Francisco Macias Nguema may not be as notorious as Kim Jong-Il or Joseph Stalin, but the people of Equatorial Guinea know him to be just as devastating. The dictator terrorized the country for 11 years, looting and pillaging with wanton bloodlust. Nobody knows the exact body count, but he killed or expelled more than one-third of the country’s population. Teodoro Obiang Nguema was Macias’s nephew and trusted henchman, running the regime’s notorious “Black Beach” prison-torture complex and leading the National Guard. Their joint handiwork was such that the country became known as the “Auschwitz of Africa.” Proportionally, the two killed more people than the Nazis did in Europe. In 1979, Obiang overthrew his uncle and convinced him to accept guilt for all of their crimes in exchange for sparing his life. Once Macias pled guilty and pulled the curtain on the abuses they had jointly committed, Obiang ordered him shot by firing squad, had himself declared a god by state radio, and has ruled ever since.
