The Wonga Coup Read online

  The Wonga* Coup

  ‘Adam Roberts shows, with merciless precision, how the dogs of war panicked where they should have been cool, and screwed up where they should have been clinically efficient’ – Observer

  ‘Impressively researched and briskly narrated … takes readers into a world where slippery chancers and thuggish ex-special forces types, mostly South African, rub shoulders with the spooks and dodgy financiers’ – Daily Mail

  ‘The most terrifying thing about this chronicle of a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea is that it’s not a Graham Greene novel but a true story. An irresistibly lurid tale … he lifts the curtain to the backrooms of power in postcolonial Africa’ – Publishers Weekly

  ‘A fact-stranger-than-fiction tale … the author has amassed impressive, and readable, detail about the plot, its costs and its personalities’ – Financial Times

  ‘The Wonga Coup is a forceful example of how a group of rapacious Europeans can hatch a fantastic plan to overthrow a foreign government, gain the tacit support of Western officials – not to mention international corporations – and fully expect to succeed in executing their grandiose vision’ – New York Times

  ADAM ROBERTS works for The Economist in London. He was Johannesburg bureau chief at the magazine for four years.

  The Wonga Coup

  Simon Mann’s Plot to Seize Oil Billions in Africa

  ADAM ROBERTS

  To E and to M

  This revised edition published in 2009

  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

  PROFILE BOOKS LTD

  3A Exmouth House

  Pine Street

  Exmouth Market

  London EC1R 0JH

  www.profilebooks.com

  Copyright © Adam Roberts, 2006, 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Typeset in Palatino by MacGuru Ltd

  [email protected]

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 84668 234 6

  Contents

  Maps

  List of Characters

  Prologue

  PART ONE: The Ocean of Oil

  1. The Rise of Mann

  2. Mad Uncle Macias

  3. The Albatross of War

  4. Obiang in Charge

  5. The Gushing Prize

  PART TWO: The Three Hundred Days

  6. Smelly and the Priest

  7. Assembling the Wongamen

  8. Plans and Documents

  9. Future Moto

  10. Filthy Lucre

  11. Enter Scratcher

  12. Money and Recruits

  13. Spain

  14. Get Your Guns

  PART THREE: The Big Push

  15. Strike One

  16. The Wonga Coup (Mark One)

  17. The Wonga Coup (Mark Two)

  18. Playa Negra Pedicure

  19. Send Me a Splodge

  20. Smiling and Dying

  21. Riggs and the Oil Firms

  22. The Price of Failure

  23. Thatcher Falls

  24. Back from the Dead

  Postscript: Malabo Sunset

  Writing The Wonga Coup

  Selected Bibliography

  Index

  Locations of the Wonga Coup, Africa and Europe, 2004

  List of Characters

  Selected characters, by location, as of Sunday 7 March 2004.

  Zimbabwe

  Harry Carlse

  Ex-special forces soldier and former Executive Outcomes employee. Fought beside Simon Mann (below) in Angola; also in Iraq. Ex-nightclub bouncer, assistant to Mann. South African. a.k.a. The Enforcer.

  Victor Dracula

  Decorated soldier of 32 Battalion, long fought in Angola. Naturalised South African.

  Simon Mann

  Ex-Executive Outcomes and SAS. Active notably in Angolan war in early 1990s. Mastermind of the Wonga Coup. Old Etonian and friend of many others involved. British/South African. a.k.a. Captain F.

  J. Samukange

  Lawyer and aspiring politician. Zimbabwean.

  Niel Steyl

  Ex-Executive Outcomes in Angola. Grey-haired pilot of Boeing 727 for Indian tycoon. Brother of Crause Steyl (see below, Canary Islands). South African.

  Simon Witherspoon

  Ex-special forces soldier and professional hunter. South African.

  South Africa

  James Kershaw

  Mann’s young administrative assistant. Friend of Morgan and friend of Smith (below). South African.

  Nigel Morgan

  Intelligence trader and bon vivant. Close to South African government, ex-military intelligence. Close friend of Mann and Thatcher (below). British. a.k.a. Nosher, Captain Pig.

  Johann Smith

  Intelligence trader close to governments of Equatorial Guinea and South Africa. Ex-military intelligence. South African. a.k.a. Peg Leg.

  Sir Mark Thatcher

  Businessman and friend of Mann and Morgan. Financier of helicopter intended by others for use in coup plot. Son of Baroness Thatcher. British. a.k.a. Scratcher.

  Equatorial Guinea

  ‘Bones’ Boonazier

  Ex-sergeant major in South African army. Worked for du Toit (below) in Equatorial Guinea. South African. First name Marthinus. a.k.a. Bones.

  Sergio Cardoso

  Ex-South African special forces and mercenary. Thought to be second in command to du Toit. Sao Tomean.

  Nick du Toit

  Ex-South African special forces. Arms dealer and friend of Mann. Front man in Equatorial Guinea. South African. a.k.a. Niek, Nicky, Nik.

  Gerhard Merz

  Aviation broker, business partner of du Toit and chemical weapons trader. German.

  Obiang Nguema

  Long-standing president of Equatorial Guinea, nephew of Macias (see below). Equatorial Guinean.

