UNESCO and Equatorial Guinea

A brilliant idea from the UN

Why let only one despot endow and name a new prize when so many others deserve acclaim?

May 6th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

HE IS no cannibal, whatever the scurrilous Western press and exiled opponents say. No court has convicted him, or his family, of pocketing state funds, whatever the American Senate and NGOs allege. And he wins regular elections, as free and fair as many in central Africa. Anyone who doubts his people’s love need only note the admirable 95% support for him in a presidential poll last November.

So why fret over a decision by UNESCO, the United Nations body responsible for education and science, to launch a prize for achievement in life sciences, paid for by and named after President Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea? Was not Alfred Nobel an arms maker before he became a prize-endower?

Many carp about Mr Nguema’s regime, perhaps because he snatched power in a coup 30 years ago and vies with Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi as Africa’s longest-serving leader. They should instead commend its impressive stability. Foreigners moan about the arrest and murder of opposition leaders, a clampdown on the press, or frittering of oil revenues on palaces and luxury cars. But pragmatists will agree with Mr Nguema that Human Rights Watch and others are clearly out to “blackmail” his country. Rumours of horrors in his jails, such as the notorious Black Beach prison, are clearly overblown. A UN special rapporteur who described “inhuman” conditions and “systematic torture” in Equatorial Guinea’s prisons was quite reasonably dismissed by Mr Nguema for discussing the issue with the country’s sole opposition MP.

Observers should focus instead on Mr Nguema’s generosity. The new UNESCO award is going to set him back some $3m (not including fees for the lobbyists and public-relations firms who swung this for him). Instead of cavilling, other organisations should follow UNESCO’s approach.

All shall have prizes

The World Food Programme, for starters, should ask Zimbabwe’s president for funds to establish a Robert Mugabe award for agricultural productivity. Next, the UN refugee agency could squeeze a few million dollars from Myanmar’s junta for a Than Shwe prize for promoting the rights of women prisoners. The World Health Organisation could surely seduce Italy’s prime minister into providing some cash for a Silvio Berlusconi medal in sex education. The International Atomic Energy Agency might tap Iran for a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prize for the peaceful sponsorship of nuclear power.

The only thing wrong with this proposal is that nobody thought of it earlier. Saddam Hussein could have endowed a prize celebrating multiculturalism. Idi Amin, Uganda’s great showman president, might have set up an award for innovative culinary science. Many American conservatives are suspicious of the UN; they might feel differently had the former vice-president’s friends endowed a Dick Cheney transparency-in-government prize. Perhaps UNESCO could next promote sartorial elegance with a Kim Jong Il gong for best-dressed dictator or launch a campaign for brevity in public speaking named after Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez.

Setting up such prizes should pose no problem. Getting anybody to accept them may.

Question:
1. What's your impression/ knowledge of UNESCO?
2. Why press tend to use a sarcastical tone of speech to express rather than directly criticize?