Free Republic

The strategic framework and the correlation of forces in the Gulf of Guinea — one of the most significant and growing energy resource regions of the world — is changing rapidly. A new era in security arrangements for the region is beginning. The region is moving from an area of low technology defense and security systems, and minimal command and control at national levels, to one of growing sophistication, higher mobility, and the potential for military confrontation. The five-year, $250-million Equatorial Guinea maritime security program - essentially the build-up of an integrated naval and air capability - announced on February...

A "dictator" is a head of state who exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens and who cannot be removed from power through legal means. The worst commit terrible human-rights abuses. This present list draws in part on reports by global human-rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International. While the three worst from 2005 have retained their places, two on last year's list (Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan) have slipped out of the Top 10-not because their conduct has improved but because other dictators have gotten worse....

THE FAILED coup attempt involving Sir Mark Thatcher was to have made Equatorial Guinea a private colony run for the benefit of the British plotters, leaked documents reveal. The papers, passed to The Sunday Times by South African intelligence sources, reveal that the plotters had created a trading company to control the oil-rich West African state. The Bight of Benin Company (BBC), named after the bay on the state’s coastline, was to have grabbed control of the country’s economy, its oil reserves, army and police. The company would have controlled the country as a private fiefdom, modelled on the...

Troubles deepened for Lady Thatcher's disgraced son last night when a self-confessed coup plotter surfaced to accuse him of direct involvement in the attempt to overthrow the regime in Equatorial Guinea. Crause Steyl, the mercenary pilot who was to have been the star witness against Mark Thatcher had his trial in South Africa gone ahead, told Channel 4 News that Sir Mark's role had been kept secret, because "his mother was the previous prime minister of England". Mr Steyl described meeting Sir Mark to select a helicopter on which a gun could be mounted. He also alleged that the Spanish...

<p>Los Angeles, , May. 22 (UPI) -- A grand jury and congressional investigators are probing real estate purchases by U.S. oil companies that may have constituted bribes to an African dictator.</p> <p>The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday the two separate investigations involve high-priced land purchases made by the oil companies through a holding company beleived controlled by the president of Equatorial Guinea.</p>

The alleged mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe are believed to have been on their way to a covert military training camp in Cameroon. The men were remnants of South Africa's defunct mercenary company Executive Outcomes. They were planning to join another former Executives Outcomes operative in Equatorial Guinea in an elaborate plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, which was supposed to have taken place next week. The coup plot has been denied by the British-based company Logo Logistics, which employs the suspected mercenaries. The company claims they were going to provide security for mining operations in the Democratic...