Early rule by the then Spanish minister
Manuel Fraga together with the new Equatorial Guinean president Macías Nguema on 12 October 1968 After assuming power, Macías Nguema initially maintained a moderate policy and good relations with Spain, but within a year began to hold inflammatory, anti-European speeches and claimed that there were plots to overthrow him. His rival Bonifacio Ondó Edú then fled to Gabon. Relations with Spanish Deputy Prime Minister
Luis Carrero Blanco had rapidly deteriorated. The coffers of the only two banks in the new country, the Banco Exterior de España and the Banco de Crédito, were emptied, meaning officials could not be paid. The country still lacked a national bank or its own currency, meaning the
Spanish peseta had to be used, and according to the transition agreements with Spain, any biennial budgets approved for the territory prior to independence would need to be used, but Spain refused to honor its obligations. In March 1969, Macías Nguema arrested his own foreign minister and political rival,
Atanasio Ndongo Miyone, on treason charges, and killed him by
defenestrating him. Macías then took photographs of Ndongo dying on the street, later showing the album to
Newsweek correspondent John Barnes. Ondó Edú was also captured and brought back to Equatorial Guinea, where he and several other senior officials were killed at
Black Beach. Macías Nguema then accused Spain of creating an economic blockade by refusing to acknowledge obligations under the transition agreements, declaring he would not abide by the 1968 Constitution that had been "imposed" on the country by Spain and which he opposed. also ordering the confiscation of all weapons possessed by Spaniards in the country and demanding they abandon all property they owned there. The Spanish government subsequently organized the evacuation of all its citizens (roughly 7,500) and all its
Civil Guard forces, while the British ambassador described the Equatoguinean capital as being in a state of total chaos. At this point, Macías Nguema still recognized his own mental instability, and again sought help. After assuming the presidency, he made a secret trip to
Barcelona and visited a
psychiatrist for help. Although little was known about what advice the Spanish expert gave Macías Nguema, Kenyon argued that the treatment appeared to have failed, considering the president's subsequent development. Macías Nguema persisted in consuming large amounts of drugs. On
Christmas Eve 1969, Macías Nguema had 186 alleged
dissidents executed inside
the national football stadium in Malabo, as amplifiers in the stadium played
Mary Hopkin's song "
Those Were the Days", 150 of them were shot or hanged, with the remaining 36 being ordered to dig ditches, in which they were subsequently buried up to their necks and eaten alive by
red ants over the next few days. In 1971, he began forcing the entire population to undergo daily military training with a wooden rifle. On 7 May 1971, Macías Nguema issued Decree 415, which repealed parts of the 1968 Constitution and granted him "all direct powers of Government and Institutions", including powers formerly held by the legislative and judiciary branches, as well as the cabinet of ministers. On 18 October 1971, Law 1 imposed the death penalty as punishment for threatening the President or the government. Insulting or offending the President or his cabinet was punishable by 30 years in prison. On 14 July 1972, a presidential decree merged all existing political parties into the
United National Party (later the United National Workers' Party Fearing that the Spanish wanted to overthrow him, Macías Nguema offered promotions and other rewards to anyone who revealed a Spanish spy. This led to a climate of fear and suspicion, as owning the wrong book or having talked with the wrong person could result in punishment, imprisonment or death. Having turned against Spain, Macías Nguema allied with the
Eastern Bloc, enlisting support from the
Soviet Union,
Cuba, and
North Korea. He allowed the Soviets to channel weapons through Equatorial Guinea to the
MPLA in
Angola, while repeatedly threatening to terminate this alliance in order to blackmail the Eastern Bloc into providing him with money. Throughout the 1970s, Macías Nguema exploited the
Sino-Soviet split to play his backers against each other. The Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans provided Macías Nguema with military trainers and bodyguards. Soviet military assistance by 1975 amounted to small arms, eight patrol boats, twenty armored vehicles, and an
