The "Dictator Alert", the top secret radar program to monitor the transparency of state flights by dictators and others, does not bat an eye. When that giant of the skies touches the ground of the island's most popular airport, close to the Costa Smeralda, the flight controller simply records the landing of the Boeing 777-200 LR, code P4-SKN. Impossible, however, not to realize that this is not a vacation plane. The grandeur is one of those to send haywire every indicator of maximum "alert", the one reserved for the powerful of the world, the heads of state. After all, it does not take an expert to realize the size of that aircraft embroidered like a jewel of the air placed in the middle of Olbia airport. Yet that 400 million dollar colossus is “moored” as if it were nothing among dozens and dozens of imposing jets that appear in the presence of tiny and poor people.
175 thousand flying horses
It is not the first time that those 175,000 horsepower have landed in Sardinian soil. Always hit and run for those 63 meters of flying length, capable of touching a cruising speed of 900 kilometers per hour, with a range of over 13,000 kilometers. There is no stranger on board. The sources are secret and confidential. It is certain, however, that one of the most controversial characters of one of the most insane and unscrupulous African states in the third world descended from those 18-meter-high aerial ladders. Braggart, exhibitionist, bully, bold as few, opulent with impunity in the presence of an immense poverty, that of his people. He is the scion of the coup president of Equatorial Guinea, a sort of dictatorship that since 1979 has been in the hands of Teodoro Obiang, the elderly president of a state as small as a sheet, rich in oil, gold, uranium and diamonds, but with over half of the population reduced to extreme poverty. To manage that sumptuous state aircraft, as if it were a family toy, is the predestined son to succeed his father at the helm of the country. It is no coincidence that such a parent first awarded him the office of Minister of Agriculture and now he "enjoys" that as Vice President of the African State. Too bad, however, that the story of this glitzy and luxurious plane landed on the most emerald coast of the world hides what the New York Times recently called the "looting" of Equatorial Guinea. The 777 had not yet turned off the engines that a helicopter with already rotating blades was flying towards a millionaire yacht in the bay between Capriccioli and Liscia Ruja, to land at lunchtime in an estate full of vineyards and granite, in the countryside of Arzachena. For this gentleman, the arrival in Sardinia is not the first. From the beginning of the year this "trip" out of town should be at least the second, according to the flight documents in our possession. Italy seems to be the only country where this most unscrupulous exponent of African power can enjoy holidays without spending limits, complete with a state plane. In the rest of the world, especially in Western countries, scorched earth, in the courts and beyond. In recent years, in 2017, a Paris court convicted him of money laundering and embezzlement of over $ 100 million.
Two euros a day
It doesn't matter to him that most of his population has to live on two dollars a day. In Paris, investigators' reports write, they show him driving luxury cars, obscenely expensive motorcycles with $ 22 million art collections in his mansion. It hasn't fared better in the United States. The Stars and Stripes Senate report claimed Riggs Bank, which was later closed, had opened multiple personal accounts for the Obiangs, accepting millions of dollars of cash deposits in their accounts, helping them set up offshore shell companies. The United States Department of Justice, we publish the document, has closed the dispute with the civil confiscation for a value of 30 million dollars. The text of the document is without appeal: "After collecting millions of bribes and bribes, Nguema Obiang has embarked on a madness fueled by corruption in the United States." Obiang, according to the device of the US Department of Justice, received from the government of Equatorial Guinea "a salary of less than 100,000 dollars". Too bad that in the meantime he had "accumulated assets worth over $ 300 million through corruption and money laundering." The latest American verdict was on September 20 last year. The agreement signed between the American pragmatists and the scion is put down in black and white: "The Department of Justice will distribute 19.25 million dollars to the United Nations for the purchase and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and 6.35 million dollars. dollars to Medical Care Development International for the purchase and distribution of medicines and supplies throughout Equatorial Guinea as part of the implementation of a civil confiscation agreement that resolves the sale of certain assets previously allegedly purchased by the current First Vice President of Equatorial Guinea with the proceeds of corruption ». Ditto in England.
In the black hole of rights
Amnesty International goes beyond corruption: «In Equatorial Guinea hundreds of prisoners languish in prison for years. Forgotten people, many of them imprisoned after trials full of irregularities, are found in some of the most notorious prisons in the world, such as those of the "Black Beach" of Malabo and Bata. Nothing more has been heard of these prisoners and their families do not even know if they are still alive or if they are dead ». Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty in Italy, tells the Unione Sarda: «From the frequency of his visits to Italy, especially in Sardinia, it seems that the vice president of Equatorial Guinea considers our country a" comfort zone ". It is bitter to see how right he is, given that he enters and leaves Italy with great tranquility without anyone asking him to account for the very serious situation of human rights in his country. And it does so with great pomp, a shameful circumstance if you think that those who are not part of the large family in power suffer from hunger ». What glitters is not always gold.