Mail & Guardian, South Africa
April 15 2005

-Guinea denies reports of starving prisoners

Malabo

Equatorial Guinea on Thursday flatly denied charges by Amnesty
International that scores of prisoners at a jail in the capital
Malabo, including alleged mercenaries, were at risk of dying of
starvation.

Jailers at Black Beach prison have stopped providing at least 70
prisoners with meals and blocked all contact with their families,
lawyers and consular officials over the past six weeks, the group
said, calling on the authorities to provide immediate food and
medical care.

A large number of the prisoners, including at least 15 foreign
nationals, are already weak from torture, untreated illnesses and
general lack of care, the London-based human rights group claimed.

In November a court in Equatorial Guinea gave stiff jail sentences to
five alleged South African and six Armenian mercenaries, including 34
years for South African Nick du Toit, for their involvement in a coup
plot.

“The information provided by Amnesty, which for us is a faceless
organisation made up of people with unstated aims, is false and
unfounded,” said Miguel Oyono Ndong Mifumu, a special adviser to
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

“All prisoners receive daily food rations and the mercenaries, who do
not have the same eating habits as us, have an adequate diet and a
special budget to this end,” he said.

“Amnesty is trying to put pressure on the governmment to free the
hostages,” he said.

“It is serving the interests of the mercenaries’ families. But we
think what it ought to do is to come and check in situ, as the
International Red Cross has done, to back up its claims.”

In addition to the food problem, Amnesty painted a grim picture of
the prisoners’ daily routine, describing how they are kept in their
cells 24 hours a day, with the foreign inmates handcuffed and
shackled at all times.

“Amnesty International is calling on the Equatorial Guinea
authorities to immediately provide regular and adequate food, medical
care to all who need it,” it said.

The organisation also demanded that hand and leg cuffs be removed and
prisoners be allowed contact with the outside world.

“Such near starvation, lack of medical attention and appalling prison
conditions represent a scandalous failure by the Equatorial Guinea
authorities to fulfil their most basic responsibilities under
international law,” said the director of Amnesty’s Africa programme,
Kolawole Olaniyan.

“The Equatorial Guinea government is using this as a political tool
to keep undesirable dissidents at bay,” said Olanyian.

“Unless immediate action is taken, many of those detained at Black
Beach prison will die.”

Last December, food rations were reportedly cut from a daily cup of
rice to one or two bread rolls, and since February, provision of any
prison meals has been sporadic.

Detainees with family in Malabo rely on supplies handed to guards by
their relatives, according to Amnesty.

But six Armenians, five South Africans and four Nigerian nationals in
the prison are at a particular risk of starvation as they lack the
support of their family’s. – Sapa-AFP