  Macias Nguema

  Ex-president and genocidal dictator of Equatorial Guinea (1968–79). Equatorial Guinean.

  Teodorin Nguema

  Elder son of, and likely successor to, Obiang. Playboy. Equatorial Guinean.

  Armengol Nguema

  Younger brother of Obiang and business partner of du Toit. Equatorial Guinean.

  Spain and Canary Islands

  Severo Moto

  Trained priest. Aspiring president of Equatorial Guinea, exiled in Madrid. Friend of Ely Calil (see United Kingdom, below).

  Crause Steyl

  Pilot. Ex-Executive Outcomes. Brother of Niel Steyl and friend of Mann. Self-confessed plotter of the Wonga Coup. South African.

  David Tremain

  Businessman. Friend of Mann and alleged financier and coup plotter. Wanted in South Africa. British.

  Greg Wales

  Accountant. Ex-Executive Outcomes. Friend of Mann and fellow plotter. Wanted in South Africa. British. a.k.a. Oil Slick, Charles Burrows.

  United Kingdom

  Jeffrey Archer

  Novelist, politician, member of the House of Lords and convicted perjurer. Accused of putting funds into Mann’s bank account a few days before the launch of the coup. British.

  Ely Calil

  Tycoon and friend of Moto, Archer, Mandelson, Mann and Thatcher. Well-connected i
n west Africa. Accused by Equatorial Guinea of being the chief financier of the plot. Lebanese–Nigerian. a.k.a Khalil, Smelly, the Cardinal.

  Frederick Forsyth

  Bestselling novelist; author of The Dogs of War, about a coup plot in west Africa. Suspected plotter of 1973 coup attempt against Equatorial Guinea. British.

  France

  Henry Page

  Lawyer for the government of Equatorial Guinea, based in Paris. British.

  USA

  Simon Kareri

  African accounts manager, Riggs Bank. Very close to Equatorial Guinea rulers. American.

  Prologue

  Manyame military base

  Harare, Zimbabwe

  Sunday, 7 March 2004

  6.35 p.m.

  There were no stars that night on the Harare airstrip, nor any moon; just the southern African darkness wrapping around him like warm, wet velvet …

  A slender, middle-aged man with a military bearing stares at the horizon as a dot of light appears in the south. Right on schedule, the lights of a Boeing 727 flicker in the gloom. He feels a twinge of excitement, the familiar adrenalin. The aircraft lumbers closer and his breathing quickens. This night will see the climax to months of hard preparation.

  ‘Captain F’ slips a cell phone into his jacket pocket, spins on his heel and turns his back to the approaching plane. Head up, breathing in the fresh night air, he closes his eyes and – as he has already done so many times before – runs the plan through his mind …

  Soon after midnight the forward team will move into position. The sweaty little capital of the target country will be silent as Nick’s landcruisers conduct a final reconnaissance. Their beams illuminate Spanish colonnades, palms, the squat concrete houses, the rubbish-strewn streets, the odd drunken soldier. A last drive past the president’s palace, then on to the coast road and towards the orange night sky, towards Punta Europa, the gas-flaring complex beside the airport, and then to the airfield itself. Nick and his welcoming committee will enter the tower, take charge, set the radio to the agreed frequency and wait.

  Two hours after midnight, west African time, Captain F’s team will be approaching the target. Contact will be made with Nick. Touch down and a rapid exit from the customised ex-American government Boeing. The seventy men of the landing team, veterans of mercenary wars in Africa, of some of the bloodiest battles on the continent, have done all this before. They can be trusted with loaded weapons in a pressurised plane. First task on arrival: secure the airport. Second, load the mortars, grenades, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and other supplies in the landcruisers.

  From the west, skimming the waves of the north Atlantic, another plane will head for the target. In the darkest hours the King Air plane will hop flame-topped oil rigs in the Gulf of Guinea. Its precious cargo, the priest, the man who would be president, will arrive.

  From the airport it is a short drive along a toll road to the capital. A small roadblock manned by two drunken soldiers will be swept aside. In the city one unit – perhaps a dozen men at most – will take the first barracks on the road to the south. Sweep into town, past the embassies – expect a light shining in the Spanish one – and into the old quarter. Three smaller units will take the radio station, the telephone exchange and the police station near the central square.

  Then the main assault. They may need something big – a fire engine from the airport, perhaps – to flatten the huge iron gate at the entrance to the president’s palace. There may be a guard or two waiting, but nothing to stop Nick’s seventy men. Inside it will be a different game: the Moroccan presidential guard and a local force. But with mortars, RPGs, his newly trained men well used to urban fighting and house penetration, the attack will take an hour at most. The president’s palace is isolated at the east end of town. Another barracks, beyond the Black Beach prison, will be sealed off by a unit of Buffalo Soldiers.

  Inside they will need a local guide to take them to the president’s chamber. The man may not need to be killed if he offers no resistance. But a bullet in his head is more likely.

