Equatorial Guinea and the Exxon Mobile vampire

Black Beach, Malabo

I was working near the British Museum, about 50 yards from it in fact. I worked there for about a year and a half on-and-off in 2002 and 3.

I would listen to the reflections of top scientists, millionaires, senior managers of European companies, politicians and sports people and, having understood what it was they did and thought and said and needed to do, I would have to help them explain themselves to themselves and others in English. It was fun. It was de luxe, personalised education - for me.

I had a few failures:

Once I had the top management of the oil company from a small little country in the nook of Africa: Equatorial Guinea. He sat in front of me with two body guards.

I am here, he explained, because Exxon Mobile has come to Equatorial Guinea and is extracting oil off shore and we don't know how much they take. We have no computer systems and we don't speak English. They take what they want and leave and we have no control. He looked upset. He was a large man - thoughtful and warty.

And we talked and I tried to put him at his ease. I spoke of the other Guinea, of Almicar Cabral and the PIAGC and he looked at me oddly. I mentioned how I admired Cabral's poetry and asked him what other languages he spoke. He Spoke Spanish. So did I. And I switched to Spanish and as I did so his eyes narrowed. I was loosing ground here.

Tell me more about your country, I said hastily.


Well we used to be friends with the Russians. 

Do you speak Russian? I asked him.

Yes. He said. Actually, I studied there. 

Where did you study? I asked him in Russian. I was there too?

He went stiff and silent. After a while he said.

Who are you?

And I realised what he thought and so I wanted to reassure him that I was not a plant and got myself into deeper water.

No. I said. And I explained who I was and why I spoke Russian and Spanish and why I knew who Almicar Cabral was and I burbled reassuringly, but he asked for a change of tutor anyway.

But I was left feeling very sorry for that man and his country. He seemed so helpless and flummoxed by everything. No computers, no English, just Exxon Mobile sucking at his country, unaccountable - leaving the coasts of Bioko and Malabo layered in crud.

One thing he said was that the government of the country was trying to find out more about just how much Exxon Mobile was extracting in order to tax them properly and that Exxon didn't like this.

So it was no surprise to me when I read about the attempted coup d'etat with Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann behind it and, though it didn't succeed I read the attendant articles primed, interestingly, for the moment of the attempted coup, in magazines like The Economist, about how 'awful and corrupt' the government of Equatorial Guinea was and how 'overdue' the country was for a change.

Maybe so, but nothing, of course, was said about the strong probability of Exxon Mobile's vampirism, or the coastal and chemical pollution or the backhanders the company paid government officials.

Why can I say all this without fear of repercussions? Why can any blogger?

I'll tell you. Because actually taking me on would give Exxon bad publicity. They rely on the fact that this blog and others will simply be ignored.

This is the way the world works!