The Interior Committee of Congress unanimously approved this Tuesday a United We Can parliamentary initiative calling on Pedro Sánchez’s government to do more to secure the release of the four opponents of the regime in Equatorial Guinea, two of whom are Spanish nationals and kidnapped were transferred to South Sudan in November 2019 and to Guinean prisons, where one died. These facts will be examined by the National Court. The initiative, defended by MP Enrique Santiago, calls on the Spanish government to promote “police cooperation within the EU” to prosecute “the criminal organization” of Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s regime, since it has been proven that they are people in different European countries monitored countries.
The Non-Ley Proposal (PNL, a parliamentary initiative intended to express the Chamber’s position on a given issue but which is not binding on the government) recalled that two of the kidnapped opponents, Feliciano Efa Mangue and Julio Obama Mefuman, who had Spanish nationality, and that the other two, Martín Obiang Ondo Mbasogo and Bienvenido Ndong Ondo, had resided in our country for a long time and were under protection. The four were tricked into moving from Madrid to Juba, South Sudan, in late 2019, where their trail got lost. Last January it was revealed that Obama Mefuman, a former Spanish army soldier who lived in Logroño with his wife and son, had died in a Guinean prison.
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According to the investigation launched by National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz, they were all transferred from South Sudan to Equatorial Guinea and subjected to repeated torture there after being tried without any guarantees and sentenced to 90 years in prison, each for an alleged coup d’état. Eyewitnesses who testified in the case confirm that the deceased opponent was locked in a tiny cell in Mongomo prison, where he slept on a cement bed with no natural light or air and was fed poor food.
Judge Pedraz is investigating Carmelo Ovono Obiang, one of the President’s sons, who is also Undersecretary for the Presidency and head of foreign intelligence; Secretary of State Nicolás Obama Nchama, responsible for Homeland Security; and Isaac Ngmea Endo, director general of the President’s Security Department. Pedraz tried to interview Obiang’s son about these events last March, but he did not show up.
In his speech in defense of the parliamentary initiative, Enrique Santiago denounced that Equatorial Guinea was “experiencing a serious repression of the opposition” and recalled that investigations by the Spanish police had revealed that these kidnappings were perpetrated by people opposed to the Obiang regime The subsequent transfer to that country and their torture were “a criminal activity carried out in Spain but also in other European countries”. The leader of Unidas Podemos has insisted that those responsible for the “criminal organization” perpetrating these acts “are undoubtedly part of the state structures”.
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The approved Non-Legal Proposal also urges the government to demand from the Obiang regime “respect for the right to life and physical integrity of all those imprisoned”, release the three opponents who are still alive and clarify what happened to Obama Mefuman , for which he also demands the return of the corpse. Santiago has insisted that the Equatorial Guinean authorities are “violating the human rights of the opposition, but they are also violating Spanish sovereignty by conducting illegal activities in Spain” through their officials.
The initiative received a positive endorsement from the 36 MEPs present in the Commission, although the arguments used by the various groups to declare their support were not the same. The representatives of the PP, Pablo Hispán, and Vox, Pedro Fernández, in their speeches, have criticized the alleged passivity of the Sánchez government and in particular of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, for which Santiago Abascal’s party has requested disapproval.