Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Freed from prison after more than two years. Were two
Speaker 2: South African oil workers ponds in a diplomatic row between
Speaker 2: their country and Equatorial Guinea.
Speaker 3: The moment when I saw the race war and basically
Speaker 3: who without two names on it, I realized that this
Speaker 3: is something serious.
Speaker 2: With many international companies invested in the country, some are
Speaker 2: now asking how safe it is to do business in
Speaker 2: opek's smallest member state.
Speaker 4: You get one side, you get the people that's genuinely honest,
Speaker 4: open people, that's the people on the ground, and on
Speaker 4: the other side, you get the people that's in control
Speaker 4: that's totally opposite. You learn a lot through a thing
Speaker 4: like this that's happened to me and Peter.
Speaker 2: On this week's Next Africa Podcast, the oil workers speak
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg about that incident. I'm Jennifer Zabastaja and this
Speaker 2: is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each
Speaker 2: week from the continent driving the future of global growth
Speaker 2: with the context only Bloomberg can provide.
Speaker 5: And joining me.
Speaker 2: To discuss this today is Bloomberg reporter Paul Burkhart. He's
Speaker 2: been following the story for some time now and actually
Speaker 2: was able to interview Peter Huxhem and Frick Pottgeiter.
Speaker 5: Paul, thanks so much for being here. You know, I
Speaker 5: don't think.
Speaker 2: We've been able to cover a story like this on
Speaker 2: the podcast yet, so thanks for bringing it to us.
Speaker 5: So let's start from the.
Speaker 2: Beginning, maybe, and if you can give us a bit
Speaker 2: of background on this case and talk to us about
Speaker 2: Equatorial Guinea and the companies that we're investing in the country,
Speaker 2: I believe that's a good place to start.
Speaker 6: In the nineties, Mobile made a huge discovery in Equatorial Guiney,
Speaker 6: so the Atlantic coast of the African continent and was
Speaker 6: kind of in the middle, and then production in increased
Speaker 6: from there. Gatorial Guinea became a member of OPEK, and
Speaker 6: it really because of this oil wealth just enabled the
Speaker 6: kind of the ruling family. Their Exxon became the backbone
Speaker 6: of production. But the other US companies have also joined,
Speaker 6: and other Western oil producers have joined. And the workers
Speaker 6: typically live in gated communities or on the platforms and
Speaker 6: then just kind of rotate out, but they're largely kind
Speaker 6: of separate from the rest of the country.
Speaker 2: And so then, Paul, how did these two oil workers
Speaker 2: find themselves arrested. Take us through that story.
Speaker 6: So they were really just on their way back from
Speaker 6: a stint of working on the platforms.
Speaker 1: The engineers.
Speaker 6: They were working on these oil platforms and expecting to
Speaker 6: take a flight the next day. It's staying on this
Speaker 6: island where they would bore their flight when they were arrested,
Speaker 6: charged with drug trafficking. It was very discombobulating situation and
Speaker 6: just like in the dark most of the times of
Speaker 6: what was going on.
Speaker 1: So after they were released.
Speaker 6: And back in South Africa, I was able to talk
Speaker 6: to them and they told me about the moment that
Speaker 6: they realized things were going wrong.
Speaker 3: The moment they that I saw this is when I
Speaker 3: saw the restaurantant basically without two names on it. I
Speaker 3: realized that this is a this is something serious, and
Speaker 3: I immediately phoned my partner and I let her know.
Speaker 7: Phone my shore base manager.
Speaker 3: I let him know and at that stage my back
Speaker 3: to back, the guy that would replace me on the
Speaker 3: on the platform.
Speaker 7: He was also in the hotel, so I sent him
Speaker 7: a WhatsApp with.
Speaker 3: My partner's contact details, you know, so that if they
Speaker 3: were to confiscate my phone, he at least would be
Speaker 3: in country and maybe could provide her with some support.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean within ten minutes, I think our
Speaker 3: whole company.
Speaker 7: I also told her to notify our embassy.
Speaker 3: So I tried to get as many people aware of
Speaker 3: what was happening to me and where they were taking me.
Speaker 3: So I handed the phone to the driver of the
Speaker 3: police vehicle that was taking us to the police.
Speaker 7: I ended the phone phone to him so.
Speaker 3: That he could let my show base manager know where
Speaker 3: he's taking me. He was reluctant at first.
