The son of the ruler of Equatorial Guinea has a multimillion-dollar home in Malibu and his father has been charged with misusing public funds in that country. Some question why Malibu residents have not spoken out on the issue.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
While Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, along with the leaders of the African countries of Gabon and Congo, is being charged with misuse of public funds in a lawsuit filed by anticorruption groups in France, the lavish lifestyle of his 38-year-old son, which includes a $35-million Malibu mansion, remains seemingly undisturbed.
The lawsuit seeks to reimburse the alleged embezzled funds to the citizens of those countries, most of whom live below the poverty line with little to no medical coverage, electricity, clean water or sanitation systems. (Omar Bongo, president of Gabon, died in June, after the lawsuit was filed. It is unknown if this will affect the suit.)
Furthermore, Amnesty International cites that Obiang’s political opponents are routinely imprisoned and ordinary citizens are turned out of their homes to make way for urban development, according to the L.A. Weekly, which was one of the first local papers to write a story on the dictator when his son bought his Malibu manse. L.A. Weekly also reported that a 2006 CIA report cited sex trafficking and child labor in Equatorial Guinea are so widespread that the country rates at the bottom of the U.N.’s Human Development Index.
While his father rules the country, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, according to watchdog groups, spends the country’s wealth on property in South Africa and California, and on fleets of expensive cars. Some have questioned why residents of Malibu-a city filled with nonprofits, educational clubs and fundraisers dedicated to improving living conditions throughout Africa-have been so quiet on the subject of Mangue’s father’s alleged human rights violations and his own financial excesses given the state of their country, now that the future leader of Equatorial Guinea is their neighbor. (Mangue’s home purchase was not his first time in Malibu. Pepperdine University’s student newspaper the Graphic reported that Mangue had attended English as a second language classes at the school between October of 1991 through February 1992.)
While in Paris last month, Malibu residents Carolyn and Joseph Sargent mailed The Malibu Times a recent newspaper column by Celestine Bohlen for The New York Times about Mangue and his father, with their own note that read, “How can we make a difference if we don’t say anything?”
The country in recent years has experienced an oil surge that-on paper-has produced the highest per-capita income in Africa. Yet, three-quarters of Equatorial Guinea’s 500,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line with an infant-mortality rate of 92.3 per thousand, according to the Web site africaneconomicoutlook.org.
Mangue is paid $4,000 per month as Equatorial Guinea’s minister of agriculture and forestry. But the salary doesn’t explain how he is able to afford a lifestyle spread across three continents, properties all over the world and a fleet of cars worth $6.5 million, as stated in a June 3 story by the International Herald Tribune.
L.A. Weekly reports that Mangue, in a 2006 sworn statement to a South African court, openly admitted to controlling significant riches from his country’s natural resources: “Cabinet ministers and public servants of Equatorial Guinea are by law allowed to own companies that, in consortium with a foreign company, can bid for government contracts . . . It means that a cabinet minister ends up with a sizable part of the contract price in his bank account,” Mangue said.
Some criticize Malibu residents for turning the other cheek in 2006 when Mangue purchased the Sweetwater Mesa mansion, located in plain sight on its own hilltop above Malibu Inn. But others say the issue is rarely talked about because most residents aren’t even aware it exists.
A recent sampling conducted by The Malibu Times showed that out of 11 Serra Retreat residents, only two knew anything about Mangue.
“It’s never come up in any conversations that I have had with any of the residents nearby nor with any other residents in Malibu,” Ozzie Silna, treasurer of the Serra Retreat Homeowners Association, said Monday in a telephone interview.
Mayor Andy Stern and City Manager Jim Thorsen on Tuesday said they were vaguely familiar with the issue.
Robert E. Williams, associate Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University, said lack of publicity within the city has allowed the issue to fly under the radar.
“I met someone just this past month who lives in Serra Retreat and had no idea this fellow was there,” Williams said Monday in a telephone interview. “It seems to me that some people do get upset, but not enough people know about it.
“I think any kind of publicity is always an important thing in situations like this,” he continued. “If you’re taking oil money out of your country and buying $35 million mansions, you’d rather people not know about it. Raising awareness is the first step. Even letters to the editor would make a difference.”
Williams acknowledged that the United States government plays a massive role in preventing corrupt foreign leaders from using funds drained from impoverished nations, but said Realtors also play a role.
“I think Realtors have a responsibility not to deal with corrupt people,” he said. “It [Mangue’s mansion] was sold to a corporation named Sweetwater Mesa LLC, but it was very easy to determine who was behind the corporation.”
But Mayor Stern, also a local Realtor, disagrees. “If presented with an offer, the listing agent has the absolute obligation to submit it to the seller,” Stern said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “I think it would be a sad day if we started investigating everyone’s past in Malibu or started discriminating against them. If they’re living peacefully and obeying the law, it’s not my responsibility to make social comments.”
It is also against the law to discriminate against a buyer or seller.
Though Africa lies miles away from Malibu, Williams said the French case against Obiang brings up “a lot of questions about things that people usually care about, including our getting so much oil from dictatorships, standard human rights issues and corruption in foreign places.”
Williams recommends civilians raise awareness of the case by contacting California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as Representative Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“I think that’s the beginning,” he said.