By Sebastien Berger in Malabo
18/06/2008
If Simon Mann had taken a leaf out of Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Dogs of War, his trial would possibly never have happened — or might instead have been an audience in the presidential palace.
AP
Simon Mann [right], is accused of masterminding a failed coup plot, sits with another defendant at the start of his trial in Equatorial Guinea
The best-selling book, published in 1974, describes in painstaking detail the organisation and successful execution of a coup by white mercenaries, led by a Briton, in “Zangaro”, a fictional West African state that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Equatorial Guinea of the time.
Forsyth’s description of the harbour at “Clarence”, the capital, matches that of Malabo, with two curving spits of land reaching out from the coast to form the anchorage. As in the novel, a white colonial governor’s mansion with a red-tiled roof, now the presidential palace, stands above and a little set back from the port.
Even the surly soldiers at a nearby junction, blocking access to the road to the palace, are still there, with a tendency to demand money bluntly from passing visitors.
In the book, Cat Shannon, a former public schoolboy and Royal Marine, leads a team of mercenaries hired by a mining magnate who wants to make a fortune from Zangaro’s platinum deposits. They make a clandestine landing by boat, storm the palace, and kill the incumbent president.
With Equatorial Guinea and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema now earning billions of dollars every year from its oil and gas reserves, the motivations for the fictional and alleged real coup are almost identical.
Mann, a former public schoolboy and SAS officer, is accused of masterminding a mission by a team of mercenaries hired by outside interests to seize control of Equatorial Guinea - which he denies.
In the book Cat Shannon writes in a memo to his paymaster: “I have studied the idea of an airborne landing at the airport. It is not feasible. The authorities at the airport of takeoff would not permit the necessary quantity of arms and men to board a charter aircraft without suspecting the nature of the flight.
“Such authorities, even if a set could be found to permit such a takeoff, would constitute a serious risk of arrest, or a breach of security.’
And in a case of life imitating art Mann’s escapade fell apart on the runway at Manyame military airbase outside the Zimbabwean capital Harare, when he and around 70 other soldiers of fortune were arrested. An advance party on the ground in Malabo that was supposed to secure the airport for landing was also held.
Mann had arranged to buy weapons in Zimbabwe.
“Simon would have done better to spend more time on the planning,” said one person with extensive knowledge of the plot. “They were originally going to get their arms out of Uganda. All these things changed after 9/11 and were being closed down. In desperation, they went to Zimbabwe.
“It was just the normal Zimbabwean game of selling arms to anyone without end user certificates. The Zimbabweans only changed sides at the last moment. The plane arrived at 7:10pm and the arrests were not made until after midnight.
“Mugabe saw in Simon just a huge wad of notes. And Obiang wanted this white man because for the first time in his life, he’s been able to parade on the world stage as a victim of a white plot.”
Forsyth had no foreknowledge of the Mann plot and has never spoken to the ex-SAS officer.
He has long been alleged to have been aware of a 1973 coup plot against the then Equatoguinean dictator, Macias Nguema, and neither confirms nor denies the claim.
“It cropped up as a possible target for an operation,” when he was researching the novel, Forsyth told The Telegraph. “This was scuttlebutt in Hamburg which was then the European capital of the black market arms industry.
“At the time I was sworn to secrecy. I take that sort of thing seriously. There were people involved who are still alive. That comes under the promise I gave never to talk about it.”
Mann, he added, “didn’t seem to know much or care much about the rigorous security you need to have to mount an operation of that kind.
“It does seem it was right, if you are going to take a small island republic don’t go in by air.
“There’s a bit of history here. About three years later [after publication of The Dogs of War] Bob Denard did indeed capture the Comoros islands by boat. His troop of mercenaries I believe all had a copy of it in French in their back pockets. They were referring to it almost page by page.”
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