My Friend The Mercenary
Page 44
General Deku (seated, centre) – real name Musa Donso – interrogates a Government soldier captured in heavy fighting earlier that day outside of Tubmanburg in mid-July 2002. The prisoner was jailed briefly and then shot at dawn. © James Brabazon
Nick helping me to cross the mighty River Via – a natural barrier that prevented the rebel army from properly re-supplying its front-line troops outside of Monrovia in mid-2002.
General Deku explains military preparations for the move south from Voinjama in June 2002 to his commanders in a film still from Liberia: A Journey Without Maps.
Self-portrait in my bathroom mirror in the Petit Bateau hotel, Conakry, Guinea, 3:30 pm, 29 July 2002 – at the end of the first trip into rebel-held Liberia. © James Brabazon
Nick and I taking a break in Tubmanburg, 8 July 2002. Minutes beforehand General Deku had executed a prisoner in front of us. House-to-house fighting carried on at the end of the street. © James Brabazon
His Excellency Sekou Damate Conneh, Junior; National Chairman, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). © Tim Hetherington
Nick – in custom Recce webbing – looks out for cameraman Dudley Saunders filming civilians in the LURD rebel firebase of Zolowo the evening before the walk south to Fassama, 8 June 2002. © James Brabazon
Nick rests on an island midway across the River Via to dispense medical supplies to a wounded rebel commander, June 2002. Nick’s medical expertise was employed on a near-daily basis and saved many lives. © James Brabazon
Under fire in the outskirts of Monrovia, June 2003. This was the last ambush entering the city. Several Government soldiers were killed a few feet away. © Tim Hetherington
Tim Hetherington outside rebel headquarters in Monrovia, June 2003. That morning he’d filmed four ambushes in as many hours, after walking thirty-five miles the day before in torrential rain. © Tim Hetherington
LURD rebels use a truck-mounted .50-calibre heavy machine gun to clear an ambush in the outskirts of Monrovia, June 2003. Many of the rebels wore – and were buried in – T-shirts bearing the slogan Too Tough To Die. © Tim Hetherington
‘Rocket’ – a sixteen year-old radio operator – photographed by Tim in Tubmanburg. Rocket suffered severe brain damage after being shot in the head during the rebels’ first attack on Monrovia, June 2003. He was unarmed. © Tim Hetherington
A LURD rebel says goodbye to his wife as he sets off for the attack on Monrovia, June 2003. © Tim Hetherington
A LURD mortar team covers our retreat from Bushrod Island, June 2003. Their later bombardment of Monrovia caused hundreds of civilian casualties. © Tim Hetherington
The first LURD rebels leave Tubmanburg on the ten-hour march to the capital, Monrovia, June 2003. © Tim Hetherington
The corpse of a Liberian Government soldier lies by the side of the road as LURD rebels march into Monrovia, June 2003. © Tim Hetherington
Charles Taylor photographed five months after starting the first Liberian Civil War, 29 May 1990. In the presidential election that followed his victory six years later, his supporters campaigned under the slogan ‘You kill my ma, you kill my pa, I will vote for you.’ © AFP/Getty Images
Severo Moto, the exiled Equatoguinean opposition leader that Simon Mann wanted to install as President. In April 2008 Moto was jailed in Spain for possession of weapons which he planned to send to Equatorial Guinea. © AFP
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe (left) holds hands with his new best friend, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, in Harare. Mugabe announced in March 2007 that Zimbabwe had begun importing oil from Equatorial Guinea; in January 2008 Simon Mann was extradited to Equatorial Guinea. © AFP/Getty Images
Inspecting one of the two Dakota DC-3s used on the first coup attempt in February 2004. Filmed in November 2004 at Wonderboom airport, Pretoria, outside the hangar of its owners, Dodson International Parts SA Limited, for the Channel 4 documentary My Friend the Mercenary. © Hardcash
Flight N4610. The Boeing 727 that Simon Mann used in the second coup attempt in March 2004, pictured here impounded at Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe. It has been claimed that the aircraft was flown to South Africa from the United States by a pilot who worked for the CIA. © Reuters
Pictured right to left: 727 pilot Neil Steyl, Simon Mann, Hendrik Hamman and Lourens ‘Loutjie’ Horn in court in Zimbabwe, with the other men arrested in Harare, March 2004. © Associated Press
Simon Mann (front, left) handcuffed to flight engineer Ken Paine in Chikurubi maximum security prison, Harare, Zimbabwe. In between them, walking behind, is Simon Witherspoon, the former 5 Recce operator who led the reconnaissance of Kolwezi airport during the first coup attempt in February 2004. © AFP
Nick on trial in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, 18 November 2004. He remained almost permanently handcuffed for the five years and eight months he served in Black Beach prison. © AFP
Simon Mann addresses the media after being released ‘on humanitarian grounds’ from Black Beach jail in Equatorial Guinea, November 2009. Nick is seated behind him to the left in red. In prison, Nick lost forty per cent of his body weight, often eating only leftover scraps of food. Simon’s wife, Amanda, later claimed that Simon had been so well treated in jail by ‘that lovely, lovely man’ President Obiang that her husband had chosen to go on a diet ‘to stay trim and slim’. © Associated Press
Nick and I at his new home in Pretoria in the week of his release from Black Beach prison, November 2009. © Marzaan du Toit
Copyright
Author’s Note
The names and identifying characteristics of some individuals portrayed in this book have been changed to protect their privacy and safety. The author has reconstructed certain, mainly private, conversations to the best of his recollection where it has not been possible to refer to audio, video or written records.
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Canongate Books
Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published by Canongate Books in 2010
Copyright © James Brabazon, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted
‘Visions of Johanna’ lyrics by Bob Dylan, copyright © 1966 Dwarf Music Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 910 9
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