Well, we must be grateful that our political on-goings do not approach those of another ex-Portuguese colony in Africa, Guinea-Bissau, where the military chief was assassinated with a bomb, and the army, blaming the president, has promptly assassinated him.
Meanwhile, I learn that the novelist Frederick Forsyth, who wrote the famous novel The Day of the Jackal and then the The Dogs of War, the latter fictionally based on a planned coup d'etat in a mineral-rich African country, was actually involved, in a coup attempt. In an interview last year he admitted to his involvement in a planned 1973 coup in Equatorial Guinea. I don't actually condemn him for this as he was a BBC correspondent during the Biafran War in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, whose Igbo people suffered much and emigrated to Equatorial Guinea only to suffer more under Equatorial Guinea's first president Macias Nguema,
In a media interview last year he gave his professional opinion that Simon Mann's attempt to execute a coup d'etat by air was dumb. He has a website and comes across as a right-wing git but it would be hard to be more extreme than Macias Nguema.
In related news ... I've just read that famous French mercenary Bob Denard who is most reputed for his involvement in the Comoros islands on the other side of the continent, but was involved in much more over the years, died last year - not in violence but of old age.
Showing posts with label Buffaloes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buffaloes. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2009
Coup d'Etats and other funny going-ons - Part III
This is a bit of a miscellaneous post to add a few minor miscellaneous details and anecdotes from the previous two posts on the same theme.
You might wonder what "Wonga" means? According to Adam Roberts book I previously referenced, Wonga is an old Romany word which originally meant coal but latterly then attained the meaning money.
Two white South African acquaintances, long term residents here, were questioned by local security forces after the alleged coup attempt here - the first I phoned denied knowing anything about it (which I believe), wouln't talk about it and didn't mention he had been questioned. The other I phoned on Monday but is doing a job on our sister island returning on Thursday, admitted he'd been contacted by the security services and agreed to talk to me about it this coming weekend.
The aforementioned acquaintances once worked here for another interesting South African Cristoph Hellinger, who once owned luxurious hotels on both islands and still runs a large (in terms of a small island state) construction company here. He is the owner of a vineyard and estate in Stellenbosch near Cape Town. Hellinger was not a great friend of the apartheid regime and got rich running diamond mine logistics operations for the MPLA in Angola during the civil war with Savimbi's UNITA and, given our first president's support from/for the MPLA, used Sao Tome as a staging post.
I have heard anecdotes of Filipino workers recruited by Hellinger hiding in the roof-spaces of their accomodation of MPLA-controlled diamond mines under attack from Savimbi's UNITA.
Anyway, Hellinger earned plenty from the Angolan MPLA in diamonds or diamond-money and paid our first president plenty for long-term leases on two prime pieces of land on our two islands, where on our sister island he built a luxury hotel. His admin complex and local construction company HQ remained on our island and he established the first national airline. He also got a contract to manage the state-owned luxury hotel constructed in the late '70s/early'80s by Yugoslavia (before it fell apart). However, the first democratic government here annulled this contract, awarded it to a Portuguese company which let it fall apart and it was then handed over to a member of Germany's aristocracy who sold it to a multinational Portuguese company a couple of years ago. In the meantime, Hellinger built another luxry hotel here.
In South Africa Hellinger had employed S. African B. and Filipino R. as an accountant in his hotel business there - they were both marvellous - and supported us 200% during the beginning of Kezia's leukaemia.
B. once told me how Hellinger would hide his staff in a top Cape Town hotel he owned. Black and Coloured people were not permitted to serve whites in public places under the ica, apartheid regime. Classified as "Coloured" (as her maternal grandmother was black although she looks as white as "Whites" come) under the apartheid regime and thus not allowed to serve white people. she would have to run as well.
Moving on ...
A work colleague tells me the security services didn't actually find an AK47 in the hands of ex-Buffao, leader of insignificant political party FRNSTP, Adelecio Costa, but just a magazine and 300 bullets.
Our president has threatened to resign stating he is fed up with political instability + I don't blame him but has since addressed the nation in a rather strict and paternalistic tone urging the population and political class to be more disciplined ...
You might wonder what "Wonga" means? According to Adam Roberts book I previously referenced, Wonga is an old Romany word which originally meant coal but latterly then attained the meaning money.
Two white South African acquaintances, long term residents here, were questioned by local security forces after the alleged coup attempt here - the first I phoned denied knowing anything about it (which I believe), wouln't talk about it and didn't mention he had been questioned. The other I phoned on Monday but is doing a job on our sister island returning on Thursday, admitted he'd been contacted by the security services and agreed to talk to me about it this coming weekend.
