by Simon Mann
My sources tell me that such dark days are far from over in EG. People are being tortured and killed. People are vanishing. Being imprisoned without charge. Disappearing into the prison system. No free speech. Movement is prohibited: you can’t go from one village to the next without bribing the police officer and a priest.
Obiang has his party piece. He allegedly eats the flesh of murdered rivals. A senior police commissioner had been buried without his testicles or his brain.
Such are the stories.
Obiang’s is a rank tyranny. Ousting him is the right thing to do.
All the time, the Boss’s monthly burn rate is going up. He has to pay for Niek. For my costs. For the guys in EG. The EG businesses themselves.
All the time I’m trimming costs. Short cuts here, favours there. There’s a simple solution: one big fat cheque for £1 million. That would kick off the whole thing. I know he can raise this money. If he’s had a change of heart he needs to tell me.
‘If you want to kill this Op,’ I urge him, ‘do it now.’
‘Simon, the money is coming. I promise you, the money is coming any day now.’
Then comes dramatic news. A development no one could have seen coming.
Liberia is being ripped apart by her civil war, which has been going on these last six years now. Then, in June 2003, the barbaric despot Charles Taylor flees to Nigeria. Suddenly the US starts taking a keen interest in mineral-rich, ruler-free Liberia.
On 26 July 2003, President George W. Bush orders American warships to blockade the coast of Liberia. He orders LURD rebels to sign up for peace. Bush and his CIA spooks no doubt sniff some sort of diamond deal with a new regime.
There’s oil offshore of Liberia.
Cue the Barrel Boyz.
In West Africa, it’s all about oil … but then everything is about oil, full stop.
Sailing my little Scandinavian coastal steamer, the Princess Maud, to the Liberian coast to pick up 200 armed men doesn’t now seem like a good idea. Being a gung-ho derring-do dog of war is one thing. Tangling with the United States fucking Navy is another.
Under the Argus eye of a USN boarding party, the story – that my 200 LURD troops were on an educational enviro-tourist cruise – might not stand up.
Plan A is scrapped. We don’t care. We’re used to plans going tits up. Another plan at least as cunning is taking shape.
Our São Tomé boys – those already in EG – have enjoyed good luck. Their joint ventures have been snapped up by the EG government. Already they are working at ministerial level.
Niek du Toit is posing as the real power and money behind these schemes. He’s made several trips to EG now. He has met and spoken with Obiang. This now forms the basis for Plan B, as follows: we will establish a Forming Up Place (FUP) in the DRC. We have picked the Kilo Moto region in the north of the country. The DRC is the size of Europe. Ungovernable. Kilo Moto is brimful of gold.
We have a deal, to pay off the local warlord. In return he provides use of his grand metalled landing strip, some accommodation and a rifle range. And his promise not to kill us.
Plan B is to fly our 80 men from South Africa into Maseru, in Kilo Moto. Their cover? Security for our gold mining and gold trading in that region. By D Day those activities will be genuine.
Only real cover is good cover. So, did you remember that one, girls?
We have chartered two Russian planes – an Ilyushin 76 (Il-76) and an Antonov An-12. This charter has been organised for me – out of the icy depths of the old Eastern Bloc – by a potty and antique German friend of EO, and of mine: one Gerhard Merz. Gerhard is Benny Hill doing a German accent. He’s a convicted gun runner, but very funny. Very good at it. ‘Zer baby bottles,’ he calls a shipment.
Niek has based Gerhard, with the aircraft and crews, in Malabo International. He’s squared this with the EG authorities. They love it. As far as they are concerned, the planes are an essential part of Niek’s business operations, all of which are, of course, JVs with VVIP locals.
The Boss’s monthly burn rate has just doubled.
Plan B. Niek tells Obiang that his company, Triple Option Ltd, is making him a goodwill gift: four top-of-the-range Toyota Land Cruisers. The President, Niek tells me, loves new toys, loves gifts. (Try it. The unsolicited gift is hugely potent in African culture.)
He will come to the airport to receive his Land Cruisers, to wallow in the moment. Niek tells Obiang to let him know what colours he’d like them.
