by Simon Mann
Nick’s hung-over grimace was so pathetic that I spared him. He must take care. Too strong a flow of water, with his little prick, and he could drown the poor girl.
When we reached Lungi, we got looks from the UN, and then from the Nigerian Air Force contingent – part of ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group). Neither were in on our deal.
I looked round as we offloaded.
Another 100 of our men would arrive the next day. Coebus and I were putting into practice a lesson we had learnt at Soyo.
With these kinds of operations, security is the nightmare. The way to win is to do things as quickly as possible. It is much harder for the authorities to stop you once you are all in place. A fait accompli. You have to move faster than those reacting to you. Faster than the leak. Faster than the rumour.
Within a day, everyone, at my insistence, had been enrolled into the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. This was a demotion for Tony and me, since here we were colonels, down from the dizzy heights of brigadier generals back in Angola. We had arrived not one day too soon. The RUF were at the gates, and already lobbing mortars into the city’s pathetic defences. We heard the enemy’s bombs stonking in while we were unloading the 727, out on the runway at Lungi Airport.
Coebus and his men went to work quickly. The following day the first 100 men and the two M-17s were in action. They had with them SL’s Mi-24 gunship, now flown by South African pilots. A weapon of mass fright if nothing else.
We had bought a twin-engine Cessna for the INT role. We kitted it out with SIGINT VHF and HF antennae and scanners, plus, on the ground, the same Apple system that we had in Angola. Working in tandem with signal-intercepting equipment on the ground, we rapidly built a SIGINT picture.
Some of the ground kit was ours, other items came from a local and friendly source in Freetown. A building with a large flagpole outside it. Sankoh, chief of the RUF, was an ex-signaller. But he loved to chat, and he loved for his commanders to chat back. That was how he fucked up.
This put us a step ahead, gave EO an edge. We often knew the RUF’s next move before their own soldiers knew it. Their signalling was not as good as they thought it was, so there were times when their radio orders came from us.
Two months after EO moved in, having been often back and forth, I was again in Freetown. The progress against the RUF had been remarkable. I flew on one of the night-time Bird Dog missions that had brought so much success. As soon as it was fully dark, Bokkie or Daisy would go hunting.
The helicopter would fly a grid search given to them by the Intelligence Cell. The search pattern would have been carefully chosen using all information available. Some of the best intelligence came from the network of tribal hunters. This had Chief Norman as its boss. One of the stars of the show, he was later, disgracefully, killed. But that’s another story… Their information would be cross-referenced with the signal intercepts and the radio direction-finding.
On the night I flew, the machine was Bokkie. We wore combat webbing – full fighting order – and carried AKs. ‘Just in case we get shot down, Squiffy.’
Nick’s joke. Only here it isn’t a joke.
The recce technique was crude. An EO officer hung out of the side door (Simon Witherspoon, in this case) leaning against a harness clipped to the aircraft. He wore earphones, helmet and throat-mike, so as to direct the pilots. He had on a pair of NVGs, Image Intensifiers. The helicopter flew at about 5,000 feet, so could scarcely be heard on the ground.
The RUF, it turned out, were creatures of habit. At night, they gathered in little groups to cook and chat. The little groups gathered around their leader … and so on up their formation.
Their cooking fires stood out clearly with the NVGs. The pattern they made on the ground was distinctive and readable. Different from villages, farms or groups of hunters. The EO officer, when directly over what he thought to be the RUF commander’s HQ, would shout on the intercom for the pilots to ‘mark’ that position on their handheld GPS.
Often that information acted as fine-tuning: confirmation of intelligence that had been ground out of the other sources. EO would then plan and execute an attack: at first light next morning. These attacks used Bokkie and Daisy and the Mi-24. Mortar teams were flown in. Using GPS for precision, the mortars would then stonk the RUF HQs.
The guerrilla insurgents now found themselves at the receiving end of real guerrillas, Afrikaner Kommandos, whose idea of hit-and-run had, at its core, a deadly hit.
From intercepted traffic, the RUF could be heard falling to pieces. At one point, Sankoh and his commanders were being shot up so hard and so often that they were sure there were 2,000 EO troops fighting them. Not our 200. This rotating EO unit needed intense and constant support away from the battlefront: ammo, food, water, fuel. An entire support system had to be in place – working like clockwork – to feed and water the voracious war dragon.
