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It's pretty rare to open up the newspaper and find a story about Equatorial Guinea, but that's not to say that the west African nation has been an uneventful paradise. Since the Bantu first moved to mainland Equatorial Guinea in the 12th and 13th centuries, there were tribal wars in the area. Having previously been inhabited by Pygmies and the Ndowe people, the area was quickly dominated by the warlike Fang. Their hostility kept European colonials on their toes, preventing a wholesale occupation of the area. Nevertheless, the Fang were forced from the coast during the centuries of slave trading by the British, Dutch and French, reoccupying after the abolition of slavery.
The island of Bioko was settled by the Bubi people about the 13th century, though they were joined by the Portuguese in the late 1500s. Portugal held many of the islands in the Gulf of Guinea, including São Tomé and Príncipe, as they played a strategic role in maritime control. However, Portugal traded away Bioko to the Spanish in 1778, and by the early 19th century, the island had become an important centre for the European slave trade. Profitable cocoa plantations made Bioko Spain's most important possession in Africa.
Throughout the period of Spanish rule, most of the mainland region remained unexplored. In fact, the Spanish only ventured into the interior in the 1920s. However, it was not until the conclusion of the Spanish civil war in 1939 that the colonial power began developing the region in earnest. Partial autonomy was granted in 1963 - the same year the island and mainland colonies were joined under the name Equatorial Guinea.
Although independence came in 1968, so did the realisation that Spain had left the country virtually bankrupt. Francisco Macias Nguema was elected president in 1970 amidst a state of emergency, though he had little competition as all opposition groups were previously declared illegal. In 1972, he declared himself leader for life, and was well underway on a campaign of terror and brutality on a par with Bokassa in the Central African Republic and Idi Amin in Uganda. Many thousands of people were tortured and executed in jails or beaten to death in labour camps. Priests were arrested and schools and churches were closed. Being a journalist became a capital offence. Nguema even made fishing illegal and destroyed every boat he could find. For several years, Equatorial Guinea was effectively closed off from the world. By the time Macias' 'rule for life' ended with a coup and his execution in 1979, two-thirds of the population had either fled Equatorial Guinea or been killed.
Equatorial Guinea's road back to multiparty democracy has been a torturous one. Old habits die hard, and although elections have been held, it is widely believed that vote-rigging has been rampant. The US State Department declared that the first presidential election in 1993 was a 'parody of democracy'. The arrest and imprisonment of an opposition leader sent a clear message to all about the country's democratisation, although he was released following pressure from Western governments.
The recent discovery of oil in Equatorial Guinean waters transformed the political and social landscape of the country. However, although the government as well as cooperating business interests have started to grow rich, the discovery of oil seemed to have made precious little difference to ordinary Equatorial Guineans. Little of the oil revenue is trickling down, and President Obiang Nguema's dictatorship seems uninspired by the benefits of democratisation.
In 2001, eight political groups formed an opposition-in-exile in Spain (in 2003 the same group proclaimed itself a government-in-exile). Later that year, the President called on opposition groups to register at home, though 68 people were later jailed for allegedly plotting a coup. Their confessions seemed to have been made under duress. Six months later, the President won the election unanimously. A coup attempt with the covert backing of interested parties in the UK and US was foiled in March 2004, leading to the deportation of many foreigners.
