A senior United States politician assailed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday for calling Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema a ”good friend” despite criticism of his human rights record.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin said Rice sent the message that the United States was more interested in oil than human rights.
”The photograph of you and Mr Obiang will be used by critics of the US to argue that we are not serious about human rights and democratic reforms in a country with substantial oil wealth,” Levin said in an open letter to the top US diplomat.
”I urge you to take action to let the international community know that the US acknowledges and continues to condemn Mr Obiang’s corrupt and brutal tactics, and will continue to press for fiscal, democratic and human rights reforms” in Equatorial Guinea.
When Rice met Obiang in Washington on April 12, she told him ”You are a good friend and we welcome you.”
The Washington Post branded her embrace of the African leader, who has held a lockhold on power in the small West African country for 27 years, as an ”inglorious moment”.
”If President [George] Bush and Ms Rice want anyone to take their pro-democracy rhetoric seriously, they must stop throwing bouquets to odious dictators. The meeting with Mr Obiang was presumably a reward for his hospitable treatment of US oil firms,” the Post wrote in an editorial.
Last Year Amnesty International expressed concerns about allegations of torture and unfair trials related to an attempted coup in 2004 against Obiang. Since 1982 several US oil companies have been working in the country. – Sapa-AFP