The Wonga Coup

by Adam Roberts

  At the end of July 2005, the pilots Niel Steyl and Hendrik Hamman were let out of Chikurubi. Apart from Mann, they were the last to be released from Zimbabwe. They were also driven to South Africa, to Beit Bridge. Grey-haired Niel agreed to an interview for this book four days later. His release was emotional. His brother Crause had flown to the border with Zimbabwe to collect him. ‘We stopped at a liquor store and the television was on. I could watch the last three minutes of the rugby match against Australia. Our boys won!’ He drank beer and flew home to a private runway near Pretoria, where a welcome party was thrown.

  He gave a harrowing description of life behind bars, confirmed he had lost his job and missed some $170,000 of earnings. But did he regret signing up to the Wonga Coup? Not at all. ‘I would do something with Simon again. But not for money, for the kicks. It’s not “Hell, I’m never going to do this again.” Life is for living. Sometimes there’s a fuck-up.’

  In Equatorial Guinea the first men were freed in mid 2005. Obiang marked his birthday with a decree pardoning the six bemused Armenian pilots. He called it a sign of goodwill. The less important inmates in Black Beach, such as Bones Boonazier, also hoped for early release. Officials were charmed by his wife, whom they found humble and unthreatening. Bones was reportedly allowed frequent visits and could even spend occasional nights with her at a Malabo hotel. It was rumoured that Bones and du Toit refused to speak to each other, Cardoso was depressed behind bars while Allerson handled the situation reasonably well. Bones was indeed released in 2006.

  Where did that leave du Toit? A lawyer acting for Obiang suggested the president felt the men on the ground ‘have been punished enough’. Du Toit was likely to be released last: he needed to be punished to set an example. But few expected him to serve more than a couple of years. And a gracious pardon could make Obiang look good, while ensuring he did not die of malaria or ill treatment in Black Beach. Unfortunately, officials in Equatorial Guinea took a fierce dislike to his wife, Belinda, reportedly calling her ‘The Snake’ because she dared speak in public about the awful conditions in Black Beach. They refused her the privileges enjoyed by Bones and his wife.

  Mann’s lawyers, and those jailed with him, said he coped well with prison life, charming the guards and other prisoners, and keeping fit. It was suggested that his lawyer, Samukange, brought him roast chicken to eat. The old Etonian continued to deny being part of a plot, to quote his London lawyer Kerman: ‘Simon Mann has specifically said he was not involved in any plot to procure the violent military overthrow of the government of Equatorial Guinea.’ Yet he was also said to be writing a book about the whole affair.

  There was a flurry of excitement in mid 2005 when Zimbabwe’s attorney general said he would extradite Mann to Equatorial Guinea to face trial for ‘high treason’. Kerman said later he was deeply concerned by the prospect: ‘I worry about it all the time. But President Mugabe has said, has given his word, that Simon Mann will not move as long as he is in Zimbabwe serving time for crimes in Zimbabwe. [But] in Africa, and in Russia, anything can happen. It’s the sort of place that one morning Mugabe might wake up and say “Get rid of him”.’ Few expected extradition would happen, certainly not before Mann’s term was complete in Zimbabwe. Mann himself was confident he would never set foot in Equatorial Guinea. He once boasted to a visitor he would be free by May 2006. It was widely thought by friends of Mann that regular payments made to senior prison officials in Zimbabwe kept the celebrity inmate treated well.

  There have been rumours of efforts both in Zimbabwe and in Equatorial Guinea to break the men free. In Zimbabwe one idea was to arrange for Mann’s extradition to South Africa in December 2004, for a payment under the table of some $5 million. It is unclear why, if the deal were really on offer, the money was not forthcoming from London. In Equatorial Guinea, Smith continued to peddle warnings of coup attempts against Obiang. He and others suggested there was a ‘plan B’ attack scheduled for mid 2004, with another intelligence report confidently predicting ‘what will happen is that a bullet will be put in Obiang in the middle of this cacophony’, provoking American intervention.

