I got the news during a brief visit to the United States in September 1988. Don Bonifacio, the finance minister of Equatorial Guinea and my closest colleague, had been fired. I figured that it must have had something to do with the recent coup attempt. The plotters were partly motivated by fears of the free-market reforms Don Bonifacio and President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo had been pushing to shore up the country's crumbling economy, reforms that threatened the backdoor enterprises of many...