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  • Murky tale of a mercenary adventure

    Murky tale of a mercenary adventure

    Speculation grows as Equatorial Guinea claims plot to kill president was
    foiled

    David Pallister
    Saturday March 13, 2004
    The Guardian

    The light was beginning to fade over Harare international airport last
    Sunday when the 40-year-old white Boeing 727 with a US registration
    number landed and taxied to the cargo area. With its cabin lights
    dimmed, the pilot indicated he wanted to refuel before flying on. He
    declared a crew of three and four cargo handlers. The Zimbabwean
    authorities were suspicious, not least because their intelligence told
    them that some interesting characters were to meet the flight. The
    South Africans, too, appeared to know what was afoot. Within hours an
    extraordinary story unfolded to mirror the intrigue of Frederick
    Forsyth's Dogs of War, in which a multinational company hires a bunch
    of mercenaries to overthrow an African dictator - based on a 1973 coup
    attempt in Equatorial Guinea.

    This was not just a case of life imitating art; it seemed as if
    history was repeating itself. Could the dogs of war that plagued the
    African continent a generation ago be back? The Zimbabweans found 64
    men on the plane - 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two
    Congolese (from the Democratic Republic of Congo) and one Zimbabwean
    with a South African passport - as well as "military material". This
    turned out to be camouflage uniforms, sleeping bags, compasses and
    wire cutters.

    Notorious


    Some of the men were said to have been former members of the notorious
    32 Commando of the South African defence force, a clandestine unit of
    the apartheid regime who went on to join the equally controversial
    private military company Executive Outcomes, which carried out
    military operations for the governments of Sierra Leone and Angola in
    the 1990s. It was formally disbanded in 1999, largely in response to
    South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act, which outlaws
    mercenary activities.

    As speculation about mercenary adventurers grew, Zimbabwe also
    announced that it had arrested a former British SAS soldier, Simon
    Mann, who had arrived at the airport to meet the plane. He had helped
    to establish EO and its British associate, Sandline International -
    the military company that helped Sierra Leone beat the rebel group
    RUF.

    Mr Mann, ministers said, had been in Harare in February with a South
    African called Nick du Toit, apparently seeking to buy arms. The
    pilots were identified as Niel Steyl, a South African commercial
    pilot, and Hendrik Hamman, a Namibian. Both had in the past worked for
    Executive Outcomes.

    As the revelations accelerated, the plot spiralled into the
    surreal. On Tuesday the information minister of Equatorial Guinea,
    Agustin Nze Nfumu, dramatically announced that 15 men - from South
    Africa, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Germany - had been arrested for
    "plotting to kill the president", Teodoro Obiang, and that their
    ringleader had confessed.

    He said one of the men had claimed the group was acting on behalf of
    Ely Calil, a Lebanese businessman close to Severo Moto,
    self-proclaimed president of a so-called Equatorial Guinean
    government-in-exile in Spain, who had tried to mount a coup in 1997.

    Mr Calil, who has British and Senegalese citizenship, lives in a
    high-gated mansion in one of the more exclusive areas of Chelsea, west
    London. He is an adviser to the Senegalese president and reportedly
    carries a diplomatic passport.

    Two years ago he was arrested in Paris and interrogated by the
    magistrate investigating the Elf oil scandal about his role in
    handling commissions for the late Nigerian strongman Sani Abacha.

    Mr Calil declined to be interviewed by the Guardian. But he told the
    London-based newsletter, Africa Confidential, that he had no
    connection to the coup plot. However, he agreed that he was a friend
    of the opposition leader and had given him "modest" financial support.

    Mr Moto has also vigorously denied the allegation, accusing Mr Obiang
    of being "an authentic cannibal". He told Spanish radio: "Obiang wants
    me to go back to Guinea and eat my testicles. That's clear."

    As the allegations swirled, the company that owns the plane, Logo
    Logistics, was desperately trying to put its side of the story. An
    Englishman, Charles Burrow, a senior executive, told the Guardian that
    the men had been travelling to the DRC to guard several mineral
    concessions. They had stopped off in Harare to buy some "ancilliary
    mining-related equipment". Zimbabwe, he said,was "one of the cheapest
    places on the planet".

