[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 1, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12067-S12068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ANTI-KLEPTOCRACY

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on November 16, 2009, the New York Times 
published an article entitled ``A U.S. Visa, Shouts of Corruption, 
Barrels of Oil,'' that describes corruption in Equatorial Guinea, which 
is a major oil producing country. Specifically, the article highlights 
the comings and goings of Teodoro Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea's 
President, who is also the country's agriculture minister.
  Mr. Obiang has been a regular traveler to southern California, where 
he owns an estate reportedly worth some $35 million. He also, according 
to the article, owns a private jet and various luxury automobiles.
  How, one might ask, did he acquire such extraordinary wealth, in a 
country where many children die before the age of 5? Perhaps he is an 
exceptionally talented businessman, as Equatorial Guinea's Washington 
lobbyists have suggested, who, when he isn't running the agriculture 
ministry on a modest government salary, is earning huge profits that 
can be legitimately explained. It is fair to say that at least, and 
probably more, likely is that he has used his family connections to 
steer a portion of the country's oil revenues into his own pockets.
  Mr. Obiang's case is not unique. To the contrary, it is a common 
practice in countries where the extraction of natural resources--
whether oil, gas, timber, or minerals--is the primary source of income. 
From Angola to Kazakhstan, government officials and their families have 
abused their power and influence to enrich themselves by siphoning off 
a portion of the proceeds of the revenues from concessions and leases 
for the extraction of natural resources, and from the sale of the crude 
oil or raw timber or minerals.
  Billions of dollars that could otherwise have been used to meet the 
basic needs of the people in these countries--health and education--
have instead gone into foreign bank accounts, including in the United 
States. The beneficiaries have enjoyed lives of comfort and privilege, 
while their people live in squalor.
  The land where oil is drilled, or where gold, cobalt, columbite-
tantalite, and other valuable minerals are mined, or where the forest 
is cut down, is often left in ruins. Soil and water poisoned by oil 
spills and other toxic chemicals, and drought from deforestation, is 
left for those who have nowhere else to live, and for future 
generations.
  It is often also the revenues from the exploitation of natural 
resources that fund the purchase of weapons that fuel civil wars over 
control of those same resources in these counties. The protracted 
conflict in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 
where thousands of civilians, and particularly women and girls, have 
been brutalized, is a prime example.
  Those who have protested this type of corruption, environmental 
destruction and waste, and exposed the theft by government officials of 
income from natural resources that is rightfully owed to the people of 
these countries, have often been harassed, arrested, tortured, and even 
killed. I remember Ken Saro-Wiwa, who courageously led peaceful 
protests against the environmental devastation caused by oil spills and 
gas flaring in Nigeria's delta region. He was ultimately hanged, 
despite last minute appeals from people around the world, by the 
corrupt and cruel dictator Sani Abacha. That was in 1995, but the 
corruption, waste, and abuses continue today in countries where too 
often the rule of law does not apply to those in power.
  In 2004, President Bush issued Presidential Proclamation 7750, which 
suspended entry to the U.S. of current and former public officials 
whose corrupt acts have or had serious adverse effects on the national 
interests of the United States.
  In 2007, I included a similar but more targeted provision in the 
State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, currently section 7086 
of Public

[[Page S12068]]

Law 111-8, which requires the Secretary of State to deny admission to 
the United States to any foreign government official and their 
immediate family members who the Secretary has credible evidence have 
been involved in corruption related to the extraction of natural 
resources.
  The purpose of the law is clear: If you, as a government official or 
a member of your immediate family, are involved in the corrupt 
exploitation of natural resources, you are not welcome in the United 
States.
  Unfortunately, despite, I believe, well-intentioned people at the 
State Department who support the goals of the law, it has not been 
applied as vigorously as it could and should be.
  They do not have the resources to conduct their own investigations, 
so they rely on other agencies like the Departments of Justice and 
Homeland Security, which do not always share information and have their 
own standards of proof. The fact that someone like Mr. Obiang is 
traveling freely to and from the United States, I believe makes a 
mockery of the law.
  This is not a partisan issue. Senators of both parties have spoken 
out about the corrosive effects of corruption. We saw the effects of it 
in our own assistance program in Iraq, where no-bid contracts and lax 
oversight resulted in enormous fraud and waste of taxpayer funds, and 
we are witnessing the effects of rampant corruption in the Afghan 
Government.
  It is overdue for the State Department to apply section 7086 with the 
vigor that Congress intended. It is about promoting good governance, 
the rule of law, the sustainable use of natural resources, and stopping 
the squandering of revenues from the extraction of those resources that 
are urgently needed to help reduce poverty. It is time to apply the law 
in a manner that resonates far and wide in support of each of those 
goals.

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