At this point, EO had two operations in progress: Angola and Sierra Leone. There were close to 2,000, which of course included an EO padre, to take care of the religious needs of the South Africans. Die Kerk. Crause and I had organised all the aircraft into one company, first called Capricorn, then Ibis. There were 18 aircraft of nine types and over 60 air crew.
Ibis had just the one weekly flight. But, when I entered Jo’burg International’s Departures and looked up at the huge information board, it moved my heart to see the Ibis Air weekly Boeing 727 flight up there. BA … SAA … Virgin … Ibis Air: Luanda–Freetown.
The Ibis flight would leave Jo’burg early each Tuesday. It flew to Luanda, refuelled, then flew to Lungi, Freetown. The crew would overnight, then return the next day, to get back to Jo’burg on Wednesday evening.
Our single weekly Ibis Air round trip had unusual features. There were never any women, except the air hostesses. The passengers were all young or middle-aged. Never kids, never old people. Whether black or white, every passenger looked unusually fit. Their luggage – rucksacks, kitbags, never a suitcase – was often dark green, rarely any other colour. The flight was always completely full. (Not surprisingly since it was rotating the whole of EO’s courses and leave programme – for 1,800 men).
In the hustle and bustle of Jo’burg International, nobody noticed. Besides, Ibis was official. No longer could Crause say: ‘Simon – this is not a customary airline’ – meaning that we don’t go through Customs. No longer could Crause say: ‘When are these pilots going to realise: a radio – on an aeroplane – is a luxury item?’, referring to a pilot he had just sacked for obeying Namibian ATC’s radio message – that he should fly to the capital, Windhoek, for inspection, thus delaying his Ibis mission to Luanda.
Because Ibis was now official – above board – we got our men in and out smoothly. It proved a crucial logistical factor in EO gaining the upper hand. Our air hostesses were a crucial factor too. They weren’t paid, but the trolley was their own: they kept all their takings. They saw some rough sights, those girls.
At that time Nick Van den Berg – the EO Commander in Angola – remarked to me that, if every chancer in the bars and nightclubs of Jo’burg and Pretoria who said that he was EO was really EO, then we were a truly formidable force.
In SL, within two months of arrival, EO had taken the hinterland: Freetown could breathe again. We moved out to the provinces, to prevent the RUF from regrouping.
The day came when EO entered Koidu. A strategically important town. Home of the Koidu Kimberlite, a famous hard rock diamond mine – and the concession that Branch Minerals sought. The town was deserted. As all towns were, following a visit from the RUF.
Vultures flopped and flapped in the streets, and on the rooftops. In the roads were corpses without heads, skulls without bodies. The hard rock mine was secure. But, as yet, Sierra Leone wasn’t. We battled on.
After six months, EO had the RUF beaten. They were holed up, the diehards, in small towns in the far reaches of the country, on its borders with Guinea and Liberia. A political halt was called to
the operational plan to hit them there. It was thought that, for Sierra Leone to stay on good terms with those neighbours, it would be a good idea not to dispatch RUF remnants their way.
Nobody wanted the RUF.
But the problem was money. Once the RUF had been put on the run, EO had cut down to only 100 men, plus the air assets. This still cost $400,000 per month. Strasser was yet to pay one single dollar.
Tony and I had kept up a barrage of demands and threats, trying to secure some payment. Any payment. Fifty-fifty, all of this debt was our own money. Desperate, Tony called another meeting.
This wampum powwow was to be held in the garden of the Mammy Yoko, a location that was thought to be secure from any eavesdropping once sentries had been posted. Crause and I had flown up from Jo’burg.
Neither of us thought it possible to cut costs further, without an accident. Everything and anything to do with Sierra Leone had been chopped squared. More cuts – of the air wing at least – were likely to end in a crash. A crash was something that we had miraculously avoided, despite so much hard operational flying.
My view was that we must find a way to make SL pay something, or we cut and run. If that meant an end to the whole mining plan, then so be it. We had done our best, won another war, and ended it. But now I had to think money.
When Crause and I arrived, I spotted Michael at the bar and joined him. Then I saw Tony in the distance and waved. He was deep in talk with the hotel’s American owner-manager.
‘Where’s Stavros?’ I asked Michael.
