E/CN.4/1503
Annex I page 2
thought capable
1971
Ex-
8.
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and the island of Fernando Po (renamed Macias Nguema) were terrorized by members of the Macias
the Macias youth militia. members of the government and intellectuals thought of forming an opposition movement continued to be persecuted, some of them killed, especially members of the Bubi ethnic group whom Macias had deprived of all participation in govern- ment in favour of his own ethnic group, the Fang. Ex-political prisoners testified to brutality in prisons which included frequent beatings, often perpetrated by prisoners in the criminal category at the behest of the prison authorities, and to numerous deaths in the prisons arising from such beatings. With the suppression of the rule of law, it was difficult to distinguish between judicial executions and murders.
5. The political conditions and President Macias' inability to maintain normal relations with developed nations which might otherwise have rendered assistance virtually paralyzed all economic development in Equatorial Guinea. Equally, the exodus of its citizens robbed the country of much of its
manpower.
6.
Those who left numbered at least 100 000, and Amnesty International has suggested, on the basis of various reports, that as many as 150 000 may actually have fled - which would be almost half of the population of the country. Equatorial Guineans arrived in Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria and Europe (especially Spain). Neither Cameroon nor Nigeria requested
international assistance, but in Gabon, UNHCR, at the request of the Government, provided emergency relief based on official estimate of 60 000 rural refugees.
Additional assistance was provided in the urban areas.
7. The change in régime in August 1979 and the proclamation of a General Amnesty in October of the same year enabled the majority of the refugees to return home. The deposed President and ten others were accused of genocide, mass murder and the systematic violation of human rights. Macias was executed. In November 1979, a Special Rapporteur appointed in March 1979 by the UN Commission on Human Rights visited Equatorial Guinea to study the human rights situation. Although he had been appointed while President Macias was still in power,
power, he invited by the new government to see that the situation had improved, and submitted his report to the thirty-seventh session of the Commission (document E/CN.4/1439 of 19 December 1980).
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