Hope for Obiang, but Not Equatorial Guinea

Beginning next week on August 20 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea the world’s longest-ruling non-royal—Teodoro Obiang Nguema—will host a “human rights” summit. It is being organized by a US-based charity, the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, which is headed by Hope Sullivan Masters and includes president Bill Clinton as co-chairman of the board and former UN Ambassador Andrew Young as its other co-chairman. The effort is part of Obiang’s systematic effort to whitewash his repressive regime and sweep 33 years of dictatorship and 44 years of human rights violations, under the rug as his government continues to amass oil wealth.