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afrol.com, 23 October - This month, it is one year ago that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) decided to pull out of Equatorial Guinea due to the widespread corruption. In the light of this "anniversary", afrol.com had interviewed Mar Padilla, the head of MSF's abandoned operations in the country, and David Querol, ex-coordinator for Equatorial Guinea. Both operate from MSF's Barcelona office (Spain). Such a decision, to abandon all its operations in a country, has only been taken very few times by MSF, and the cause of the decision was that "the actual health authorities of the country systematically breached the agreements reached, which had guaranteed the independence of action of Mèdecins sans Frontières and the control of the aid, which are the basic premises for humanitarian action." - What happened with the aid resources and who took control of it? - There are two clear examples. When some resolute functionaries from the Ministry of Health understood that the medical centre La Libertad was a sustainable project, well administrated and showed up benefices, they started to pressure us to get hand on the human resource and financial administration of it. Further, the organisation had to leave the country for some months in the year 1994. When we came back, we found that the cars and the pharmacy products had been taken by some of the functionaries from the Ministry of Health. The conclusion is that the Government seems to take advantage of the health projects that are realized by Equatorial Guinean and an independent organisation, project that are costly when it comes to endavour, time and money. - The medical centre La Libertad ended up in Government hands. Do you have any information about how it operates now and who runs it? - The reports we have are a bit confusing, but it seems that the medical and paramedical equipment and the cars that were used in the centre have become property of some health functionaries. - Turning to the other organisations that worked in Equatorial Guinea, did they approve of your decision to leave, or were you criticized for that decision? - One has to remember that, when MSF decided to stop working in the country until minimum requirements of independence and liberty were met, the projects were closed down. There then was a discussion whether it would be appropriate to start other projects in a country where the government paralyzes whatever initiative. One of the last projects the organisation tried to start in the country was about medical education. The viability study was done jointly with Education Without Borders, and like us, they were in touch with the Equatorial Guinean reality. - When you were leaving the country, how did you evaluate the work MSF had been doing in Equatorial Guinea since 1989? Were there accomplished changes, or had all the efforts been useless? - Equatorial Guinea is a very small country, with a population that does not even reach 500.000 inhabitants, so that the implementation of health projects do have an important repercussion in such a context. One has to remember that we were working together with an educated Equatorial Guinean personnel and we implemented education programmes about nursing and correct economic management. But the capacity of the personnel does not have too much effect when it is not accompanied with a correct management of infrastructure and materials. A health service cannot function if the Government, and in this special case, the Ministry of Health, doesn't have good intentions. - Did you at any moment receive threats from anyone? - Without going thoroughly into that, during the election preparations in spring 1999, almost all the colleagues of the Spanish colony were advised that there could be certain actions against them. And from then on, the continuous bureaucratic shackles, which from time to time had a Kafka-like character, is a blurred way of threats, but enough to suffocate the effort and the motivation. - How is the present health situation in Equatorial Guinea? Is it all in the hands of the Government, or are there other organisations working? - It is a year since MSF left Equatorial Guinea due to the obstacles to our work, and therefore we are not up to date with the present situation. It is, however, easy to imagine that nothing has changed, with the exception that there is one organisation less to testify about the situation of the population at the mercy of the corruption of those, who in theory, are supposed to represent them. - Are you considering to return, knowing that the Equatorial Guinean population is in need of your aid? - The organisation can return in the moment that some minimum requirements of independence and liberty in the development of health projects are met. However, one has to consider the fast economic changes in the country, for instance the incomes generated by the petroleum, and ask oneself if the Government of Obiang finally is in a position to guarantee an acceptable standard of living for his population. In your report from 1999, (Equatorial Guinea: The impossible humanitarian space) you state that you want to embark on a campaign in Europe, denouncing the situation of injustice in Equatorial Guinea and demanding that the Spanish Government make public their treaty of cooperation with the country. - How has this campaign been running? Have you received any feedback from any governments? - After an intense lobby campaign, we have achieved that the document was made public, and, from this moment, open to discussion, comparison and, most important, to improvements. We talked with representatives of the Spanish Government, and they let our organisation play an active part in the modification of the document. Evidently, it is not the work of an organisation to elaborate a Convention of Cooperation, but it is within its mandate to underline and remind of what is acceptable with the legislation of the European Union and the Spanish Government. And those are the key issues: If you want aid, the counter-weight should be good governance and respect for human rights. - Being direct witnesses to how the regime of Equatorial Guinea work, and following the development of the country - do you have the impression that there have been improvements lately? - The discovery of a large quantity of crude oil and the investments of oil companies in the country seem to coincide suspiciously with the rehabilitation of the figure of Obiang on an international level. It seems like the regime stays on its course, and now, the President seems to have a bettered image. This, of course, is not an improvement.
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