The aforementioned acquaintances once worked here for another interesting South African Cristoph Hellinger, who once owned luxurious hotels on both islands and still runs a large (in terms of a small island state) construction company here. He is the owner of a vineyard and estate in Stellenbosch near Cape Town. Hellinger was not a great friend of the apartheid regime and got rich running diamond mine logistics operations for the MPLA in Angola during the civil war with Savimbi's UNITA and, given our first president's support from/for the MPLA, used Sao Tome as a staging post.
I have heard anecdotes of Filipino workers recruited by Hellinger hiding in the roof-spaces of their accomodation of MPLA-controlled diamond mines under attack from Savimbi's UNITA.
Anyway, Hellinger earned plenty from the Angolan MPLA in diamonds or diamond-money and paid our first president plenty for long-term leases on two prime pieces of land on our two islands, where on our sister island he built a luxury hotel. His admin complex and local construction company HQ remained on our island and he established the first national airline. He also got a contract to manage the state-owned luxury hotel constructed in the late '70s/early'80s by Yugoslavia (before it fell apart). However, the first democratic government here annulled this contract, awarded it to a Portuguese company which let it fall apart and it was then handed over to a member of Germany's aristocracy who sold it to a multinational Portuguese company a couple of years ago. In the meantime, Hellinger built another luxry hotel here.
In South Africa Hellinger had employed S. African B. and Filipino R. as an accountant in his hotel business there - they were both marvellous - and supported us 200% during the beginning of Kezia's leukaemia.
B. once told me how Hellinger would hide his staff in a top Cape Town hotel he owned. Black and Coloured people were not permitted to serve whites in public places under the ica, apartheid regime. Classified as "Coloured" (as her maternal grandmother was black although she looks as white as "Whites" come) under the apartheid regime and thus not allowed to serve white people. she would have to run as well.
Moving on ...
A work colleague tells me the security services didn't actually find an AK47 in the hands of ex-Buffao, leader of insignificant political party FRNSTP, Adelecio Costa, but just a magazine and 300 bullets.
Our president has threatened to resign stating he is fed up with political instability + I don't blame him but has since addressed the nation in a rather strict and paternalistic tone urging the population and political class to be more disciplined ...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Coup d'Etats and other funny going-ons - Part II: The Wonga Coup
Beware, beware the Bight of Benin
For few come out though many go in.
For few come out though many go in.
Less than a year later, March 2004, saw a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea (EG). Richer pickings this time as EG is the third largest oil producer (after Nigeria and Angola) in Africa.
After independence from Spain in 1967 it was led by Macias Nguema whose brutality can be compared with that of Uganda's Idi Amin and the Central African Republic's Bokassa (shall we make a league table of the most brutal dictatorships that exist/have existed in Africa/the world? Perhaps by those killed or tortured per 1000 heads of population?) Anyway. his nephew Obiang, the current president, overthrew him in a coup in 1979 and promptly had him executed by a Moroccan firing squad. His own human rights record is only just slightly better than his uncle's.
In 2003 Simon Mann, a Brit who had run a mercenary business Executive Outcomes which gained fame in Sierra Leone and for whom several ex-Buffaloes worked, got together with some of his chums and decided to launch a coup in EG. They started off by setting up a "front" company led by a certain Nick du Toit supposedly to invest in fishing industry and recruited several other South African ex-special forces colleagues. He also befriended Obiang's younger brother, Armengol Nguema, the head of EG's security services and with a ruthless reputation. One of Nick's colleagues Sergio Cardoso travelled to Sao Tome on more than one occasion to seek advice from Arlecio Costa, the ex-Buffalo who led the attempted coup here and other Santomense ex-Buffaloes.
Prior to their arrival in Bioko another ex-Buffalo, Johannes Smith, had set himself up as an independent security advisor to the EG government.
Mann remained in South Africa doing the logistics - procuring arms, recruiting ex-special service "foot soldiers" and arranging transport. The cover story was protection of a mine in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. Recruitment was not a problem - there were promises of rich pickings but arms and transport proved to be. Time was getting short as they hoped to install exiled EG politician Severo Moto as president before (obviously to be rigged) elections in March 2004. Transport proved problematic - he persuaded ex-UK prime minister's son Mark to finance the purchase of a helicopter (Mark Thatcher later claimed before a S. African court he had been misled into believing it was to be used in a new air ambulance company - oh yeah!). An airliner big enough to transport the troops and collect the arms cargoes was more problematic - eventually he bought one from a US family-owned company Dodson Aviation with an office in S. Africa and it was personally flown to S. Africa by a member of the Dodson family. Arms were an even greater problem and he eventually approached the state-owned Zimbabwe arms supply company (he should have contacted Viktor Bout!) and placed an order to be collected on the Dodson plane on its wat to Malabo with the foot-soldiers.
Loose talk!
Our previously mentioned Johannes Smith got wind of it and informed the EG government which contacted the cash-strapped Zimbabwe government and in an oil-for-action swap, Zimbabwe agreed to the arrest of everyone on the Dodson plane.
