About the Most Equal Comrade's Africa-summit guests

The MEC strode to the podium - an hour and fifteen minutes late - for his post-conference presser last evening and announced all kinds of initiatives having to do with trade, development and public health.  All sounds very nice.  But who are his partners in all this?

The White House promoted the summit as the largest-ever gathering of African leaders in the United States, with more than 50 countries represented.

The red carpet was rolled out for Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who shot or jailed virtually all his political opponents, Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, who threatened to ‘cut off the head’ of any homosexuals in the country and for Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who has the dubious honor of ranking 19th on author David Wallechinsky's 2006 list of the world's 20 worst living dictators.

Many of the leaders were later photographed in the White House, posing for individual portraits with Obama and the First Lady.

The President's opening speech avoided the prickly issues of homophobia and torture and instead sought out similarities between the two continents.

He opened with: ‘I stand before you as the president of the United States, a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa’.

Before going on to say: ‘Our faith traditions remind us of the inherent dignity of every human being and that our work as nations must be rooted in empathy and compassion for each other, as brothers and as sisters.’

Want some specifics on these human-rights-violations accusations?

Pictured outside the White House waving and grinning with his wife President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s longest serving dictator after seizing power from his uncle and mentor (who used to hang regime critics from the capital’s street lights) in 1979.Since then he has won the yearly elections with 99% of the vote. Taking the lead from his uncle, he has since had shot or jailed virtually all political opponents and ruled the country with an iron fist. Despite running one of sub-Saharas biggest oil-producing countries and amassing a personal wealth in excess of an estimated $600million, he’s far from generous with his riches.The average income of his citizens is $2 a day, few live beyond 53 and 20 per cent of children die before they reach five years of age. Last year the country ranked 163 out of 177 on Transparency International. There is no freedom of the press, the country’s one television station is government-run and clean water is scarce. In 2011, the United States' Department of Justice made moves to seize more than $70 million in assets from President Obiang's son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue.Justice Department lawyers alleged Nguema, on top of his official government salary of $100,000, used his position to amass more than $100 million through corruption and money laundering, including a $30 million dollar mansion in Malibu, California, a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet and one of the world’s finest Michael Jackson memorabilia collections including  the red and black 'Thriller jacket' and Jackson’s crystal-studded 'Bad Tour' glove worth more than $2m. He was also the focus of a corruption investigation in France who seized his 101-room Paris mansion, a collection of cars and other luxury assets. He has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore is another African leader who seized power by bloody coup. The Burkina Faso president’s 1987 uprising left his predecessor Thomas Sankara dead – who himself had taken power four years earlier alongside Compaore. In 2011 he watched as protests gave way to calls for his resignation over claims of police brutality and government corruption. However, his presidential guard eventually squashed a mutiny, then made concessions to appease the remaining protesters - but questions remain over corruption among the ruling elite.

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Gambian president Yahya Jammeh took power in a military coup in 1994. Although the coup itself was bloodless, in the 20 years since he has been accused of countless breaches of human rights. In 2008, he threatened to 'cut off the head' of any homosexuals in the country. The following year, it was reported up to 1,000 Gambians had been abducted by the government on charges of witchcraft - they were taken to prisons and forced to drink poison.

That's three.  Many more at the link.