Let me introduce you to Condi's good friend

Douglas Farah has an article in WaPo called African Pillagers which sheds some light on type of the despicable characters that the Bush administraction is making cozy with. Such hypocrites! Pretending to care about that sacred God-given right to freedom and democracy... I could puke!

But when the Bush administration speaks of spreading democracy around the world, these petty and cruel tyrants, who make Saddam Hussein seem tolerant, are not condemned. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just days ago called Obiang a "good friend" while being photographed beaming at his side during his visit to her office. This is the same Obiang whose regime her own department routinely denounces for its macabre brutality.

[...]

One of the richest and most repressive of this group is Obiang [Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea], since 1979 the ruler of the only Spanish-speaking nation in Africa. In 2004 Riggs Bank admitted criminal liability for illegally taking Obiang's illegal proceeds. In the late 1990s, according to a 2004 report by the Senate's subcommittee on investigations, Obiang and his cronies had at least $700 million in Riggs, making Equatorial Guinea the bank's single largest depositor. At the same time, his country's inhabitants were wallowing near the bottom of almost every global index of health, literacy and life expectancy.

[...]

He survives in part because his tiny country pumps 350,000 barrels of oil a day and has reserves of 1.2 billion barrels, along with 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. As a result, oil companies and governments are willing to support a regime that has long since silenced the press, driven almost a third of its population of 540,000 into exile and crushed any hint of dissent.