Re: [A-List] Equatorial Guinea: background to the coup

["Salaam Blackmore" <salaamblackmore@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>
To: <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 4:30 PM
Subject: [A-List] Equatorial Guinea: background to the coup


Private Eye

No. 1114, 3-16 September 2004

Media News

Things seem pretty relaxed at the BBC in August to judge by author Freddie
Forsyth's appearance on Newsnight last week to promote his mercenary
interests.

The right-wing pundit was invited on to discuss the role of private military
companies (aka mercenaries) in the modern world and was introduced by Kirsty
Wark as the author of Dogs of War, his 1970s novel on a coup in a fictional
African state. But Newsnight failed to mention its guest's other, much
closer links twilight world of PMCs.

Forsyth was soon eulogizing over controversial hired gun Lt Col Tim Spicer's
mercenary operation in Sierra Leone in 1997. "Non national soldiers in the
form of Sandline, men under the control of Tim Spicer, long before the
British got involved, deposed the brutal Fody Sanko," he waxed.

This was an unusual interpretation of Spicer's intervention in Sierra Leone,
which later became known as the Sandline Affair (and threatened the job of
then foreign secretary Robin Cook). But Forsyth and Spicer know each other
well. As Eye 1111 revealed, Forsyth is a shareholder in Spicer's company
Aegis Defence Systems Ltd. Freddie's shares amount to £4 of the £100 share
issue. But since Aegis won a mammoth $293m contract to supply security in
Iraq, his initial investment has undoubtedly paid off.

Forsyth was himself once accused of organizing a coup -- which failed -- in
Equatorial Guinea back in 1973. He was fingered by one of the mercenaries
whose plot was aborted following their arrest in Spain. It was claimed that
Freddie was planning to set up Equatorial Guinea as a base for the defeated
Biafran faction in the aftermath of the Nigerian civil war. In March this
year, Forsyth admitted to the Independent on Sunday knowing the mercenaries
and being present at some of the plot meetings; but he denied any
involvement, saying he was merely researching Dogs of War.

It's all a bit incestuous in the world of mercenaries, however. Spicer is a
friend of former SAS officer and old Etonian Simon Mann, who currently
stands accused of trying to overthrow Equatorial Guinea's President Obiang
and liberate its recently discovered oil wealth. As the arrest of Mark
Thatcher in South Africa indicates, the key "investors" appear to be a group
of right-wing adventurers around the Thatcher family, several of whom have
yet to be exposed.

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Archer linked to Thatcher and coup scandal
By Jamie Wilson, Paul Lashmar and Andrew Meldrum in Cape Town
August 29, 2004
The Sun-Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/28/1093518166790.html?from=top5&oneclick=true

Former Conservative Party official, jailbird and millionaire author Jeffrey
Archer has been linked. So has oil magnate Ely Calil. Now the creme of the
British establishment is bracing to find out who else might be named in the
rapidly escalating affair of Sir Mark Thatcher and the African coup.

Simon Mann, leader of the failed Equatorial Guinea coup, was last night
facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of attempting to
possess dangerous weapons by a court in Zimbabwe.

Now Sir Mark, Baroness Margaret Thatcher's 51-year-old son, could be
questioned by lawyers from Equatorial Guinea about allegations that he
backed the botched attempt to depose the oil-rich country's unelected
government.

Officials from the west African nation submitted a formal request to the
South African Government for access to Sir Mark, who is being held under
house arrest in Cape Town ahead of a possible trial in November.

Mann, an old Etonian and former SAS officer, was arrested on the tarmac at
Harare airport in March with a plane full of mercenaries.

He has reportedly been "co-operating fully" with the authorities.

The latest twist in the saga comes at the end of an extraordinary week in
which the attempted coup in a forgotten but oil-rich corner of west Africa
has sucked in several British establishment figures and a right-wing coterie
of businessmen.

A magistrate sitting at a makeshift courthouse in the Harare maximum
security Chikurubi prison found 66 of the mercenaries not guilty of the
weapons offences.
Most of the men held in Zimbabwe had already pleaded guilty last month to
lesser charges of violating Zimbabwe's immigration and civil aviation laws,
carrying a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a fine.

Prosecutors said Equatorial Guinea's Spanish-based opposition leader, Severo
Moto, offered the group $1.8 million and oil rights to overthrow President
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Mann admitted trying to order assault rifles, grenades, anti-tank rocket
launchers and other weapons from Zimbabwe Defence Industries, but magistrate
Mishrod Guvamombe said prosecutors failed to prove their case against the 64
other men arrested when their ageing Boeing 727 landed at Harare
International Airport on March 7, and two already in Zimbabwe with Mann at
the time.

He also acquitted Mann of an additional charge of taking possession of the
weapons.

The men, including Mann, maintain they were en route to jobs protecting a
mining operation in war-torn eastern Congo.

Last week, Sir Mark, who denies any involvement in the coup attempt,
remained under house arrest at his home in Constantia, the upmarket Cape
Town suburb where Mann also has a home.

Lady Thatcher's son was charged with helping to fund the coup attempt. The
former prime minister has refused to comment on the affair.

The South African Government said last week it was considering a request
from Equatorial Guinea for investigators to be allowed to travel to Cape
Town to interview Sir Mark over the coup attempt. There has been no request
for extradition, however, something that is thought highly unlikely because
the countries have no extradition treaty and because Equatorial Guinea
practices the death penalty.

Sir Mark's spokesman in London, Lord Bell, said he been dragged into the
Equatorial Guinea affair because of "guilt by association".

"Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann were friends, nobody has ever denied that," he
said. "But it doesn't follow that because you are friends with someone you
are necessarily involved in what they are doing."

Mann went to Eton and Sandhurst before becoming an officer in the SAS. He
left the army in the early 1980s, moving into the security and mercenary
business.
In 1995 he became involved in Sandline International, and shipped arms to
Sierra Leone in contravention of a UN embargo.

Mann's lawyers claim he has been tortured, assaulted by prison officers,
suffered lice, inedible food and general deprivation.

Lord Archer is alleged to have paid Mann £80,000 ($203,700) but he has
denied knowledge of any coup plot.

Another businessman facing questions about his involvement in the coup plot
is Nigel Morgan, a former guards officer and long-standing friend of the
Thatcher family. Asked whether he was involved in the coup plot, he said: "I
am not going to comment. I don't think it will help Simon and I don't think
it will help Mark."




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