Nick du Toit made a final pre-coup visit to South Africa. He was returning to Bioko on a privately chartered jet which stopped off in Sao Tome to refuel and dropped off a South African businessman assisting and investing in a company helping the Santomense ex-Buffaloes to develop a luxury tourism complex on the north coast of Sao Tome.
As Nick and colleagues disembarked in Malabo, they were arrested. As Simon Mann and the "foot-soldiers" landed in Zimbabwe to collect the arms, they were arrested. South Africa negotiate for most of the "foot-soldiers" to be released after c. 1 ome year. Nick du Toit and colleagues langiush in the infamous Black Beach Prison as does Simon Mann who was extradited from Zimbabwe to EG.
Reference: The Wonga Coup by Adam Roberts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Coup d'Etats and other funny going-ons - Part I
Some funny things have been going on in the region in the last few days ...
First, last week security forces arrested a group of c. 40 people here claiming they were planning a coup d'etat. Then in the early hours of Tuesday morning a group of men turned up in two boats in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea on the island of Bioko and attempted to storm the presidential palace. There ensued a three hour gun battle until the invaders were repulsed. The Equatorial Guinea government claims they were members of the Nigerian Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND - a direct descendant of the Biafran war in 1967-70) who have denied their involvement. Yesterday the Nigerian governnmet did not deny MEND involvement but denied its own involvement,
So first a history lesson ...
Equatorial Guinea gained its independence from Spain in 1967 and Sao Tome e Principe (STP) from Portugal in 1975. Most Portuguese left in 1974-75 but a handful stayed on and when in 1977, the government claimed they had discovered plans for a coup d'etat as part of a larger international plot to topple tht MPLA government in Angola, they were rounded up and briefly imprisoned. On their release some stayed, some returned to Portugal. I was given names last weekend but obviously will not repeat them here
Over the coming years there were largely unsubstantiated rumours of planned coups but in 1978 a body of Angolan armed forces arrived on Sao Tome to assist STP in its defense.
No further "serious" attempts occurred until 1986 when a Santomense, Manauel Afonso Rosario dos Santos, resident in Gabon, had formed a political grouping the "renovated FRNSTP " which joined forces with another exile group to form the UDISTP. Improved relations between the STP and Gabonese presidents led to him being expelled from Gabon and he ended up in Cameroun. His supporters in Gabon were increasingly pressurised by the Gabonese government and, having been refused entry to Cameroun, ended up in Namibia where the apartheid regime offered them the choice of prison or military service in South Africa's crack and clandestine military unit the 32 Battalion (widely known as the "Buffaloes") who were fighting the Nambian independence movement SWAPO in northern Namibia/southern Angola).
In 1988 a group of c. 45 men arrived in small trawlers in ST, led by Rosario dos Santos, and attempted a coup but were quickly rounded up. Rosario dos Santos (now deceased) , who personally led the expedition, was soon released and in the light of democratic reforms founded a (pretty unsuccessful - no seats in the National Assembly) political party - Frente Democratico Cristao (FDC - translation the Christian Democratic Front).
The 32 Battalion was mainly composed of black South Africans, Angolan and Mozambican exiles with this small group of Santomenses. Apparently ruthless.
With the end of apartheid the 32 Battalion was disbanded and gradually, the Santomense elements drifted back here.
In July 2003 the Santomense ex-Buffaloes, along with some discontented members of the local armed forces led an attempted coup.
At that time we lived just behind the Prime Minister's house - I heard shots at 4 am, turned over and went back to sleep. At 0630 am a Santomense friend phoned me and told me of the coup - the president was out of the country at the time, they rounded up all the members of government and incarcerated them in the capital's military HQ.
The US Ambassdor to STP with entourage, based in Gabon, were in STP at the time to give a reception celebrating the two countries' independence days given the two holidays fall within a week of each other. Their hotel was just around the corner from our residence so I spoke to my boss and asked if I should check up on them on my way to work. He replied "Yes".
I stopped at the junction of our backstreet with the PM's street, looked right towards her house, saw soldiers outside so took a left. Arrived at the hotel to find the US Ambassador having a breakfast crisis meeting with his team. His first, obvious, concern was the safety of the few other US citizens on the island but he wouldn't let his own US citizen diplomatic staff out of the hotel. So, I volunteered to go and find them and report back on their "safety". I was fortunately accompanied in this mission by another UK citizen working for the US embassy in Gabon (obviously the US ambassador wasn't too concerned with UK citizens). So Joan and I became firm friends and, after avoiding a few road blocks, were able to report that all his citizens were fine. I then ran errands, interpreted, translated etc for the US ambassador for the following few days ... a welcome distraction from my normal job!
