Equatorial Guinea Coup of 1979Equatorial Guinea · 1979“The keepers of the atlas wrote this one down so the fire would not forget it.”Macías Nguema had made his small country a prison — a third of its people fled or dead, Christmas carols rewritten in his praise, opponents executed in a stadium to amplified music. In 1979 his own nephew, Teodoro Obiang, overthrew and shot him.