British spy & actor_arrested in African Coup De Tat attempt
Awake
SAS officer, actor (highly acclaimed 2002 "Bloody Sunday") was currently
under arrest in Zimbabwe for plotting a coup against the president of
Equatorial Guinea? They caught him on the tarmac meeting the plane full of
mercenary soldiers.
I know what you would say.
"Is this the same 'Awake' who writes about the JFK assassination and the
Jew Cabal running the U.S.?"
Yes it is.
The SAS officers name is Simon Mann and my source is *not* "The News of the World"
but the venerated "Times of London".
It didn't take the Brits long to find a challenger for Jennifer Garner.
March 14, 2004
Bungled trail of an SAS veteran's coup
Tom Walker and Brian Johnson-Thomas
FOR battle-hardened men who have made millions from fighting other people's
wars, it must have been a tempting option.
A takeover of tiny Equatorial Guinea and the ousting of its paranoid bully
of a president would be easy. A slice of its lucrative oil industry would
be a more than adequate reward.
This weekend Simon Mann, a charismatic old Etonian, is having different
thoughts as he cowers, beaten, in a dank Zimbabwean jail charged with
plotting to destabilise a foreign government. It carries a possible death
sentence.
For a proud man used to telling African governments what to do, it is a
humbling experience. It is likely to be some time before the former SAS
officer sets eyes on his newly purchased mansion on the banks of the
Hamble river in Hampshire.
The fact that Mann, 46, never even reached Equatorial Guinea shows how
badly the operation went awry. New evidence has emerged that in their
attempt to take over the west African oil state - it is the continent's
third largest producer - Mann and his backers made spectacular bungles.
The operation came to light last week when the pariah governments of
Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea gleefully announced they had foiled a coup
attempt.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's government in Equatorial Guinea said it
had 15 members of an advance guard under arrest, while Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe said 64 mercenaries had been picked up when their
ageing Boeing 727 landed at Harare airport, where Mann was waiting for
them.
South Africa, which supports both regimes, revelled in taking the moral
high ground, with President Thabo Mbeki's aides insisting this was the
beginning of the end for the white mercenary.
The problems for the hired guns began at the outset. Since the operation's
inception before Christmas, South African intelligence services were aware
that a plot had been hatched.
Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea were tipped off that the mercenaries were
on their way and veterans of coup attempts were astonished at basic errors
made by Mann and his colleagues. "This was 1960s stuff," said one South
African security official. "We've moved on a bit since then."
Why Mann was involved at all has perplexed many in the murky guns-for-hire
industry. In previous contracts for the notorious Executive Outcomes
company, of which he was a co-director, Mann made millions carrying out
military operations in Angola in the early 1990s.
He also made vast profits from another mercenary offshoot, Sandline, amid
the diamond riches and political chaos of Sierra Leone in 1997. That
operation, led by Colonel Tim Spicer, came to an ignominious end when The
Sunday Times exposed the British government's backing for Sandline.
The scion of a wealthy brewing dynasty, Mann hardly needed the money.
Indeed, since the Sandline fiasco he appeared to have lost some of his
zeal for combat, exploring other avenues such as acting. He appeared as a
colonel in the 2002 film, Bloody Sunday, and has recently gained South
African citizenship.
Insiders say he was tempted into one last hurrah with Nguema as his
target. Nguema's family has run Guinea with an iron fist since
independence from Spain in 1968; he is among the continent's most reviled
dictators.
Mann's co-plotters acquired the ageing Boeing from a Florida-based airline
and had it flown to Wonderboom, a South African airfield used in the past
by mercenary operations.
Mostly black, Portuguese-speaking soldiers from South Africa's now
disbanded "Buffalo regiment" were recruited. Last Sunday they climbed
aboard for the hop to Harare, where the plane was to take on a cargo of
light weapons.
These had been bought through an advance payment of $200,000 to
the state-owned and cash-strapped Zimbabwe Defence Industries, whose
manager, Tshinga Dube, was waiting in Harare with Mann for the aircraft.
Whether given away by intelligence, sunk by its own ineptitude or betrayed
by insiders, the operation unravelled fast. The 727's pilot, Niel Steyl,
landed at the commercial end of Harare's airport, where a strange aircraft
with its lights off and windows blacked out drew attention. Worse, it
still carried markings from the American air national guard, one of its
previous owners.
"Short of painting CIA on the side you couldn't have made it much more
suspicious," said one former mercenary. "And you never put the men on the
same flight as the arms - the thing was asinine."
Steyl claimed he had only seven crew on board, but when Zimbabwean
immigration checked the passenger cabin the game was up.
No sooner had the Zimbabweans announced their success than Equatorial
Guinea followed suit, revealing that it had already arrested the "advance
guard" of 15 mercenaries, led by Nick du Toit, a former South African
soldier.
Du Toit appeared on national television and confessed to plotting to
spirit Nguema out of the country and replace him with Severo Moto, head of
a government in exile in Spain. Moto denies knowledge of the plot but is
said to have been ready to fly in from the Canary Islands.
The Equatorial Guinea authorities have claimed that Moto is backed by Ely
Calil, a London-based Lebanese businessman with substantial oil interests
in the Gulf of Benin. He denies any involvement.
In addition they have mentioned a London-based accountant said to be close
to powerful interest groups in the region. It has also been speculated
that a top oil company could be involved.
Authorities in Equatorial Guinea blamed Triple Options 610, a company
part-owned by du Toit. But documents show that 50% of the company is owned
by Nguema's brother, who is in charge of security.
Nguema himself has wasted little time clamping down on opponents and
deporting thousands of "foreign" Africans.
The fate of du Toit is uncertain. Legal officials believe Mann and his
colleagues may end up being deported back to South Africa, where they
could face lengthy sentences.
Additional reporting: Anthony Goldman and R W Johnson
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1037798,00.html
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VINita
--
Anita.
"A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't
know."
-H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
M.C.
"VINita" <and...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> coup d'etat
>
>
coup d'état