  That did not happen, but in May 2005 there was a curious arrest at Malabo airport. A South African of Angolan origin, a man called Apollo Naria, arrived at immigration and declared he wanted to see his ‘old friends’ in Black Beach prison. Officials stared at him unbelievingly. Was the visitor a veteran of 32 Battalion, a Buffalo Soldier? He was indeed. A second lieutenant in 32 Battalion, he explained. The police promptly arrested and interrogated him. Fearing that he had come to do reconnaissance for a jail break they threw him into Black Beach prison, too.

  Epilogue

  ‘You are a good friend and we welcome you.’

  Condoleezza Rice, American Secretary of State, to Obiang, Washington DC, April 2006

  It is hardly appropriate to draw sweeping lessons about the whole of modern Africa as a whole from a story of a failed coup in a single small country. Too often writers try to comment on Africa without distinguishing between the great variety of people, politics, histories and cultures to be found there. Equatorial Guinea has little in common with well-run Botswana, for example, just as the aristocratic and minor celebrity plotters in the Wonga Coup have little in common with most outsiders who live and work in Africa. Yet this story touches on themes that are relevant not only to many resource-rich African nations, but to poor countries all over the world. The core message is simple enough: where the extraction of valuable resources like oil or diamonds is managed carelessly, as happens in too much of Africa, the consequences are usually grave.

  The story of the Wonga Coup began, ultimately, in Angola’s civil war. It was in Angola that the soldiers of 32 Battalion cut their teeth, and it was in Angola that Mann’s Executive Outcomes was born. Angola’s war, at least in the 1990s, was a battle for control of oil and diamonds, not one of ideology. Similarly, the scrap for Equatorial Guinea was all about controlling oil revenues: the dictatorial old guard of Obiang defended itself against a threatening new force that posed as democratic. But the rival sides shared a common goal of syphoning off short-term profits from the massive – and relatively new and poorly controlled – output of oil. Nobody intended to use the oil for a more decent purpose, such as developing an economy to lessen poverty and improve the lives of ordinary Africans. But at least the coup attempt threw into sharp relief how different participants in Equatorial Guinea’s oil bonanza – usually the same actors present in other parts of Africa – behave. Not all African leaders are corrupt, but just as Obiang steals in Equatorial Guinea, crooked leaders rob their countries in Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola and many other places.

  Not all western banks are willing to stash the stolen funds of crooked leaders, but the exposé of Riggs Bank in America shows how easily it was done behind the respectable doors of a Washington DC institution. Few other banks have been subjected to the sort of scrutiny that eventually destroyed Riggs. If they were, others would surely be shown to be culpable, too. And, perhaps, not all oil companies are equally willing to pay bribes to crooked politicians. ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess and Marathon were exposed by the US Senate and shown to be channelling money in crude ways to the families of politicians in Malabo. Few would doubt they – but also other oil firms, mining firms, telecoms firms and so on – also pay bribes and fuel corruption in other parts of Africa. But we know about these payments because of the unusual scrutiny that fell upon one corner of Africa, in part because a group of mercenaries tried to snatch control there.

  By 2005 the story of the Wonga Coup was not yet over. The men in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea were behind bars. In South Africa Mark Thatcher struck his deal, admitted breaking the anti-mercenary law, paid a fine and left. He sold his Cape Town mansion making a good profit (‘It washed its face,’ he says grudgingly). Those involved had much time to ponder why the plot had failed so spectacularly. There were many reasons. From the outset it was too big and complicated: three teams co-ordinated over thousands
of kilometres; roughly a hundred people to be marshalled to the target; weapons and ammunition bought on the way. The logistics were messy: a specialised plane from the United States; footsoldiers recruited in South Africa; guns from Zimbabwe; finance raised in Britain; an exiled politician in Spain; a launching pad in the Canary Islands; the target in Equatorial Guinea; abandoned plans to go via Uganda, Congo and Namibia. Crause Steyl concluded that trying to put together a ‘semi-government’ had proved over-ambitious and unwieldy.

