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afrol.com, 24 November - The Equatorial Guinean opposition party Unión para la Democracia y el Desarrollo Social de Guinea Ecuatorial (UDDS) this week asked the UN, US, France and Spain for help in establishing, within short, a negotiation channel between President Teodoro Obiang and the opposition. UDDS leader Aquilino Nguema Ona Nchama in Madrid asked for the establishment of an international conference, held in a third country, and under the patronage of an international monitoring committee, constituted by the UN and the mentioned countries, all strongly involved in Equatorial Guinea. Aquilino Nchama believes the moment has come for the international community intervenes to resolve and shorten the suffering of the Equatorial Guinean people and permit a peaceful transition into democracy, where all Equatorial Guineans may participate. In a statement, the UDDS claims that such an intervention would be more than justified after the "failure to accomplish the recommendations of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea since 1979, and the systematic violation of all accords and pacts signed with the opposition by the regime of General Obiang Nguema since the withering democratisation process our country lives through since its start in 1992." According to the UDDS, "the United Nations, Spain, France and the United States, being the main donors and economic operators in our country, will bear the main guilt if violence should break out in our country for not having contributed sufficiently and with pressure to the implementation of a peaceful and responsible democratisation process in Equatorial Guinea, while knowing exactly what is going on and being the only ones who could and can influence the situation in a positive way." The UDDS opposition also hails Gustavo Gallón, the Special Representative of the UN on Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea, "for the commendable initiative to receive all the politicians of the exiled opposition to gain information about the human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea," and asked him to do anything possible to "materialise these negotiations, which he opposition wants with the Guinean President." Gallón left for Madrid on Monday to interview several opposition leaders exiled in Spain. The visit comes on the background that Equatorial Guinean authorities refused Gallón entry to the country for his elaboration of the annual UN reports about the human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea. Gallón will get detailed information in Spain. The Secretary-General of the UDDS himself, Aquilino Nguema Ona Nchama, until recently experienced the human rights abuses of the Equatorial Guinean authorities on his own body. According to information given afrol.com by La Diáspora, Nchama was exposed to an abduction, "headed by the Equatorial Guinean Deputy Minister of Health, Tomás Mecheba Fernández, supported by agents of the political police force CEDOC of neighbouring Gabon. Nchama was held captive for two days by the CEDOC, but liberated due to the media headlines following the case, leading to a mobilisation of the Gabonese opposition and the following intervention of the Spanish Embassy in Libreville. La Diáspora also reports about a similar case of "governmental terrorism" which took place in the same countries in November 1997. The leaders of the forbidden opposition party Fuerza Demócrata Republicana (FDR), Felipe Ondó Obiang and Guillermo Nguema Elá, were abducted in Gabon and taken to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in the private airplane of President Obiang, after the payment of one million US$ to Gabonese authorities. These two politicians and Aquilino Nguema Oná Nchama had the status of political refugees, recognised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Nchama served as Director of the Spanish college for exiled Equatorial Guinean children when he himself was abducted. Sources: Based on La Diáspora and UDDS
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