An-24 passenger aircraft, although the latter quickly fell into disrepair. By 1977, about 200 soldiers had been trained in the Eastern Bloc. China and Cuba also contributed large numbers of technical experts, although their contributions were more varied, a 1976 U.S. diplomatic cable reporting that the vast majority of Cuban experts worked in the fields of teaching, medicine, agriculture, and public works, mostly on the mainland. Macías Nguema reportedly viewed Chinese assistance in the most favorable light owing to the perceived lack of strings and the humble lifestyle of Chinese advisors and by 1974, only Spain exceeded China in aid contributions. In 1977, Macías Nguema took a trip to East Asia in hopes of shoring up support from China and North Korea in the face of increased Soviet and Cuban frustration. These relations sharply declined as increasing numbers of refugees from Rio Muni poured into Cameroon, many coming to be employed in Cameroonian industrial plantations, which Macías Nguema claimed was a form of exploitation of his nationals. Cameroon and Gabon in turn raised concerns about the growing Eastern Bloc presence, and by 1976, relations had collapsed. During the post-independence years, these tensions did not abate. Santa Isabel was then militarized, with its inhabitants harassed. Pagalu, part of Annobón, was cut off from aid during a 1973 cholera epidemic, resulting in around 100 deaths. or languages belonging to ethnic minorities.
Totalitarian dictatorship Growing paranoia and cult of personality In a
plebiscite held on 29 July 1973, the 1968 Constitution was replaced with
a new document that gave Macías Nguema absolute power and formally made his party the
only one legally permitted. According to official figures, 99 percent of voters approved the new document. The same year, a
United Nations mission was expelled from the country. Macías Nguema went on to establish a
totalitarian regime with three important pillars: the
United National Workers' Party, the Juventud en Marcha con Macías (JMM; ) militia/youth group, and the Esangui clan of
Río Muni. The country's instruments of repression (the military and presidential bodyguard) were entirely controlled by Macías Nguema's relatives and clan members. The JMM became increasingly powerful, and its members abused their powers, often drunkenly harassing and imprisoning individuals based on mere suspicions of sympathy for dissident ideas. The President mostly filled his inner circle with family members such as
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who was his nephew and served as military governor of Bioko and Vice-Minister of the Armed Forces. Macías Nguema developed an extreme
cult of personality, and assigned himself titles such as the "Unique Miracle" and "Grand Master of Education, Science, and Culture". The island of Fernando Pó had its name Africanised after him to Masie Ngueme Biyogo Island; upon his overthrow in 1979, its name was again changed to
Bioko. The capital, Santa Isabel, had its name changed to
Malabo. He was known to order entire villages destroyed just to eliminate one suspected dissident. His prisons, especially Black Beach, were notorious for human rights abuses. Prisoners were humiliated, starved, tortured, and murdered without
due process. When there was a trial at all, dissidents faced
kangaroo courts organized by the JMM militia, as almost all judges in the country fled or were jailed during Macías Nguema's rule. In one of these show trials in 1974, even the defence team of the accused requested a death sentence for their clients. Prisoners sentenced to death were usually beaten to death with wooden clubs. Female prisoners were also subjected to rape, often in front of their husbands. He
Africanized his name to "" in 1976 after demanding that the rest of the Equatoguinean population replace their Hispanic names with African names. He banned Western clothes, foods and medicines, stating that they were un-African, with Macías Nguema obtaining the little food available and reselling it at prices the vast majority of the population could not afford to punish those he thought did not want to work. As he also decided at what time the food would be resold, products would often be expired before they were offered to the public. Owning anything related to Christianity became a reason for imprisonment due to alleged support for anti-government plots or coup attempts. Following his repeated purges and unpredictable policies, the country's government began to fall apart. During Macías Nguema's rule, the country had neither a development plan nor an accounting system or budget for government funds. After the killing of the governor of the Central Bank, he carried everything that remained in the national treasury to his Mongomo villa. After 1973, his regime also suppressed private commercial activity, and due to a lack of exports meaning that the
