Turkmeniscam by Ken Silverstein

Author:Ken Silverstein
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781588367549
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-23T04:30:00+00:00

I HAD BY NOW ALSO ESTABLISHED COMMUNICATIONS WITH CASSIDY & Associates, perhaps the most prominent of all Washington lobby shops. Between 1998 and 2006, Cassidy was paid some $235 million in lobbying fees, more than any other firm in Washington. I had asked many people for recommendations when I was deciding what firms the Maldon Group should offer the Turkmen deal to. There had been a wide range of opinion about the topic, but Cassidy’s name came up time and time again. There just seemed to be something bloodlessly amoral about the firm that made it a top choice for just about everyone I asked.

Founded in 1970 by Gerald Cassidy, a former staffer for George McGovern, Cassidy & Associates had been known for much of its existence as a strongly Democratic firm. Cassidy pioneered the practice of lobbying for earmarks and also represented numerous Fortune 500 corporations as well as foreign countries and businesses. Its clients included Brigadier General Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who had ruled the small African nation of Equatorial Guinea since 1979, when he executed his uncle.

That seemed like a good idea at the time. The uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, was a West African version of Idi Amin who banned opposition parties and in 1970 appointed himself “President for Life”—the first of a string of self-decreed titles that included “Leader of Steel,” “Implacable Apostle of Freedom,” and “The Sole Miracle of Equatorial Guinea.” As many as fifty thousand people, roughly 10 percent of the population, were murdered during the Macias years—some were crucified along the road to the airport, for the benefit of visiting diplomats—and eighty thousand fled the country.

Obiang didn’t kill as many of his citizens as Macias, but he managed to murder quite a few. He stamped out almost all opposition—he was last “elected” with 97 percent of the vote in 2002; the government or the president’s relatives own the few media outlets in operation, and Obiang is widely deemed to be one of the world’s most kleptocratic rulers.

Not even Gabriel García Márquez could have dreamed up Teodorín Nguema Obiang, the skirt-chasing, champagne-swilling, nightclub-hopping son of the president (and his potential successor). Teodorín holds a cabinet post—he’s the Minister of Forestry, or the “Minister of Chopping Down Trees,” as some call him—but very rarely attends government meetings. That’s because he spends most of his time abroad: in Beverly Hills, where he lives lavishly, started a music company called TNO, and dated the rapper Eve, who had the good sense to dump him; in New York City, where several years ago he offered $11 million to buy a Fifth Avenue condominium owned by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, only to be rebuffed by the condo’s board; and in Paris, where he tools around in a white Rolls-Royce and a fleet of sports cars.

For a number of years, Cassidy had represented an Israeli firm called Merhav, which had significant interests in the Caspian, including Turkmenistan. Cassidy’s deal with Merhav bore similarities to the arrangement I intended to float.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.