Eduardo González
The Confederal Parliamentary Group of Unidas Podemos has presented a Non Law Proposition in which it urges the Government to promote police cooperation at EU level to pursue “the illegal criminal organization that exists in different European countries” for the “tracking and kidnapping of opponents to the regime of Equatorial Guinea”.
The motion, presented last January 31 for debate and approval in the Interior Commission of the Congress of Deputies, denounces that Equatorial Guinea is living “a dramatic moment with a repressive wave against the opposition”. An example of this, it recalled, is the persecution against the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea-Third Republic (MLGE3R), “an association legally constituted in Spain” that brings together opponents to the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema who reside in Spain, “some of them with a regime of international protection and, many of them, with Spanish nationality”.
The Non Law Proposition also recalls that four of its militants, two of them with Spanish nationality (Feliciano Efa Mangue and Julio Obama Mefuman) and two other long-term residents and under protection in our country (Martin Obiang Ondo Mbasogo and Bienvenido Ndong Ondo), “were convinced by deception to travel from Madrid to Juba (South Sudan), where they were kidnapped and disappeared on November 15, 2019.”
The four were sentenced in March 2020 by a military court to prison terms ranging from 60 to 90 years for alleged coup d’état. Specifically, Julio Obama Mefuman, a former corporal in the Spanish Army, was sentenced to 60 years and Feliciano Efa Mangue, a 40-year-old soldier in the Spanish Army, was sentenced to 90 years. Julio Obama Mefuman died in mid-January in Bata hospital, sources from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed. His party assured that he had died as a result of torture and “strongly” urged the Spanish government to “immediately” break diplomatic relations with Equatorial Guinea. The Malabo regime immediately assured that he had died “of illness”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned at that time the Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea to ask for explanations and to request a pardon for Feliciano Efa Mangue.
According to the motion presented by Unidas Podemos, “the authorities of Equatorial Guinea refused to confirm at first to the Spanish authorities that these citizens were in their jurisdiction”, in spite of which, “later, on March 18, 2020, they were exposed on the public television of Equatorial Guinea, in front of a military court, having been forced to apologize to the dictator, Teodoro Obiang, and incriminating themselves of an alleged coup d’état”, continues the motion.
Unidas Podemos also recalls that the MLGE3R filed a military complaint against several Equatoguineans on the occasion of the case opened by the Audiencia Nacional (Spanish National Court) to investigate the facts, following a complaint filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on the basis of the police actions that followed the complaints of disappearance filed by the relatives in several Spanish police stations. Likewise, the police unit in charge of the judicial investigation informed the National Court of “the existence of a systematic plan executed by Equatorial Guinea for the kidnapping, surreptitious transfer to the country and subsequent torture of opponents of the regime residing abroad, a plan executed both in Spain and in other European countries”.
Similar cases in Italy and Belgium
“Apart from the rigorous and exhaustive police investigation, the existence of a systematic practice of kidnapping, illegal transfers and torture of Equatoguinean opponents residing under protection in other countries had already been denounced at the international level”, assures the motion.
Apart from the “internal repression visible and executed from the Ministry of State in charge of National Security” that exists in Equatorial Guinea (confirmed by “reports and investigations of the General Commissariat of Information of Spain”), the Obiang regime “has deployed a Ministry of the Presidency in charge of Foreign Security, from where the monitoring of the opponents abroad would be executed, with the purpose of attempting against them, through various formulas, mainly through deception to facilitate their travel to African countries prone to their kidnapping, and thus execute the plan of capture and transfer for their confinement, torture and eventual execution”, continues the parliamentary motion.
“According to the investigations carried out, an organization chart of hierarchical responsibility for this repression within the institutions of Equatorial Guinea can be seen” and the cooperation between different European police – from Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium and Italy, at least – has revealed a “systematic kidnapping plot” and has identified “more similar cases of this systematic plan, such as, for example, kidnappings of opponents residing in Belgium and Italy who had moved by deception to African countries and were kidnapped”.
Therefore, the Proposition urges the Government of Spain to “condemn the human rights violations in Equatorial Guinea, as well as any type of practice contrary to international laws carried out by its agents outside the Guinean territory”, and to “continue promoting police cooperation at the European Union level to pursue in the most effective way the illegal criminal organization that exists in different European countries, of tracking and kidnapping opponents of the regime of Equatorial Guinea”.
It also insists on the need to “request the authorities of Equatorial Guinea, as has been done so far, to clarify what happened to the Spanish citizen Julio Obama Mefuman” and to take the necessary steps for the repatriation of the body of the deceased opponent “in accordance with the wishes of his family”. Finally, the parliamentary motion asks the Government to request the authorities of Equatorial Guinea, “as it has been doing so far, to respect the right to life and physical integrity of all persons detained”, and the release of Feliciano Efa Mangue and the other two persons with permanent residence in our country detained for the same facts”.