Equatorial Guinean ekwele introduced in 1975, which had quickly lost nearly all value, could not be replaced. Only Macías Nguema, the army, and the police were able to receive a regular salary during this time, with others sometimes going months without getting paid, eventually leading to the economy regressing to a
subsistence barter system and government services shrinking to only cover internal security. Starting in 1976, Macías Nguema mandated that all children between the ages of 7 and 14 receive military training, and that any parent or person refusing would be imprisoned or shot. Other reporting, such as a 1979
Time magazine account stating that "perhaps 150,000" persons fled, suggests that the proportion of the population that sought safety in exile may have approached 70%, based on the World Bank's estimate of the population in 1979. By the end of his rule, nearly all of the country's educated class was either executed or forced into exile—a
brain drain from which the country has never recovered. Two-thirds of the legislature and 10 of his original ministers were also killed or had been disappeared. To prevent people from escaping, Macías Nguema had mines buried in the only road out of the country and ordered camouflaged ditches with spikes be constructed along the mainland border. In 1976, Nigeria evacuated 45,000 contract laborers from the country, citing "brutal ill treatment" by Macías Nguema's regime. In 1977, responding to falling
cocoa production (one of the country's main export items), the President instituted a "system of slavery".
World Council of Churches,
Amnesty International, and the
European Commission. By 1979, his servants stated that Macías Nguema had become increasingly withdrawn. He wandered in his villa, repeatedly saying the names of his victims, and worshipping a collection of heads as per Fang tradition, hoping that this would grant him power. Even more disturbing to the servants was one occasion when he ordered a meal and table to be prepared for eight guests. He then sat there alone, casually talking "with the dead". Members of Macías Nguema's inner circle and government officials became more and more worried about his erratic behavior. By that time, the government had mostly ceased to function, as most minister posts were vacant, officials were no longer paid, and the National Assembly was effectively defunct, while the JMM militia ran amok across Equatorial Guinea, drunkenly murdering civilians. The overcrowding of the prisons was solved through regular mass executions, though many prisoners were simply left to starve to death. Even the presidential guards were forced to survive by scavenging fruits and hunting wild animals, as supply had mostly collapsed. In mid-April 1979, Macías Nguema's wife travelled to
North Korea for surgery, taking with her their three younger children,
Monica, Maribel and Paco.
Overthrow , Macías Nguema's nephew and leader
of the coup against him By 1979, Macías Nguema's government had garnered condemnation from the
United Nations and
European Commission. That summer, Macías Nguema organised the execution of several members of his own family, leading several members of his inner circle to fear that he was no longer acting rationally. On 3 August 1979, he was overthrown by his nephew, Colonel Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, whose brother was among those murdered by the President. Obiang achieved his coup mostly with the help of his cousins with whom he had previously attended a Spanish military academy together and who now headed the military. As Macías Nguema was still at his palace, isolated from the rest of the country due to his fear of being overthrown, the coup met no organized opposition. The deposed ruler and a contingent of loyal forces initially tried to resist the coup upon hearing of it, but his forces eventually abandoned him. He fled into the jungle of Rio Muni, possibly intending to get across the border into exile, but was captured on 18 August. The former president was found by an old woman; he was exhausted and probably delirious, sitting beneath a tree and eating sugarcane. Obiang's troops proceeded to arrest him, and found his nearby car stuffed full of suitcases with $4 million in cash. It was believed that Macías Nguema had actually burned $100 million (much of Equatorial Guinea's cash reserves) before attempting to escape the country as revenge. When his wife heard of his overthrow, she returned to Equatorial Guinea to protect their eldest son. Monica, Maribel, and Paco remained behind for their own safety, and consequently lived in North Korea for the remainder of their childhood. Monica stated that Kim Il Sung honored his friendship to Macías Nguema by acting as their guardian and financing their education. ==Trial and execution==