Koto Oko,

Thank you for sharing this information.  I have been following this story
for a while and  I am glad that UNESCO has now heeded the protestations from
various organisations and individuals about the source of funding for this
Human Rights award.  I could not understand the reasoning behind UNESCO
accepting funds from a despicable, corrupt, human rights abuser such as
Nguema.

Best,

Mboge



On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 7:54 PM, oko drammeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> **
> Unesco suspends prize funded by Equatorial Guinea dictator
> Obiang Nguema Mbasogo award put on hold after human rights groups accuse
> Unesco of 'laundering reputation of kleptocrat'
> *      *        Chris McGreal* in Washington
>      *        guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 June 2010 07.39
>
> Unesco has suspended a prize funded by Equatorial Guinea's president
> Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Photograph: Eric Cabanis/AFP/Getty Images
>
> The UN's scientific and cultural organisation, Unesco, has put on hold the
> award of a prize for "improving the quality of human life" paid for and
> named after one of Africa's most authoritarian, brutal and corrupt rulers.
> The prize, aimed at scientists, is funded with a $3m (£2m) donation by
> President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of* Equatorial Guinea* who is
> regarded as having made a major contribution to human misery as well as
> curtailing more than a few lives. It was to have been awarded later this
> month but has been suspended following an international outcry.
> Obiang, 68, is known not only for having his predecessor executed and the
> arbitrary arrest and torture of political opponents but for plundering his
> country's oil wealth while many of its people live in poverty.
> Equatorial Guinea's per capita income has risen a hundred fold in 20 years
> to the highest in Africa because of oil but many of its 680,000 people
> survive on less than £1 a day. Life expectancy is just 49 years.
> The prize money was technically awarded to Unesco by the Obiang Nguema
> Mbasogo Foundation for the Preservation of Life. Human Rights groups and
> anti-corruption organisations have accused Unesco of "laundering the
> reputation of a kleptocrat with an appalling human rights record". Desmond
> Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel peace prize winner, said
> Unesco* "is allowing itself to burnish the unsavoury reputation of a
> dictator"* and that the money Obiang pledged for the prize in order to
> glorify himself was taken from the people of Equatorial Guinea on whom it
> should now be spent.
> Seven recipients of a Unesco prize for courageous journalists wrote to the
> organisation objecting to an award, the* Unesco Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
> International Prize for Research* , named after "a leader who oppresses
> the media".
> On Monday the US ambassador to Unesco, David Killion, urged the
> organisation to suspend the award in a belated show of disapproval of Obiang
> by Washington, which has generally overlooked the shortcomings of his rule
> since the discovery of oil in Equatorial Guinea.
> The US, which is the largest contributor to Unesco's budget, and some other
> western nations did not raise objections in April when a majority on the
> organisation's 58-nation board brushed aside protests over the award.
> African nations have supported Obiang over the prize.
> But yesterday, Unesco's director general, Irina Bokova, told the Unesco
> board that the awarding of the prize needed to be put on hold for the good
> of the organisation's reputation.
> "I have heard the voices of the many intellectuals, scientists, journalists
> and of course governments and parliamentarians who have appealed to me to
> protect and preserve the prestige of the organisation," she said. "I have
> come to you with a strong message of alarm and anxiety Š We must be
> courageous and recognise our responsibilities, for it is our organisation
> that is at stake."
> A decision on the future of the prize will be taken at a board meeting in
> October.
> About 270 organisations that united to campaign against the award,
> including Human Rights Watch, welcomed the delay but said that the prize
> must be cancelled.
> "The coalition reiterated its calls for the funds behind the prize to be
> used to promote basic education and address other needs of Equatorial
> Guinea's people," they said.
> Obiang's government has fought back by accusing critics of the prize of
> "showing their true colonialist, discriminatory, racist and prejudiced
> identity, by not accepting that an African president can confer an award of
> this kind".
> "There exists a great deal of misperception about Equatorial Guinea, an
> issue that is partly our fault since we have not always responded to
> inaccuracies that have appeared in the international press or have been
> perpetuated by our critics. This will now change," it said.
> Changing that perception may prove difficult.
> Obiang served his uncle and Equatorial Guinea's previous ruler, Francisco
> Macias Nguema, as a military governor and then head of the national guard
> during a bloody reign of terror during the 1970s in which it is estimated
> half of the population were killed or fled abroad. Obiang seized power in
> 1979, put his uncle on trial but cut the hearing short when Macias started
> talking about Obiang's own crimes. Macias was then sentenced and shot.
> When Equatorial Guinea was on the brink of becoming an oil rich nation in
> the mid-1990s, Obiang promised that it would be the Kuwait of Africa. Few
> would call it that today.
> Obiang has decreed the management of petroleum revenues to be a state
> secret so it is not known exactly where the billions of dollars in annual
> revenue goes, except that it does not go to the people.
> A US Senate inquiry found that Obiang had $700m deposited with one US bank
> alone.
> *Four years ago one of his sons, Teodorin, paid $35m for an eight-bedroom
> mansion*, designer golf course and sprawling gardens over 6.4 hectares (16
> acres) in Malibu, California, near the house of Britney Spears even though
> he is officially listed as earning just £3,000 a month as a minister in his
> father's government. It was the latest addition to an array of properties
> and expensive cars acquired by Obiang junior.
> Equatorial Guinea state radio has declared Obiang to be a god who is "in
> permanent contact with the almighty" and can "kill anyone without being
> called to account".
>         *        guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
>
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To
> unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web
> interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
>
> To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
> http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the
> List Management, please send an e-mail to:
> [log in to unmask]¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>


¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