At first the only diplomats from "major" countries were from the US and Portugal and they initiated negotiations with the Buffaloes. Then delegations from the Economic Community of Central African States, Angola and South Africa turned up and tried to turf the Americans out ... only after protests by Portugal and S. Africa (if I remember rightly) was the US Ambassador permitted to rejoin the negotiations.
Upshot of the negotiations:
1. More US support for the Santomense military (yes it has happened).
2. More Portuguese support for the Santomense military (?)
3. More South African support for the Santomense ex-Buffaloes
Part II next week.
First, last week security forces arrested a group of c. 40 people here claiming they were planning a coup d'etat. Then in the early hours of Tuesday morning a group of men turned up in two boats in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea on the island of Bioko and attempted to storm the presidential palace. There ensued a three hour gun battle until the invaders were repulsed. The Equatorial Guinea government claims they were members of the Nigerian Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND - a direct descendant of the Biafran war in 1967-70) who have denied their involvement. Yesterday the Nigerian governnmet did not deny MEND involvement but denied its own involvement,
So first a history lesson ...
Equatorial Guinea gained its independence from Spain in 1967 and Sao Tome e Principe (STP) from Portugal in 1975. Most Portuguese left in 1974-75 but a handful stayed on and when in 1977, the government claimed they had discovered plans for a coup d'etat as part of a larger international plot to topple tht MPLA government in Angola, they were rounded up and briefly imprisoned. On their release some stayed, some returned to Portugal. I was given names last weekend but obviously will not repeat them here
Over the coming years there were largely unsubstantiated rumours of planned coups but in 1978 a body of Angolan armed forces arrived on Sao Tome to assist STP in its defense.
No further "serious" attempts occurred until 1986 when a Santomense, Manauel Afonso Rosario dos Santos, resident in Gabon, had formed a political grouping the "renovated FRNSTP " which joined forces with another exile group to form the UDISTP. Improved relations between the STP and Gabonese presidents led to him being expelled from Gabon and he ended up in Cameroun. His supporters in Gabon were increasingly pressurised by the Gabonese government and, having been refused entry to Cameroun, ended up in Namibia where the apartheid regime offered them the choice of prison or military service in South Africa's crack and clandestine military unit the 32 Battalion (widely known as the "Buffaloes") who were fighting the Nambian independence movement SWAPO in northern Namibia/southern Angola).
In 1988 a group of c. 45 men arrived in small trawlers in ST, led by Rosario dos Santos, and attempted a coup but were quickly rounded up. Rosario dos Santos (now deceased) , who personally led the expedition, was soon released and in the light of democratic reforms founded a (pretty unsuccessful - no seats in the National Assembly) political party - Frente Democratico Cristao (FDC - translation the Christian Democratic Front).
The 32 Battalion was mainly composed of black South Africans, Angolan and Mozambican exiles with this small group of Santomenses. Apparently ruthless.
With the end of apartheid the 32 Battalion was disbanded and gradually, the Santomense elements drifted back here.
In July 2003 the Santomense ex-Buffaloes, along with some discontented members of the local armed forces led an attempted coup.
At that time we lived just behind the Prime Minister's house - I heard shots at 4 am, turned over and went back to sleep. At 0630 am a Santomense friend phoned me and told me of the coup - the president was out of the country at the time, they rounded up all the members of government and incarcerated them in the capital's military HQ.
The US Ambassdor to STP with entourage, based in Gabon, were in STP at the time to give a reception celebrating the two countries' independence days given the two holidays fall within a week of each other. Their hotel was just around the corner from our residence so I spoke to my boss and asked if I should check up on them on my way to work. He replied "Yes".
I stopped at the junction of our backstreet with the PM's street, looked right towards her house, saw soldiers outside so took a left. Arrived at the hotel to find the US Ambassador having a breakfast crisis meeting with his team. His first, obvious, concern was the safety of the few other US citizens on the island but he wouldn't let his own US citizen diplomatic staff out of the hotel. So, I volunteered to go and find them and report back on their "safety". I was fortunately accompanied in this mission by another UK citizen working for the US embassy in Gabon (obviously the US ambassador wasn't too concerned with UK citizens). So Joan and I became firm friends and, after avoiding a few road blocks, were able to report that all his citizens were fine. I then ran errands, interpreted, translated etc for the US ambassador for the following few days ... a welcome distraction from my normal job!
At first the only diplomats from "major" countries were from the US and Portugal and they initiated negotiations with the Buffaloes. Then delegations from the Economic Community of Central African States, Angola and South Africa turned up and tried to turf the Americans out ... only after protests by Portugal and S. Africa (if I remember rightly) was the US Ambassador permitted to rejoin the negotiations.
Upshot of the negotiations:
1. More US support for the Santomense military (yes it has happened).
2. More Portuguese support for the Santomense military (?)
3. More South African support for the Santomense ex-Buffaloes
Part II next week.
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