Pope Leo denounces ‘colonisation’ of minerals on final leg of Africa tour
The pontiff warns that a global lust for profit ‘kills’ as he meets with a government accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism
Pope Leo on Tuesday used the fourth and final leg of his Africa tour in Equatorial Guinea to denounce the “colonisation” of Africa’s minerals and the “lust for power” in a country whose president has been in office since 1979.
Adoring crowds in the largely Catholic country lined the road from the airport into the administrative capital, Malabo, cheering the first pope to visit since St John Paul II in 1982. Wearing his formal red mozzetta cape, Leo thrilled the flag-waving masses by arriving at the presidential palace in his open-sided Popemobile.
“There is a lot of joy today because we waited 44 years for the pope to come,” said Diosdado Marques, a senior Catholic official in the country. “It’s a blessing for the country. We hope many things will change and we will deepen our faith.”
The former Spanish colony on Africa’s western coast is run by the continent’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism.
The discovery of offshore oil in the mid-1990s transformed Equatorial Guinea’s economy virtually overnight, with oil now accounting for almost half of its GDP and more than 90 per cent of exports, according to the African Development Bank.
Yet more than half of the country’s nearly 2 million people live in poverty. And rights groups including Human Rights Watch – as well as court cases in France and Spain – have documented how revenues have enriched the ruling Obiang family rather than the broader population.