As the aircraft bearing gifts draws up, Niek will be beside Obiang. The Il-76 will indeed be carrying four Land Cruisers. It will be our Trojan horse carrying 70 armed men. The vehicles and the weapons will have been picked up at Entebbe, Uganda, then flown to Maseru, Kilo Moto, the FUP. Once there, they will be married up to the men flown up from South Africa. Test firing and last-minute rehearsals will be carried out.
At the last minute, Severo Moto will be flown to the FUP in a biz jet from Europe. Men, weapons and Moto will only be together hours before we take off, for H Hour, D Day. Malabo.
‘We are not a customary airline.’ ‘Beware Afrikaners bearing gifts.’
Arriving at Malabo International, the Il-76 will land, then taxi over to the Presidential party. The Toyotas will come roaring out, ready to shoot. Niek will grab the President. Niek’s São Tomé team will overpower the Presidential security.
We will place Obiang under arrest. We will escort Moto to the palace. Plan B is breathtaking in its simplicity. There’s an added satisfaction in knowing that Obiang will have been undone by his own greed.
The Boss loves Plan B. He swears the big money for it to go ahead is coming. Those dollars have to cover the pay of the main party, the weapons and ammo, and the Toyotas. The Boss reveals alarming news. News that cranks up the suspense further. News that banishes any doubts I had harboured about his dedication to the plot.
He has heard, from his EG sources – neatly cross-referencing his US ones – that President Obiang is terminally ill. If he dies, then whoever takes over might be less easily wobbled. There are rumours, the Boss tells me, that Obiang is about to hand over power to his eldest son, California-living, wild playboy Teodorino.
Teodorino, not forgetting the terrible curse of the twin skulls, is a wannabe rap star with an international reputation as a hothead and spendthrift. In one weekend in Cape Town in 2003, he purchased two Bentleys – an Arnage T and a Mulliner – to the tune of £1.1 million. Then he splashed out on a Lamborghini Murcielago and two luxury homes worth £3.7 million.
Teodorino’s largesse is not what concerns his enemies. They are scared by his tendency to open fire in nightclubs – and at meetings – whenever things don’t go his way. Mostly he shoots at the ceiling. Not always.
One thing seems certain. If Teodorino is made President, then the EG Army will mutiny. Our Op will be dead in the water.
As the Boss puts it: ‘Simon, we need your coup yesterday.’ I comfort myself that he, at last, shares my sense of urgency. But where’s his fucking money?
The money doesn’t come.
Then, just as Plan B would have come together, had we been paid the money, it all falls apart. The Il-76 and crew leave Malabo. The Il-76, one of the cornerstones of Plan B, has fucked off. Just like that. No notice. No warning.
The Il-76 had a straightforward cover story for being in Malabo. It was a part of Niek’s business in EG, Triple Option. The company had an air-freight JV that the place badly needed. However, to pull off that cover story, the aircraft needed to be busy. It needed to be flying in and out of Malabo regularly. Otherwise Obiang’s people would smell a rat.
Now I find out that Niek and Gerhard have failed to come up with work to keep the jet busy. They have hit West African paperwork difficulties. Excuses for bribes, in other words.
I find out that the Il-76 crew have been on a low basic wage, topped up by a bonus for each hour flying. The crew has been stranded, idle, for week after week, earning a pittance.
So they have fuelled
up and fucked off. I am furious.
Why hadn’t Niek and Gerhard kept them busy? Or at least struck a deal that would have made it worth their while to stay on at Malabo? Why had I not been warned that there was a problem?
Niek explains. He thought the Boss would have stumped up the big money by now. He thought we’d be ‘in’ weeks ago. He and Gerhard should have seen the problem on their radar. Dealt with it. They are being paid to do a job.
But, as Niek points out, every mishap can be traced back to one singular failing on the part of one person. Why is the Boss not coming up with the big money?
‘Look, I’ve made up my mind,’ I tell the Boss at our next powwow. He gives me his hangdog look. He knows of my difficulties, but I can pull this off. ‘I’m gonna look for other investors… You can have a veto on them, that’s OK … but we sure as hell can’t go on like this.’
The Boss thinks about something. On this he knows that he hasn’t got a leg to stand on.
‘Who do you have in mind?’
‘I’ve just the man.’
I first met Mark Thatcher in 1997.
