The African tyrant living in luxury while his people starve | 60 Minutes Australia

tonight the story of a tyrant possibly the worst in the world he's vicious he's venal and he's robbing his country blind his country is an african hellhole called equatorial guinea and no one would have ever heard or cared about it if they hadn't discovered vast oil deposits just offshore so much oil in fact that at the rate this tiny country is growing in 10 years it could be the richest in the world the trouble is most of the oil money is being pumped directly into the president's pocket he's living like a king while his people starve [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the two bob tinpot tyrant who runs this tiny african backwater gets around with an entourage worthy of a superpower and he is just about the most horrible despot in the world today president teodoro obiang his people are amongst the poorest on earth and he's amongst the richest this is one bad place it's had one of the most appalling human rights records probably in the world regular torture regular extrajudicial killings until people found oil nobody was really talking about equatorial guinea the oil here is attractive because it's non-arab non-opec non-muslim and the reeks are well out of reach of the pesky natives the main island of this tiny nation is in what detractors call the armpit of africa a small australian company rock oil is drilling here but it's mostly american giants particularly exxonmobil to begin with they gave equatorial guinea the oil's owners just 12 of the oil revenues the norm is more like 60 according to alex vines an african specialist with the royal institute of international affairs initially the oil companies gave equatorial guinea a really bad deal they took advantage of him certainly to start with the government of ecuador and he had not a clue what it was dealing with at the time [Music] the main square in the capital is a quaint throwback to spanish colonial times elsewhere the city is mostly a slum with little running water and essentially no sewage the government stopped us filming here but we manage these shots from our hotel window whilst the oil fires flicker on the horizon at night students with no electricity at home study under the street lights that eliminate the drive to the presidential palace it's a very bad evil government and exxon i think to a shame is in bed with them frank ruddy is doubly qualified he was once the american ambassador to equatorial guinea and once a lawyer for exxon the shameful part is that you have a great company like exxon mogul which is tied in with this very corrupt government the president treats the treasury as his own uh patrimony and so to do business with somebody like that and to uh basically literally feed his coffers um i think it's shameful the president and his family are frequently overseas first son teodoro jr is partial to paris and its finest hotels incredibly he once allowed french television to tag along on a shopping spree but a bentley can be hard work in paris traffic a fashion house closed its doors to give junior exclusive access to the merchandise [Music] but whilst their paris ambassador did his job teodoro bought 30 suits that day [Music] and then took the lamborghini down the champs-elysees to get some cds would it be churlish to suggest that maybe it's successes like this that caused so little to be spent in the slums back home the actual expenditure on health and education has significantly declined in the last five years and think of it the last five years are when the oil wealth has really been kicking in so although the country's getting richer actually the people are getting poorer the money is going elsewhere it's not going to the benefit of the people the white man's hotel in the capital has one of the nation's two swimming pools neither contains water pity really because here we found eric musumbani eric the eel remember him the slowest swimmer at the sydney olympics and now training for athens well how do you do training if the pools haven't got water okay i was in south africa and in ghana that way i have been training but now i have to move to spain to train here i can't do it at the same hotel we ran into some of exxon mobil's men relaxing after a stint on the rigs perhaps being well oiled blurs the sight of the squalor that's all around this country's dirt poor where's all the money going we don't control where the money goes we're just out here to do a job [Music] i was having dinner at a fish restaurant an hour or so after talking to those rig workers when out of the blue the equatorial guinean information minister shows up and says get out of the country your visa has been revoked and he added for good measure if you go quietly then nobody will be thrown into jail so i think understandably we then quietly made our way here to madrid in spain how many times have you been to jail four days have you been to jail several time the rat infested black beach jail back in the capital is where president obiang locks up his opponents when he seized power from his uncle 25 years ago he kept him here for a couple of days and then had him executed no wonder many in opposition to obiang today have fled here madrid spain the former colonial power the way obiang is taking all the country including natural resources he genuinely believes that this country belongs to him in your democracy sir in the late 90s the president also believes he's sharing those resources at least that's what he told bob simon from cbs 60 minutes in an interview last year the oil has been for us like mana that the jews ate in the desert we have to follow the rules to make sure the mana reaches all the people in equatorial guinea the oil companies make sure the manner reaches at least as far as him in america it's red carpet treatment for the president all the way and i remember the president has a very fine collection of scotch whiskey obiang was even a guest at this function when big oil paraded its biggest and most powerful friend [Music] do you have any qualms about doing business then it's a matter of you have to mr stephen hayes runs america's corporate council on africa the council lobbies for american oil i mean is there any depth to which you will not sink i mean would you do business with this man obiang no matter how corrupt he is i i think that at some point again um that's that's a that's a good question is there any level at which any oil company in the world wouldn't uh do business with where there's that much oil um i don't know your position is that we shouldn't be taking oil from equatorial guinea no no no no no no no no it is that position because there's no other choice well let me tell you my position so my position is there should be some morality in this and there should be a level below which you won't sink and you've sunk to unbelievable depths in dealing with such a corrupt and cruel dictator as obiang well i don't i don't agree with it what the crew a bit or the corrupted no i don't i certainly i don't i don't i don't agree that american companies are are not following the fair the fair uh trade practices act [Music] it turns out president obiang does lots and lots of business in washington oil business and private business the ritzy part of the most important city in the world washington is um well very ritzy and when it comes to a good address there are a few better places than here dupont circle on this circle there's one particularly interesting building the dupont circle branch of riggs bank never heard of it well if you're a member of the saudi royal family you would have because many of them do their private banking here as does president obian obiang controls in excess of 60 accounts at this bank including the one where oil companies deposit royalty payments in some accounts the balances run to hundreds of millions of dollars in such circumstances i guess it's understandable that the president would equip himself with a mansion like this just outside washington but it's a silly president who forgets to lock the front gate hello good morning is prisoner obiang in please hello how do you do a caretaker eventually emerged from a garage so i got a glimpse of the presidential fleet and since the president was not in when i dropped by the same caretaker very kindly arranged for me to speak with a government representative on the phone who is this yes your friend what's your friend's name oh you're the ambassador oh i see you're the president's cousin oh goodness gracious me well mr ambassador tell me how much money has the president got in his rigged bank account at the moment the fbi is trying to trace cash movements in and out of that account is that mr ambassador you're still there and whether it's the oil companies making the cash payments bye-bye president obiang and his family must enjoy the lifestyles of the rich and famous otherwise why would he have another mansion just down the road and across the continent another los angeles luxurious beverly hills area is home for teodoro jr remember him he's the son who likes the fast cars and fancy suits swimming holes movie stars and an african prince where is the owner of the property the africa prince an african prince [Laughter] [Music] back home in equatorial guinea's slums last year the economy grew a massive 60 it is the fastest growing economy on earth near to none of the country's half million people see a brass razoo from this why don't you do the right thing get out of equatorial guinea turn your back on this corrupt dictator let's assume that every oil company us oil company gets out how fast do you think it would be before the french and other international oil companies are in there a second so what really changes in equatorial guinea see that city is such a tiny place it should be another q8 if everyone did the right thing yes and the fact is that almost no one is doing exactly the right thing by associating with this murderous criminal tyrant we in the west a party to a disgrace and contributing to a disaster in the making [Applause] [Music] hello i'm tom steinfert thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on nine now dot com dot a u as well as the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 5,718,089

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, africa, tyrant, dictator, human rights, equatorial guinea, oil, fossil fuel, hunger, poverty, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, torture, oil rig, malabo, exxonmobil, king, slum, paris, born rich, rich kid, lamborghini

Id: 2UqmiENLnqQ

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021