LM Report 1999

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EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Equatorial Guinea was not an active participant in the Ottawa Process leading to the signing of the Mine Ban Treaty and did not attend the Ottawa signing ceremony in December 1997. But Equatorial Guinea acceded to the ban treaty on 16 September 1998. Accession is a one step process of consent to be bound, in essence combining signature and ratification. Pressure upon the government from U.N. agencies resulted in its accession. Equatorial Guinea has shown its support for an international mine ban by voting in favor of the 1996 and 1997 UN General Assembly resolutions on landmines.

Equatorial Guinea has not produced or exported landmines. Its armed forces are not thought to possess landmine stocks. The army is poorly trained and often lacking in even personal weapons. The small Moroccan detachment which assures the personal security of the president, Brigadier-General Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is also not thought to exercise landmine capability.^[1] Diplomatic and U.N. sources in the capitol, Malabo, are unaware of any mine action or injuries resulting from landmines on Equato-Guinean territory.^[2]

^[1]LM Researcher telephone interview, regional security analyst Antony Goldman, Economist Intelligence Unit, 25 March 1999.

^[2]LM Researcher telephone interviews, Malabo, 24-25 March 1999.

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