My family had just moved to Cape Town. Days after arriving, I’m approached by a pal of Thatcher’s, our very own Frank Thomas, who has connections to Margaret Thatcher.
Thomas tells me his chums in South African National Intelligence are nervous about my turning up in their country. They are agog. What am I up to? Executive Outcomes casts a long shadow. I must meet his boss. I do that. I’ve nothing to hide. SA NI agree.
Then Thomas introduces me to my new neighbour, Mark Thatcher, only son of the former British Prime Minister, Margaret. Mark thinks that the SAS walk on water. Because I’d gone even further and won through in Angola and Sierra Leone – in two private wars – he treats me like I’m a star.
Mark bombards me with invites. Social and business events. I think he’s lonely. He doesn’t seem to have many friends. So he’s seized upon me. Simon Mann, MT’s new best friend. I mean, we move to SA in late November, and four weeks later we’re all round at his place for Christmas dinner, meeting Mum and Dad!
As I know, Maggie shares her son’s fondness for the SAS. They had made the difference for her. Gone the extra. More than once. She had for them too. She takes a shine to me. Over the years, whenever we have dinner, I’m always sat next to her. Maggie’s Cape Town favourite.
Other than that of Nelson Mandela, our house is the only Cape home she visits, for lunch or dinner. Amanda and I even go on a game lodge holiday with Margaret, Denis, Mark and his wife, Diane. A long weekend. Endlessly long. I had warned Amanda, but she wasn’t having it. ‘Oh no, Pilot. I’m not missing going on holiday with the most famous living Briton. Are you crazy?’ You have been warned.
Soon I am to find out where meeting up with a former Prime Minister can take you. In London I become friendly with one of Lady Thatcher’s former advisers. His name is David Hart and, despite his former political allegiance to Maggie, he is close to Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff at 10 Downing Street.
Hart – another Old Etonian – went spectacularly bust in the 1970s while speculating in London property. On hearing of his bankruptcy, his mother hired a butler for him. Sent him round to cheer the boy up.
His main rise to fame and power came about by smuggling papers from the cellar archives of the Kremlin. Hart’s standing with Maggie was that of superstar. Or of an SAS man. Even so, that did not stop them from having fiery rows.
Oddly (or so it seems at the time), I first met Hart through my eldest son, Peter, then 22. He and his friend Charlie, Hart’s son, had decided their fathers must meet. They set up a blind-date lunch for their two dads at the Ritz in Piccadilly.
We eat where David Hart holds court, Cohiba Esplendidos and all, in the alcove just off the main dining room. The one immediately right, then right again, as you walk in. So tucked away, went the argument, that it was a separate room to the main dining room. So Hart could suck and puff his expensive Cuban smoke.
Serendipitously or not (but now I think not), this lunch date happens in February 2002. We hit it off. Meetings, lunches, dinners follow – while David brings me into his network. I check him out. Very improbably, he is indeed the Big Man that his boasts say that he is.
David is close to Number 10. He is close to those who matter in Israel. His father was a Jew, his mother not. But he thinks of himself as a radical free-thinking Jew. Among other things, he knows Frank Thomas, the Cape Town spook so keen to have me shake hands with SA NI.
But Hart, I find, is a man who wields extraordinary behind-the-scenes power.
In the US, he has links with the neo-conservatives. Prominent among these is Richard Perle, a political adviser and lobbyist who worked for the Reagan administration. Perle had earned himself the dubious moniker ‘The Prince of Darkness’. He is one of the neo-cons openly pushing for a US invasion of Iraq. Perle is not alone. Among others in Hart’s Stateside circle are Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; his deputy Paul Wolfowitz; Phil Condit, the Chairman and CEO of Boeing.
One day, David tells me, he was sitting with Rumsfeld in his Pentagon office. They talk about the need to invade Iraq, as soon as Afghanistan is subdued. Israel comes up. They debate, for a while, the same old arguments. Then Rumsfeld waves a hand towards the window. Potomac River. White House.
‘On the other hand, David,’ he observes, ‘who needs Israel … when you have all this?’
Hart is an ambassador for invasion. He tells me he’s not paid by the neo-cons or by any government. That he likes it this way. He’s unaccountable. Deniable. His kickback comes when big companies win contracts, for war or peace. David is on a percentage with God knows who.