  Then, by dawn, the priest’s speech will be playing on Radio Asonga. Monday morning and the new government – his new government – will be open for business. Those juicy oil revenues will need to be re-allocated. In a few hours history will be made …

  Captain F turns back. The Boeing, safely landed, taxies from the international runway into the military half of the airport, Manyame base. He can make out a familiar face in the cockpit window. He turns and walks towards a parachute hangar and a truckload of weapons. The game is about to begin.

  PART ONE

  The Ocean of Oil

  1

  The Rise of Mann

  ‘Everything we’ve touched turned to gold. Simon is full of ideas. He finds profitable solutions.’

  Crause Steyl on Simon Mann

  Beer is the mother of many extravagant ideas and much improbable bravado. The roots of the Wonga Coup draw down into one of the East End of London’s largest breweries. Nearly a century ago, the Mann, Crossman and Paulin brewery in Whitechapel was a family affair run by Francis Thomas Mann. He passed it on to his son, Francis George. Young George enjoyed his beer and the brewery served up ale, porter or bitters as fashion changed. Both father and son combined brewing and soldiering – the one fighting in the First World War, the other for the Scots Guards in the Second. Beer, then as now, was capable of giving drinkers the taste for a bit of a scrap.

  When peace broke out in 1945, Major George Mann should have returned to the business of brewing, but instead the family’s other passion, hardly less combative, intervened. George Mann, though stocky verging on squat, was a cricketer of distinction. And so popular was he with his fellow players that he became captain of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), a quaint English way of saying he led the national team. It was a remarkable feat, since again he was following his father’s example. The Mann family claimed a place in the high echelons of British society. Though its wealth came from trade (and beer at that) and there was little sign of royal blood in their veins, the Manns passed as aristocrats. Their sons boarded at Eton, the country’s most prestigious public school, where future ministers and royals were caned, slippered and otherwise battered into shape to run the country. When they came of age, the men joined White’s, London’s most exclusive, if dry as dust, gentleman’s club that still counts the Prince of Wales and other members of the English upper classes on its books.

  After the war, George led the English cricket team to tour South Africa. They arrived by ocean-going liner and travelled for months by sea and train. He did well enough on the field during the series of high-profile games, though the gentlemen amateurs who had long dominated the game were fast being replaced by professionals. But he performed best on the long cruise home, using the weeks sailing from South Africa to court a young woman. As the ship plodded north, beyond the coast of Portuguese west Africa (now Angola), heading to the swells of the Atlantic and beyond the Gulf of Guinea, turning past the bulge of west Africa at the Canary Islands, setting a course north for the Bay of Biscay and Southampton, George secured himself a wife. By the time the liner docked, he had snared a South African, Margaret Marshall Clark, the product of another high-society family. Her father was chairman of South Africa’s railways and a director of De Beers, the world’s largest diamond company. It was a happy match. Marriage followed and their son, Simon Francis, was born on 26 June 1952. At around the same time a brewing giant offered to buy the family business. George cashed in and took a seat on the board of the larger company. His son would need another career.

  At first, young Simon followed the family tradition. ‘Mann is used to wealth and an upper class way of life,’ sums up a friend. He passed his childhood at Eton, then took up officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He did not try for university as he lacked academic talent and hungered for an active life, if not a sporting one. By the 1970s, when others grew their hair long, donned flares and pr
otested against war and global injustice, Simon followed his father and took a commission in the Scots Guards. Some later suggested that his family had faintly disapproved. Soldiering for your country at a time of grave threat is an honourable duty; but a career in the army when no war is imminent could smack of desperation.

  Mann, though, did well as an officer, and applied to the Special Air Service (SAS), Britain’s well-respected special forces regiment. He was promptly accepted and became a troop commander in G Squadron of 22 SAS, where he specialised in intelligence and counter-terrorism. Most officers in Britain’s special forces are expected to complete a three-year rotation, which Simon duly did before moving back to his regular army job. His counter-terrorism training would have been useful during a three-year tour of Northern Ireland in the 1970s, when British soldiers struggled to keep apart warring Protestant and Catholic factions. He travelled, facing Soviet opponents at the front line of the Cold War, both in West Germany and in Norway (where British squaddies (privates) were notorious for their capacity for pub brawls). He was also posted to Cyprus, Canada and central America. But by the beginning of the 1980s, after a decade in the army, promotions dried up and Simon tired of life in uniform. ‘I think he wanted a new challenge, and after a while some people find army life a little bit mundane,’ says an ex-colleague.

  Simon Mann turned his hand, maladroitly, to computer software and, more dexterously, to a private military company run by the notorious founder of the SAS, David Stirling, who by the mid 1970s had convinced himself that Britain was in terminal decline and in need of a dose of strong leadership. Mann maintained his privileged life. He mixed with royalty and lingered at White’s, though the smoke-filled rooms where geriatrics hurled anecdotes and bread rolls did little to satisfy the restless ex-soldier. When Stirling’s private empire became embroiled in scandal at the end of the 1980s over the misuse of charity money, it was time to move on. Saddam Hussein briefly did him a favour, invading Kuwait and kicking off the first Gulf War. Mann re-enlisted, joining the army staff at the headquarters of the British commander in Saudi Arabia, where he liaised with active members of the SAS. Once that war was over Mann was footloose again.