  As important, the plotters little understood what political backing they had. They repeatedly told investigators they believed that South Africa, Spain and the United States backed the plan. Mann had told them so. Mann believed that Spain’s prime minister, Aznar, had met Moto three times and promised 3,000 civil guards to protect the new leader, and that he would give recognition and other diplomatic support. The Americans might have turned a blind eye if their oil interests had not been threatened. The British reaction was hardly relevant. But the African response was badly misjudged. Mann believed he had – at the last minute – got some support from Congo’s Joseph Kabila to supply him with weapons for a later mission, if not for this one. It is quite likely that Mann planned to refuel in Kinshasa on his way to Equatorial Guinea. In South Africa, low-level intelligence officials might have encouraged Mann, but higher echelons, including President Mbeki, would not have approved. However, Mann believed that, a week before his arrest, the South African government contacted Moto and offered him support, even inviting him to meet Mbeki. In Zimbabwe, Mann and du Toit even deluded themselves they had an ally in Colonel Tshinga Dube of Zimbabwe Defence Industries and wrongly believed they had made friends in high places. The plotters also knew Nigeria’s response mattered, but ignored rumours that hundreds of Nigerian marines were poised to invade if there was a coup. If that had happened, Mann and the rest might have been killed. Perhaps Moto also expected some political backing – or an uprising – in Equatorial Guinea itself, though it is not at all clear if he is popular there.

  The plot was not kept secret. Details spread like gossip. The plotters were indiscreet and arrogant during the planning, then most spilled the beans immediately after their arrest. Smith’s intelligence reports circulated widely enough that du Toit wanted the plot called off. Moto bragged to anyone who would listen that he would soon be president. Greg Wales trotted around oil firms spreading rumours of regime change. Morgan passed on information, documents and detailed warnings to South African officials, something Mann might have suspected. Mann passed some paperwork to Morgan and went on dining and drinking with his fellow Briton every few days in the months before the attempt. Information also leaked through James Kershaw, his office assistant. Du Toit also sent uncoded messages about the plot up to the last days.

  Mann had developed a system of code words (using English place names to refer to parts of Africa and numbers to refer to items, people and places), but this was hardly used. In bars and restaurants men boasted of what they planned. The lower ranks were said to get drunk and loose-tongued in Pretoria’s pubs. The plot was even debated at a semi-public meeting at Chatham House in London several weeks before it took place. One hired gun later said he refused to join the plot because it had become an open secret. ‘There were also just too many people involved and it did not have the element of surprise you needed to pull off something of this proportion. This … was the main reason for the coup to fail – I think.’

  Yet Mann had pushed on. Various people were brought in, including Mark Thatcher and the mysterious J. H. Archer, even though that risked drawing yet more attention to the plot. He did so because he needed money. Like so many amateur coup plotters before him, even Mann the millionaire lacked resources. Under pressure, he took risks. He tried a daring freelance attack without the resources that Executive Outcomes would have used merely to support a government. Lack of time mattered, too. A deadline forced action by early March, when Prime Minister Aznar retired in Spain. Mann told Zimbabwean investigators he was under pressure to complete the plot by February. Under stress he made quick and bad decisions.

  There was rotten luck of course (the damaged Antonov that was to be used to transport mercenaries and guns in the February attempt), but ultimately the problem was poor leadership. The burden of failure rests mostly on Mann – plus the financiers who pushed him on. One complained that Mann ‘lost the plot’ in the final weeks of the botched operation. Widely liked and respected as a soldier, he designed and fumbled a complicated operation. When it started to go awry, a braver or more cautious man might have dared to cancel. But he was propelled on by investors, by the need to recoup losses, by his belief he had political backing, by his own vanity and by his love of adventure. Lafras Luitingh, one of the early leaders of Executive Outcomes, later blamed the failure of the Wonga Coup squarely on those who led it. In a snide comment to a friend he noted that Buckingham and other leaders of the old corporate army (including himself) had not been involved: ‘It’s what you get when you play with the second team,’ he said. Ultimately, there were too many bad decisions. ‘If it was a coup, it was horrendously badly planned,’ concludes a mutual friend of Thatcher and Mann.

  But if the coup went badly, the prosecutions of those involved were hardly more professional. Henry Page’s various efforts to prosecute the alleged financiers of the coup plot, namely Mann and his two companies, plus Wales and Calil, came to nothing. The case in Lebanon was thrown out. The courts in Britain dismissed his civil case. The ruling by the Guernsey court, in April 2005, proved uncomfortable for Page. It ordered that no more information from Mann’s accounts should be passed to the lawyer representing Equatorial Guinea. The long judgment did not assess the details of the coup plot, but found the idea that Obiang suffered ‘severe emotional stress’ laughable, given his own background. It ruled that the request for damages ‘cannot be regarded for the present purposes as a serious claim’, not least because Obiang is a ‘despot’.