Speaker 4: But I insisted I didn't add any suspicion that this
Speaker 4: is going to turn out to the way he did.
Speaker 4: I thought, well, I was maybe a witness or something.
Speaker 4: But when I reached the police station, but there's a
Speaker 4: lot of people there waiting for us, a company, the lawyers,
Speaker 4: and people from the embassies, that's when you realized this
Speaker 4: is this thing is big, not a normal just a statement.
Speaker 4: And then you can go back to the hotel, and
Speaker 4: that's when the fear really hits you in the Then
Speaker 4: you start thinking, well, people disappear in Africa, and people
Speaker 4: disappear in these countries, and then you realize you're in
Speaker 4: a big, big mess.
Speaker 2: And so that's that's quite a story from them, a
Speaker 2: herrowing story. I wonder what they told you about what
Speaker 2: the conditions were like when they were in custody.
Speaker 5: How much detail did they get into it was, it's
Speaker 5: quite vivid.
Speaker 6: And they were first taken to Black Beach Jail, which
Speaker 6: is very like notorious just throughout Africa. And soon after
Speaker 6: that they were taken to the mainland, and the mainland
Speaker 6: that they were held in a facility that were usually
Speaker 6: political prisoners are kept.
Speaker 1: Here's Peter and Frick again.
Speaker 7: I don't know about Black Beach.
Speaker 4: I don't know any history of Black Beach. Well, the
Speaker 4: first thing that slakes you is the gods. They don't
Speaker 4: go inside the present itself. You get actually picked up
Speaker 4: by fellow prisoners, can call them the guardians or whatever,
Speaker 4: the rulers of the present, and then they take you
Speaker 4: through and they tell you the rules and the regulations
Speaker 4: or what's happening inside. Now everything's going to work out.
Speaker 4: That's a big fright are you getting in there? There's
Speaker 4: another I would say about two three hundred guys in
Speaker 4: there or looking at you strangely, and then you realize, hey,
Speaker 4: this is a real, real bad situation. You are in
Speaker 4: the place is not trying to be kept clean by
Speaker 4: the fellow prisoners. They sought out all the rules and
Speaker 4: regulations inside by themselves. We didn't see any abuse taken
Speaker 4: place verbally or physically on fellow prisoners or whatever. But yow,
Speaker 4: the circumstances inside is very bad. The food, the food
Speaker 4: that even the fellow prisoners they warn you don't eat
Speaker 4: the food because they don't even eat the food. That
Speaker 4: is how bad the food is inside.
Speaker 7: In the beginning, they put us down in this underground area.
Speaker 3: It's sort of it looks like a secret location because
Speaker 3: the entrance to it it looks like a servitude.
Speaker 7: There's pipes inside this cupboard and then you have to
Speaker 7: swing the whole closet out of the wall.
Speaker 3: And then it provides access to these stairs leading down.
Speaker 7: That's two flights leading down in that space.
Speaker 3: At the bottom, they are four cells they roughly two
Speaker 3: meters by two meters, including a toilet.
Speaker 7: I was in cell No.
Speaker 3: One and Frecusine number sell number four initially, so we
Speaker 3: were separated by two cells. We were only we were
Speaker 3: the only guys down there. For the first two weeks.
Speaker 3: We didn't see any daylight, so they kept us down
Speaker 3: there for two weeks and only after that did we
Speaker 3: get the opportunity to go out on a daily basis
Speaker 3: to get some fresh air exercise.
Speaker 2: So Paul, stick with us. When we come back, we'll
Speaker 2: talk about the role EG Vice President Tyo Doren played
Speaker 2: and their detention, and also the connection to South Africa
Speaker 2: in a bit more detail.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back. Welcome back. Today. We're hearing from
Speaker 5: the two oil.
Speaker 2: Workers back in South Africa after being pardoned and released
Speaker 2: from an Equatorial Guinea jail after more than two years
Speaker 2: in detention. Paul Burkhart is still with us. Paul, let's
Speaker 2: talk about the relationship between the vice president of Equatorial
Speaker 2: Guinea and South Africa. What happened in the run up
Speaker 2: to the workers arrest.
