[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 139 (Thursday, October 27, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               LOBBYISTS REPRESENTING REPRESSIVE REGIMES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 26, 2005

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Congressional Record an 
article from Harper's Magazine titled ``Spin Doctors without borders: 
how one Washington lobbyist administers to dictatorships.''
  Robert Cabelly, managing director of C/R International, was recently 
hired to represent the Government of Sudan. As disturbing as this is, 
the Harper's article below reveals the lengths that lobbyists will go 
to represent some of Africa's most repressive regimes.
  The U.S. Congress has not forgotten that genocide is still taking 
place in Sudan. The administration should not allow an American citizen 
to represent a government guilty of genocide. I call on the State 
Department to immediately revoke the waiver allowing this lobbying to 
continue.

                 [From Harper's Magazine, Mar. 1, 2004]

 Spin Doctors Without Borders: How One Washington Lobbyist Administers 
                            to Dictatorship

                          (By Elisabeth Eaves)

       Lobbyists in Washington, D.C., don't just serve such U.S. 
     interests as the oil industry and the tobacco corporations; 
     they also solicit work from foreign governments. In an 
     extreme, though not uncommon scenario, Americans, many of 
     them former diplomats and public servants, make their 
     fortunes by advancing the interests of dictatorships against 
     those of their own nation. Take Robert Cabelly, managing 
     director of the lobbying and P.R. from C/R International, who 
     last August signed a contract with the small African nation 
     of Equatorial Guinea. Cabelly has every reason to expect that 
     he will succeed in preventing any sanctions the U.S. Congress 
     might wish to impose on Equatorial Guinea and in other ways 
     shaping American policy to the liking of this repressive 
     regime.
       Equatorial Guinea, governed by President Teodoro Obiang 
     Nguema Mbasogo, might seem like a public-relations problem. 
     In 2002 more than 150 of the president's political opponents 
     were arrested for allegedly plotting a coup. Blindfolded for 
     long periods, some of the prisoners were hung in positions 
     designed to break their bones, and at least two died. A 
     democracy only in name (the president ``won'' 97 percent of 
     the vote in 2002), Equatorial Guinea did little to improve 
     its human-rights record in 2003, during which a journalist 
     was detained for reporting rumors of a coup, an outspoken 
     pastor was arrested without charges, and an opposition-party 
     member was moved to solitary confinement, chained to a wall, 
     and denied badly needed medical care. But Washington, as well 
     as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, now has an interest in trade 
     with Equatorial Guinea: oil was discovered offshore there in 
     1995, making it the third largest petroleum producer in 
     Africa.
       Cabelly's firm, C/R International, may have won its 
     contract with Equatorial Guinea because of its service to 
     African nations with even more oil. In 1995, after Sani 
     Abacba, then dictator of Nigeria, executed nine prominent 
     political activists, members of the U.S. House and Senate 
     introduced bills laying the groundwork for an international 
     oil embargo. Africa's top oil producer fought back by hiring 
     nine U.S. lobbying and P.R. firms, including C/R (to which 
     Base Petroleum, owned by Abachals son, paid an estimated $1 
     million). The bills died, and only trifling penalties against 
     the regime--limiting sales of military equipment and 
     restricting visas for senior officials--were enacted. From 
     1996 to 2002, C/R received $6 million from Angola. In 2001 
     the United States gave Angola $2.8 million in military 
     assistance, a marked increase from $0 in the previous three 
     years and a total of $200,000 between 1962 and 1997. While C/
     R served Angola, the government's troops beat and raped 
     civilians, and killed suspected rebel sympathizers.
       Because of its sudden oil wealth, Equatorial Guinea has the 
     world's fastest-growing economy, but the nation qualifies as 
     ``stable'' only in that President Obiang has ruled since 
     1979, when he overthrew and executed his even more despotic 
     uncle. While most of its citizens earn about $1 a day, 
     President Obiang neglects infrastructure and misappropriates 
     oil revenue in favor of lavish personal expenditures. (He 
     recently paid $2.6 million in cash for a mansion near 
     Washington, D.C.) As the United States tries to reduce its 
     dependence on the Middle East, African oil has taken on 
     greater geopolitical significance. Because of work by C/R and 
     others, Washington will likely continue to ignore the fact 
     that Africa's oil producers are ruled by dictatorships 
     that continually violate human rights.
       For Cabelly, daily contact with U.S. officials includes 
     talking to old colleagues from his years at the State, 
     Department, where he helped to negotiate the 1994 peace 
     agreement between Angola and its UNITA rebels. Many lobbyists 
     have worked previously in public service: in 1997, Burma 
     hired Jefferson Waterman International, a firm run by former 
     assistant secretary of state far international narcotics Ann 
     Wrobleski in an unsuccessful attempt to end U.S. trade 
     sanctions. (Since 1997, Burma has been one of the top two 
     producers of opium in the world.) With his connections, 
     Cabelly may urge the Bush Administration to grant Equatorial 
     Guinea preferential trade status and will likely lobby the 
     State Department to issue MPRI, a Virginia-based military 
     contractor, the license it has been seeking to train the 
     Equatoguinean military. His work for the country began on a 
     promising note: in October, two months after the deal between 
     Equatorial Guinea and C/R, the U.S. embassy in Malabo 
     reopened after being shuttered far eight years.
       C/R's fee of $300,000 is a small price to pay far favorable 
     U.S. policy. In 2002, payments to the lobbyists and P.R. 
     firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act--a 
     total of $408 million--covered a range of projects, from 
     touting Caribbean beaches to urging the removal of sanctions 
     against pariah nations. Oil-industry insiders and excited 
     energy experts have nicknamed Equatorial Guinea ``the Kuwait 
     of Africa'' for its tiny population (500,000) and its vast 
     oil reserves (1.1 billion barrels). Perhaps Cabelly will be 
     so successful as to further the parallel. In 1990 and 1991, 
     Citizens for a Free Kuwait, funded by the emir's government, 
     paid Hill & Knowlton a record $10.8 million over six months 
     to create a media and lobbying campaign widely credited with 
     convincing the U.S. public that its soldiers should defend 
     the tiny, distant monarchy. As long as the dictatorship in 
     Equatorial Guinea finds lobbyists to take its oil money, it 
     has every reason to expect preferential trade policies, if 
     not, one day, U.S. troops to defend it.

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