15. The Lunatic Ruler Who Depopulated His Country
Few countries have been cursed with as lunatic a ruler as Equatorial Guinea was with Francisco Macias Nguema (1924-1979). Equatorial Guinea is a small African country with a population of about a million people. It had significantly fewer during the events described here. For such a tiny country, Equatorial Guinea has endured more than its share of national suffering.
As lunatic a ruler as ever existed, Nguema had few equals in sheer murderous craziness. An admirer of both Hitler (he seems not to have fully grasped Nazi nuance about race or how Hitler viewed Africans) and Marx, Nguema described himself and his political philosophy as “Hitlerian Marxist”. He visited upon his people a genocide that killed or exiled up to 60% of the population. To put that in perspective, although the better known Cambodian Genocide claimed more total victims, Pol Pot had a bigger population base to victimize. Pol Pot also killed “only” about 25% of his people.