A couple of recent diaries, including
this one by jedinecny, noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's appearance with Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo at a press briefing on April 12, 2006 where she called him "a good friend."
The very next day, April 13, 2006, in the "U.S. Pledge on Human Rights Council Membership" Secretary Rice's said "The United States remains committed to supporting the United Nations' historic mission to promote and protect the human rights of all the world's citizens." That pledge also included a list of "human rights and fundamental freedoms" we support including... (more after the jump)
The right to choose their representatives through regular, free and fair elections based on secret balloting; a pluralistic system of political parties; freedom of expression, opinion, thought, conscience and religion; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention; freedom from torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment; a competent, independent and impartial judiciary; government institutions that are transparent, participatory and fully accountable to the citizenry, including civilian control over the military; a free civil society; and an active and independent media.
How many of these rights are enjoyed by citizens in our "good friend's" Equatorial Guinea?
The State Department's March, 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices addressed most of those criteria and noted, in part, the abridgement of citizens' right to change their government; severe restrictions on freedom of speech; restrictions on the rights of assembly, association, and movement; arbitrary arrest, detention, and incommunicado detention; security force torture, beating, and other physical abuse of prisoners and detainees; judicial corruption and lack of due process; government corruption; restrictions on the right of privacy; severe restrictions on freedom of the press.
So, to the extent that the centralizing military decision making with a dictator is civilian control of the military, is sounds like they meet one of the criteria
Maybe one is enough when a country sits on 1.28 billion barrels of oil with several U.S. Oil companies including Chevron, Vanco Energy, Atlas Petroleum International, and Devon Energy, all having interests in one or more exploration blocks.
It is old news that Chevron named a tanker after Condi Rice, but there may be some other connections with the smaller companies worth looking at. Vanco Energy President Gene Van Dyke is major DeLay contributor... maybe there is something here?