with the remaining seat going to the party Citizens for Innovation (CI). Shortly afterwards this party was accused of organizing a coup d'état, and 146 of its members were put on trial in February 2018. The verdict of the trial was made public on February 26. 36 defendants (including the party's deputy Jesús Mitogo Oyono) were sentenced to 26 years in prison (it was initially reported in error that the sentences were 44 years). Although a large part of the defendants were acquitted, the verdict also included the banning of CI. CI announced its intention to appeal the verdict, which it finally did by lodging a cassation appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice. In an official statement from Spain, the People's Party, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Unidos Podemos, En Comú Podem, Ciudadanos and the Basque Nationalist Party denounced the persecution of the opposition party and demanded "respect for human rights, for public freedoms and for the elementary norms of democracy". The Spanish government contacted Gabriel Nsé Obiang (leader of CI) and stated that it maintains a constant dialogue with the Guinean opposition to promote democracy. In March 2018, the Spanish senator Carles Mulet García of Compromís drafted a question in the Senate of Spain, answered by the Spanish Government in May of the same year, concerning the events involving CI that had taken place in Equatorial Guinea. In contrast, the PDGE justified the sentences, which was repudiated by CI.

As regards the case of Ramón Esono, at the first session of the trial held on February 27, 2018, the prosecution withdrew all charges against Esono, having found insufficient evidence to incriminate him. The prosecution witness, National Police Corporal Trifonio Nguema Owono Abang, was unable to sustain his accusations before the court and acknowledged that he "was following orders" when he accused Esono Ebale. The artist was released on March 7.

In April 2018 Equatorial Guinea organized the so-called "International Colloquium on Human Rights and Civil Society", attended by ambassadors, international experts and heads of diplomatic missions. The event was criticized by opposition parties such as CI, given the political situation of the country. On May 2, 2018, the hearing of the cassation appeal lodged by the party to overturn its banning began. The proceedings were handled by the lawyers Fabián Nsue and Ponciano Mbomio. The final verdict was handed down on May 7, and confirmed both the banning of CI and the sentences of its members. CI expressed its disagreement with the verdict and accused the Guinean judicial system of being manipulated by the government. The banning of CI was also condemned by the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS). On May 17, the Secretary General of CI, María Jesús Mene Bopabote, traveled to Brussels and was received by the institutions of the European Union, presenting a dossier on the human rights violations committed by the government.

On May 23, President Obiang met with a Spanish delegation led by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ildefonso Castro López, who conveyed the Spanish Government's wish to accompany the authorities and people of Equatorial Guinea on the 50th anniversary of their independence. Castro also met with the opposition figures Andrés Esono Ondó (leader of the Convergence for Social Democracy) and Avelino Mocache (leader of the Union of the Center-Right), with whom he discussed the Equatorial Guinean political situation.

In June 2018, the International Court of Justice agreed to determine whether the seizures of several properties of Vice President Nguema Obiang by the French authorities during his judicial proceedings had been lawful. On June 7, CI lodged an amparo appeal before the Constitutional Court, considering that the sentence upheld against it violated the Fundamental Law of Equatorial Guinea.

On June 11 Obiang called a National Dialogue Table (the sixth in the country's history) for the month of July, in which all the legalized and non-legalized political parties of the country, as well as opposition groups in exile, could take part. The call was received with optimism by CI (although it criticized the government for not explaining the content of the project) and with skepticism by CPDS. The process was convened by presidential decree on June 13. The period between July 16 and 21 was set as the date for holding the event. CI and CPDS set as conditions for taking part in the process the release of political prisoners, the participation of civil society and the presence of the international community. Obiang's government acceded to the last point by inviting foreign personalities to the Dialogue, but did not allow CI to take part, arguing its earlier banning. CI condemned the government's attitude in a statement. For its part, the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea described the National Dialogue as a "deception" by Obiang. The Union for Democracy and Social Development (UDDS) and the Democratic Republican Force (FDR) set a series of conditions for taking part. The National Coordinator of Civil Society Organizations congratulated Obiang on the call, as did the United Nations, an organization that also announced that it would send an observer to the event. The CORED Coalition, a group in exile, expressed its intention to participate by videoconference.