  Page’s behaviour was criticised; the court spoke of exhibits that cast ‘serious doubt on the factual allegations in Mr Page’s affidavits.’ His use of Mann’s confession to obtain the bank details was frowned on: ‘[accepting] Mr Page’s evidence at face value … can now be seen to have been incorrect’, it concluded. The court had a ‘strong suspicion’ that evidence sought for the civil case might instead be used for a criminal case. And it issued an implicit rebuke of Page’s firm Penningtons and their client, the Equatorial Guinea government, for apparently using evidence obtained in a legal process to ‘conduct litigious warfare in the media’. The court seemed unhappy that sensitive information Page obtained from Mann’s bank accounts rapidly appeared in newspapers.

  Other lawyers were unimpressed with Page. Anthony Kerman, fond of pinstriped suits and pacing the room, opposed him and offered none of the usual grudging respect for a fellow professional: ‘I find it odd that an intelligent and educated man, as one must assume Page to be, would choose to act for somebody whose regime has become a byword for brutality and corruption, who has been so widely criticised by the US Senate … If this was a criminal trial and Obiang was the defendant, you could say he is, like Milosevic, like Saddam, entitled to the best defence he can get. But this isn’t a criminal trial with Obiang as a defendant, but a civil matter with Obiang as the claimant and in a sense Page is choosing to prosecute his aims.’ Many criticised Page, who also published a private statement from Johann Smith, who admitted that he had warned officials in the Pentagon and British security of the coup plot before it took place. ‘I never thought it would come out. I was naive, I trusted him,’ laments Smith. Once in Equatorial Guinea, he was also placed under enormous pressure to write a statement that implicated Morgan.

  Interviewed for this book, Page says he recognises there were problems with the treatment of the men held in Equatorial Guinea. He had suggested that du Toit and the others should get defence lawyers from the start, but was assured the Spanish ‘inquisitorial system’ let defendants be held without
them. Though he thought du Toit looked fit and healthy when they met, du Toit explicitly told him of being ‘knocked about by guards’. And though Page is confident that du Toit confessed of his own free will and told the truth, there is no way a man in fear of torture and facing every chance of a violent death would be considered someone giving free testimony.

  But others were hardly blameless. Morgan is left in a moral quandary: though he helped to foil the coup plot, and thus helped South Africa’s government score an impressive intelligence victory, he effectively betrayed friends who believed they could trust him. Thatcher certainly grew embittered towards Morgan, but he is hardly on high moral ground either. Thatcher struck a deal with the South Africans that included his giving close co-operation to the prosecution and evidence on others involved, presumably on Mann in particular. Most plotters, including Steyl, Witherspoon and others, seemed willing to strike a deal that landed others deeper in legal trouble. To his credit, Mann seems the exception to this rule.

  If you can’t beat him

  Equatorial Guinea’s rulers did profit from the saga of the Wonga Coup. Obiang found warmer relations with other powers. As late as November 2004, senior State Department officials described American ties in Equatorial Guinea as driven by ‘oil men’ and confirmed that ‘our ties are not good’ with the country. By 2005 that had changed. US officials gushed about the need for a stable relationship. In June 2005, Paul Wolfowitz, an ally of George Bush and the newly appointed head of the World Bank, said of Obiang: ‘I was very impressed at his leadership and his government’s leadership.’ He said he hoped Obiang would manage oil revenues ‘according to the standard of transparency and accountability that will ensure that wealth goes to the benefit of the people’. Serving members of the US administration also met the despot as part of a carefully designed effort to recraft Equatorial Guinea’s image. Several American lobbyists and public relations companies were given contracts to that end. One firm, Cassidy and Associates, is said to have earned $1.4 million a year polishing the country’s reputation – a rate which some industry observers thought ‘eye-popping’. Another firm, Barbour Griffith and Rogers, was paid $37,500 a month to do a similar job. In April 2006 Obiang visited Washington DC and was granted an audience with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who stated ‘You are a good friend and we welcome you’. In contrast Severo Moto’s lobbying efforts have fallen quiet.