Speaker 6: So shortly before Peter and Frick were jailed, there was
Speaker 6: a yacht that's that was linked to the vice president
Speaker 6: that was seized here in Cape Town as part of
Speaker 6: the case that was won by a South African who
Speaker 6: was separately imprisoned earlier before these two men were and
Speaker 6: took it up, you know, in a court here and
Speaker 6: then won the case or one part of the case.
Speaker 6: And when that yacht was seized in the days after
Speaker 6: these two men in Equatorial Guinea were put in jail
Speaker 6: and fined and you know, and sentenced. And so the
Speaker 6: sources that we spoke to connected the jailing of Peter
Speaker 6: and Frick with the seizure of the yacht, and Teodorin
Speaker 6: has said that it belongs to the Ministry of Defense
Speaker 6: and it's since been released, but the link was there
Speaker 6: from the people that we spoke to, and that that
Speaker 6: was really kind of a cause and effect and it's
Speaker 6: one of the retaliatory measures that we're talking about, or
Speaker 6: it falls in line with some of this, you know,
Speaker 6: the trend that we had seen from earlier cases.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if Paul, you cover the energy industry
Speaker 2: very closely. I wonder back then what the reaction was
Speaker 2: to their arrest, if there was reaction within the oil
Speaker 2: industry or back home in South Africa for these men.
Speaker 6: I think there was some surprise because it did link
Speaker 6: directly to the oil industry. So usually there's that kind
Speaker 6: of operate in parallel. The oil industry is there, but
Speaker 6: it sort of lives in its own environment, so it
Speaker 6: was surprising.
Speaker 1: For a lot of people.
Speaker 6: But it's also such a sensitive nature and there's so
Speaker 6: much uncertainty as to what could happen politically in that country,
Speaker 6: that the oil companies don't really come out and make
Speaker 6: proclamations about what they think. They're quite sensitive and then
Speaker 6: and they're they're mainly concerned about you know, their operations
Speaker 6: and their staff there, and they're having discussions to deal
Speaker 6: with that. But but you know amongst themselves really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they probably have to be delicate about what all
Speaker 2: they can or can't say, which leads me to wondering
Speaker 2: how the discussions about their release then ended up happening.
Speaker 2: Do we know any sort of details about what went
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes potentially to negotiate their release.
Speaker 6: No, again, because of yeah, because of the sensitivity of it,
Speaker 6: we don't know exactly like what the engagements were. We
Speaker 6: do know that that South Africa, the you know, the
Speaker 6: South African government through the Foreign Ministry, had brought this up,
Speaker 6: that it was it was discussed both in Equatorial guint
Speaker 6: and in South Africa with officials. We know that the
Speaker 6: employer of the two Men Oil Services company sbm that
Speaker 6: they were involved in doing whatever they could to help out.
Speaker 6: And yeah, otherwise, another thing that happened was the United
Speaker 6: Nations Working Group on arbitrary detention, took an opinion on
Speaker 6: the case and found that the imprisonment of the two
Speaker 6: South Africans was in breach of multiple international human rights
Speaker 6: So whether that played a part in what led to
Speaker 6: the release.
Speaker 1: We just don't know. But there were a few things
Speaker 1: that happened.
Speaker 6: And again, all that time went by, so there might
Speaker 6: have been pressure building in one area or another.
Speaker 2: And you spent quite a bit of time speaking to
Speaker 2: these two men. What did Peter and Frick have to
Speaker 2: say about how this whole incident has left them feeling
Speaker 2: towards the country.
Speaker 6: It's kind of amazing because I think it was such
Speaker 6: an intense period of just isolation for both of them
Speaker 6: that they really had so much time to reflect and
Speaker 6: they want to move on, and they want to make
Speaker 6: up for the time that they lost with the people
Speaker 6: that they love.
Speaker 1: And they even you know.
Speaker 6: Had had things to say about the people they met
Speaker 6: in detention and and and really developed bonds with some
Speaker 6: of the people that they got to know there. So
Speaker 6: they wonder about them, and they wonder what's happened with
Speaker 6: their fair will be.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously there is a there is a degree
Speaker 3: of anger. You know, you have to you have to
Speaker 3: God against it overwhelming you. I tried to focus on
Speaker 3: healing and my own future, but these in the back
Speaker 3: of your mind, there's always the seed that injustice was
Speaker 3: was done upon you, and you know, you like for
Speaker 3: there to be some sort of acknowledgment of that. But
Speaker 3: I think at this stage of my life it's really
Speaker 3: really important that I live the rest of my life
Speaker 3: to the full and not to try and you know,
Speaker 3: use my time in in retribution.