Hart, freelance invasion ambassador, flies me to the south of France for lunch with Perle, Prince of Darkness. The lunch feels weird. I know well enough that Perle is checking me out. Taking a read-out.
A week or so later David invites me to a party where I meet Perle, members of Mossad, my old Russian tutor from Sandhurst Chris Donnelly, now working for NATO, and Sir Graham ‘Jock’ Stirrup, then UK Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, responsible for buying equipment for the Armed Forces. The jungle drums beat hard. The talk is of ‘how’ and ‘when’ we invade Iraq. Not if.
David tells me he needs my help. He is writing papers on Iraq and the desired downfall of Saddam Hussein. These papers are going to Jonathan Powell, Chief of Staff at 10 Downing Street. Powell, in turn, is passing them on to his boss, Prime Minister Blair.
What David wants are the ideas of someone like me.
‘Why me?’ I ask.
‘You’re ex-SAS.’
‘Like many others – a hundred of them – here in London – and most of those better qualified than me.’
‘True, Simon. But they haven’t fought private-venture campaigns as you have – and won them – in Angola and Sierra Leone. We need outside-the-box thinking.’
Of course, I’m flattered. Who wouldn’t be? I also want to do anything I can to make the invasion happen. There is no question in my mind: Saddam is a war criminal. He’s a mass murderer. He’s a despotic madman who needs to be brought down. A bully that needs to be fought. Fast. Not having a go against a Saddam is like not having a go against a street mugging. Only the distance is greater.
While I work up outside-the-box invasion ruses, I regularly meet David.
Of course, we argue through the pros and cons of an invasion.
Oil. Yummy contracts. Jolly good fun for the Barrel Boyz. Bush junior seeking the scalp that Bush senior failed to take. Saudi is going cold on the West. If Iran grows punchy, then what better new place to have as a forward operating base than Iraq?
I want to know what other reasons we have to risk the lives of our soldiers.
I fear the Born Again factor. Bush and Blair, God’s avenging angels. Bible-bashing. I need to know: how much of this invasion plan is down to Born Again mumbo-jumbo?
‘Well … yes … too much,’ David says. He takes a big suck of Cohiba
smoke, blows slowly out.
This worries me.
One day I ask David straight: ‘We knew Saddam was a bad ass long before 9/11. So … is payback for 9/11 what this is really about?’
‘Afghanistan isn’t enough,’ says David. ‘The last people to attack the US had two nuclear bombs dropped on them. If you attack Uncle Sam, revenge will be total. Mega. Afghanistan went well. Now they need more. Bigger.’
At that stage, the issue is one of casus belli. Is there enough to justify invasion? I am sure that, if I was an Iraqi, I would pray that someone in the West would have the balls to help us get out from under. Topple the tyrant.
I am equally sure, and say so to David, that trying to bamboozle, or josh along, the Ordinary Joes of the US, or UK, is unnecessary, dangerous and wrong. There is no need to bullshit. I tell David that Saddam’s alleged possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction is a red herring. There’s no need for us to use them as argument. In any case, if he has them now, then he had them before 11 September.
So why didn’t we invade before?
If the British and the Americans look at the crimes of Saddam’s regime, they will see it is right that we go in. How many people does a tyrant have to kill or torture before you can take him on?
English Common Law is clear enough on that topic: tyranny is assault. To fight against assault is good. To fight to help someone who is being assaulted is good.
Arguing the toss like that isn’t my job, even if it does make for good lunchtime argument. My job – by way of casus belli – is to come up with schemes of derring-do that will kick things off in a fitting manner.
‘Raising the Flag’ is one of my schemes, ‘Q Ships’ another. The idea behind both is to trigger a chain of events. Raising the Flag involves the thousands-strong body of Iraqis in exile, of which I meet Jalal al-Hashim. The intro comes from Perle via Hart. We get on. He is the CIA/neo-con/White House first choice for leader of a liberated Iraq. We meet in his large and shadowy apartment in the swanky St Germain district of Paris, just behind the Institut de France. The rooms have an Edwardian scale and grandeur. So does the furniture and the decoration. There are many silver-framed black-and-white photos, with signatures. The old King of Iraq and his family. It is the classic Grand Émigré. More loyal in absentia than ever they were in situ.