On July 4, Obiang's government announced a general amnesty for all political prisoners ahead of the Dialogue Table called by the government weeks earlier. CI, the CPDS and the FDR assessed the measure positively, but denounced the arbitrary actions of the regime. The Government of Spain and Amnesty International expressed themselves in similar terms. The Guinean government criticized the Spanish government for an attitude it described as "interference". Days after the amnesty decree was enacted, the opposition denounced that it had not yet been put into practice. CPDS also criticized the organization of the Dialogue Table, which in its view excluded the opposition parties. The National Dialogue began on July 16 at the Sipopo Conference Palace with the participation of 17 political parties (including CPDS) and the absence of CI, which lamented its exclusion. On the eve of the start of the event, the European Union asked to participate as an observer. During the course of the event, the opposition parties again denounced the failure to implement the amnesty and the continued imprisonment of several Supreme Court magistrates, one of whom died in prison. The CPDS even called for the resignation of the Government and the establishment of a transitional government, a proposal that was rejected by the Executive. The Dialogue Table was finally extended until July 23, pending the participants reaching agreements. After the closing of the process, agreements were reached such as greater respect for human rights, projects on cultural matters and the construction of public schools. The Government assessed the Dialogue Table positively, and President Obiang declared himself satisfied and encouraged by its outcome. However, opposition parties such as the CPDS and the Union of the Center-Right (UCD) considered the process fruitless and refused to sign the final document of agreements. Days later a meeting was held between the government and political parties in which the authorities tried unsuccessfully to persuade CPDS and UCD to sign the document. CI also assessed the results of the Dialogue Table as a failure, as did the opposition in exile.

In October 2018, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Equatorial Guinea, all the CI prisoners were pardoned, including its elected deputy Jesús Mitogo. Its leader Gabriel Nsé declared that he hoped to recover the party's parliamentary seat. Nevertheless, CI also denounced that the detainees were not immediately released. On October 22 they were finally released, a step that was welcomed by the Spanish Government and by the opposition both at home and in exile. However, the party's leadership pointed out that several of those released showed signs of torture. Likewise, the authorities prevented the party from recovering its parliamentary seat.

On October 12, 2018, Equatorial Guinea celebrated 50 years of independence. The government held a mass event that was even attended by several heads of State from the African continent. For its part, the opposition in exile held a protest rally in front of the Equatorial Guinean embassy in Spain, and the government of that country congratulated Equatorial Guinea on its independence anniversary, although it urged Obiang's government to stop the political repression.

In May 2019, after a controversial trial, more than 130 people were sentenced to prison for their participation in the 2017 coup attempt.

Current situation

Thanks to oil revenues, whose production has increased tenfold in recent years, Equatorial Guinea has experienced growth rates of 33%. However, this influx of wealth is not serving to improve the economic conditions of the population; rather, it has served to grant a certain international "legitimacy" to the regime, with visits by representatives of the governments of the U.S. and Spain, among others; under pressure from the American oil industry (present in Equatorial Guinea with Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco and Triyo Energy), the United States resumed diplomatic relations (2003), which had been interrupted since 1995. Not for nothing is Equatorial Guinea the third-largest crude oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa (after Angola and Nigeria).

The government of Teodoro Obiang Nguema is considered one of the most repressive in the world, according to international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Specifically, the disappearances of activists, torture, the lack of press freedom, the lack of real legal guarantees, the manipulation of electoral processes and the extremely unequal distribution of the country's wealth have been denounced.

See also

• Equatorial Guinea
• Snowflake (gorilla)
• Place name changes in Equatorial Guinea

External links

• Historia de Guinea Ecuatorial, various articles compiled by ASODEGUE.
• Nacionalismo anticolonial en Guinea Ecuatorial, de españoles a guineanos, essay by Alicia Campos Serrano (PDF).
• La antigua África Española: evolución de Guinea Ecuatorial, article by Gustau Nerín i Abad.
• El curioso alzamiento en Guinea, article on the Spanish Civil War in Equatorial Guinea.