More Equatorial Guinea executions

President Francisco Macias Nguema, whose regime has crushed the Church in Equatorial Ciuinea during its 11-year rule, has recently executed the leaders of a coup against him, Exiles from the West African state see the President's position weakened despite the coup's failure, as it involved members of the National Guard which had always before been loyal to the dictator.
Amnesty International, the independent human rights watchdog, has called Equatorial Guinea "an immense torture centre". More than 150,000 out of a population of 400,000 have fled the country since the regime took over in 1968.
Thousands have been imprisoned and the plantations on the island of Fernando Po have been worked by slave labour since 1976.
The country was 80 per cent Catholic in 1968, but after expulsions of bishops and priests only 20 native priests are reported to survive. Churches have been turned into warehouses.
According to Amnesty, President Macias Nguema has used the opportunity of Christian festivals to order summary executions and atrocities. At Christmas 1970, prisoners were killed at several prisons and at Bata prison on Corpus Christi, 1971, prisoners were taken out of the town and executed.
The church was finally banned in 1978 and at least four native priests were detained without trial at Bata prison where conditions are harsh and brutal torture has been reported., They were apparently imprisoned for performing baptism.
When the exiled bishop, Raphael Nze Ahuy, criticised the regime, his family and relatives remaining in Guinea were harassed and several imprisoned without trial.
The unsuccessful coup is the latest of several, the first being only five months after President Macias Nguema took over.
An Amnesty spokesman said: "Although much publicity has rightly been given to the violation of human rights in Uganda and other African countries, very little is given to Equatorial Guinea which has the most repressive regime of them all."