Speaker 4: You still think about the people that's still stuck in
Speaker 4: that prison, and I don't think that will ever get
Speaker 4: out of your mind. And their answer actually tied. We
Speaker 4: tried to help those guys as well. That's still stuck there.
Speaker 4: So that's the ongoing bad dam. But except from that, okay,
Speaker 4: there's no ed retribution on nothing from my side.
Speaker 3: No, Equatorial is probably a country of two extremes.
Speaker 7: You know, we have really really good people that that
Speaker 7: took good care of.
Speaker 3: Us, and you know that were a great source of
Speaker 3: inspiration to us.
Speaker 7: You know that the people down on the ground. I
Speaker 7: think it's very easy.
Speaker 3: To generalize, you know, when you have when you have
Speaker 3: a place that maybe doesn't have a political system that
Speaker 3: we all agree with, you know, to feel that all
Speaker 3: the all the inhabitants of the country are guilty, and
Speaker 3: they're not. You know, they're really really good, warm people
Speaker 3: that we experience with that I experienced anyway, so.
Speaker 4: We may we made a lot of friends on that side,
Speaker 4: fellow prisoners, fellow wardens. And you get to one side
Speaker 4: to get the people that's genuinely honost open people, that's
Speaker 4: the people on the ground, and on the other side
Speaker 4: you get the people that's in control, that's totally opposite.
Speaker 4: You learn a lot through a thing like this that's
Speaker 4: happened to me and Peter.
Speaker 2: And are there lessons potentially to be learned from Equatorial
Speaker 2: Guinea and whether or not this could potentially happen again,
Speaker 2: or whether or not companies are now taking extra precautions
Speaker 2: to protect their own nationals who may be there for work.
Speaker 6: The hope is that this was an isolated incident. I
Speaker 6: think Frick had had mentioned that he didn't think it
Speaker 6: was going to happen again. The other thing is that
Speaker 6: Equatorial Guiney's oil production they're the smallest OPEC member based
Speaker 6: on output, right, so that's dropping because then they need
Speaker 6: to keep investment. So these types of incidents wouldn't encourage investments,
Speaker 6: and so they really need to do as much as
Speaker 6: they can to keep production going. But one aspect to
Speaker 6: watch will be when President Obion retires and if in
Speaker 6: fact the.
Speaker 2: Role will go to Tiodoran and so then Paul, what
Speaker 2: has Equatorial Guinea had to say about all of this?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, aside from the presidential pardon that not
Speaker 6: only include Peter and Frick, but a number of other prisoners,
Speaker 6: there wasn't anything directly that they said in response to
Speaker 6: our questions about you know, why this was happening during
Speaker 6: the detention or you know, what was the reason for it,
Speaker 6: or what they had to say about a link to Tiodoran.
Speaker 1: There wasn't much information from them.
Speaker 2: And you can read Paul's coverage of Equatorial Guinea and
Speaker 2: the energy sector across Bloomberg platforms. Now Here are some
Speaker 2: of the other stories from the region that we've been
Speaker 2: following this week. Kenya is in talks with to convert
Speaker 2: dollar denominated debt the East African nation, Owes its biggest
Speaker 2: bilateral lender to Yuwan and extend the repayment period. According
Speaker 2: to the Treasury Secretary John Body, the negotiations are aimed
Speaker 2: at helping reduce the one billion dollars Kenya spends annually
Speaker 2: on servicing its debt to China and to create more
Speaker 2: wiggle room in its budget. And an International Monetary Fund
Speaker 2: team was in Senegal this week to discuss concrete steps
Speaker 2: to address recent data issues and advance work toward presenting
Speaker 2: a misreporting case to the IMFs Executive Board.
Speaker 5: Investors are closely.
Speaker 2: Watching to see whether the West African nation will inch
Speaker 2: closer to securing new funding needed to stabilize its trained
Speaker 2: public finances, and you can follow these stories across Bloomberg,
Speaker 2: including the Next African Newsletter. Will put a link to
Speaker 2: that in the show notes. This program was produced by
Speaker 2: Adrian Bradley and Tiwa Adubai. Don't forget to follow and
Speaker 2: review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But
Speaker 2: for now, I'm Jennifer's Abistanja. Thanks as always for listening