    The plane's flight plan did show that it was heading to Bujumbura in
    Burundi on Congo's eastern border. Mr Burrows explained that Logo had
    been set up three years ago, registered in the British Virgin Islands
    and administered from Guernsey. He himself was based in Dubai. He
    conceded that Mr Mann was an executive of the company.

    "My first priority is the safety of these men," he said. As for the
    coup allegations: "I haven't the foggiest idea what they're talking
    about."

    Death penalty


    Events then took a dramatic turn. On Wednesday evening, as the
    Zimbabweans said the arrested men could face the death penalty and
    accused the secret services of Britain, the US and Spain of being
    behind the plot, Equatorial Guinea television broadcast an interview
    with Mr Du Toit.

    Translated from his English into Spanish, he said: "It wasn't a
    question of taking the life of the head of state but of spiriting him
    away, taking him to Spain and forcing him into exile and then of
    immediately installing the government-in-exile of Severo Moto. The
    group was supposed to start by identifying strategic targets such as
    the presidency, the military barracks, police posts and the residences
    of government members.

    "Then it was supposed to have vehicles at Malabo airport to transport
    other mercenaries who were due to arrive from South Africa. But at the
    last minute I got a call to say that the other group of mercenaries
    had been arrested in South Africa as they were preparing to leave the
    country."

    Contacted again by the Guardian, Mr Burrows acknowledged that Mr Du
    Toit worked for Logo. "We have five people in the country working on
    three contracts for the government," he said. He also acknowledged
    that he knew Mr Calil, but denied having any commercial relationship
    with him.

    Back in Harare the allegations were becoming firmer. Zimbabwe's home
    affairs minister, Kembo Mohadi, told a news conference that the heads
    of the police and army in Equatorial Guinea had gone along with the
    plot against the government. "The western intelligence services
    persuaded Equatorial Guinea's service chiefs not to put up any
    resistance, but to cooperate with the coup plotters," he said.

    He claimed that the leader of the group, Mr Mann, had allegedly been
    promised cash payment of £1m and oil mining rights and that Mr Moto
    had hired them. And in an aside which will delight 007 fans, he said
    one of the conspirators who had carried out surveillance in the Guinea
    capital of Malabo was called "Bonds".

    Then came the bombshell. Mr Mohadi claimed that, in what appears to
    have been a Zimbabwean sting, Colonel Tshinga Dube, director of
    Zimbabwe Defence Industries, had accepted $180,000 (£100,000) from
    Mr Mann for a consignment of AK-47s, mortars and 30,000 rounds of
    ammunition. A more murky interpretation, however, was provided by the
    Afrikaans daily, Beeld, which reported that Col Dube had been
    "enraged" that the aircraft was impounded and the transaction
    scuttled.

    Whatever the truth of that, it now seems clear that both South African
    and Zimbabwean intelligence had wind of a suspicious operation, which
    explains why President Obiang praised Thabo Mkbeki in his television
    address.

    "We spoke with the South African president, who warned us that a group
    of mercenaries was heading towards Equatorial Guinea," he said.

    Yesterday Mr Mohadi said the 67 men would be charged with
    destabilising a sovereign state.

    Indiscreet


    The Guardian understands that some of the alleged plotters had been
    remarkably indiscreet about their plans. Rumours of a coup have been
    rife in Malabo for weeks, according to several sources familiar with
    the territory. So the questions remain: Why Equatorial Guinea? Why
    now? And in whose interests?

    The answers can be summed up in one word: oil. Until 1995 Equatorial
    Guinea, a former Spanish colony, was an impoverished backwater with a
    population of less than half a million. After independence in 1968, it
    was ruled by Mr Obiang's uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, who acquired
    as vicious a reputation as any of the other murderous African
    dictators.

    In 1975, over Christmas, he ordered his militia to kill 150 political
    prisoners in Malabo stadium as loudspeakers played Those Were the
    Days, My Friend. During his reign of terror a third of the population
    fled.

    Mr Obiang seized power from his uncle in 1979 and, although he
    introduced a consitutional democracy, elections have been widely
    regarded as fraudulent and opponents often end up in jail.

    The discovery of oil in the mid-1990s transformed the country's
    finances, and provided the president and his family with funds to
    acquire multimillion dollar properties in the US. With American oil
    companies in the lead, production last year at 350,000 barrels a day
    made Equatorial Guinea the third largest producer in sub-Saharan
    Africa.
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