Puzzled, he replied. ‘Hasn’t Tony told you? Stavros has gone.’
I was stunned. Tony had not told me. Nor had Stav.
When I spoke to Tony later, alone, he didn’t want to talk about it. He just looked at me, hard. ‘He had enough rope. He hanged himself. They all do.’
The words stuck in my head. They chilled me. Would I hang myself?
The powwow, when it eventually came together, was tiresome – an anti-climax. The monthly cost of the operation had been pared right down. Any more cutting back would be dangerous for the men on the ground.
Tony publicly gave me a flea in my ear for authorising a Boeing 727 to scramble from Jo’burg, fly up to Freetown, collect a medical case, then fly back. The medevac had cost £70,000. I didn’t argue. We moved on. Everyone knew what had happened: a black EO soldier had contracted cerebral malaria and the medevac saved his life.
Michael gave everyone the result of his digging. There was no secret stash of money from which Strasser and Sierra Leone could pay. When they said they had none, they had none.
Nor could they raise any.
Strasser was barely recognised as a President by the international community. Possible lenders to the country still thought the RUF a political risk. Even if Strasser granted Branch Minerals a concession for the Koidu Kimberlite, the next day it would be worthless. No Stock Exchange due diligence and compliance committee would accept such a document.
It all came down to whether Tony and I would go on paying out $400,000 per month. That was what everyone had known before the meeting started. I’d already given Tony my view. I knew that one day soon he’d just say ‘fuck it’ and pull the plug.
The man suffering most was Ian Campbell. It was not just self-interest and ego. Ian had wedded himself to the interests of the people of Sierra Leone a long time before we had come along. He really did want Sierra Leone to stay free of the RUF, and to flourish.
With the RUF beaten, and the Branch Minerals bid for the Koidu Kimberlite well received, Campbell, Paramount Chief, was riding high. His nightmare was to be told one day: ‘Sorry, Ian! It’s all over. We’re off. Thanks.’
I felt sorry for him at the powwow.
Ian could hardly argue with the logic of what was being said. But it was breaking his heart. By lunchtime Tony called the meeting over. No decision had been made, but the likely outcome was clear enough. With Tony and me owed the $4 million we had spent to date, and this going up by $400,000 per month, who could argue?
After a long walk on the beach – mostly unpestered, thanks to my protection money paid to the beach’s chief urchin – I went down to the bar at 7.30. Dinner was to be at 8. It would be bigger and noisier than normal. A wake for our dream. The sadder for being so near, yet so far.
Shortly after Tony had joined the group at the bar, I saw Campbell furiously signalling to me from the doorway that led out to the swimming pool. I strolled over.
Campbell, who had looked close to tears all day, now looked as if he had been puffing on Strasser’s dakka.
‘Simon – we can’t talk here – too dangerous – get Tony – get him now – I have to talk to you both – don’t let the others see – get him out – go round through the lobby – then come round on the outside – I’ll meet ye at the table over there!’
I hesitated. Had Ian lost it?
‘Simon, please – it’s vital I talk to you and Tony tonight. I know there’ll be a piss-up at dinner. I’ve got to talk to you now.’
The old man was frantic. It seemed like the least I could do. But I feared an explosion from Tony. I went back to the bar, whispered in Tony’s ear and took him quietly round through the lobby.
‘What the fuck does he want, Simon? If it was his fucking money, he wouldn’t be paying out like we are.’
‘Come on, Tony. Let’s talk to him. Humour him. He’s really upset.’
Ian sat us down at the isolated table. Then, with a theatrical craning of the neck, he looked around for eavesdroppers.
‘Tony, Simon. I’ve just come from the President…’
I tried to jog him along: ‘Ian, spit it out. Let’s hear it!’
Ian gulped for air, then gushed: ‘The President will stand down – he’ll announce it immediately – if a new President can be elected – in proper, free and fair elections.’
We were stunned. We stared at Ian. He stared wildly back. If this was for real, then it changed everything. If we could hold out. Carry on paying for EO for another few months. Keep the RUF at bay. Ensure these elections did happen. Then we’d be in another, much happier, ball game.
A new, internationally recognised President could raise money and grant kosher mining licences. With Campbell plugging away, surely the Koidu Kimberlite could be ours? Our bid was as good as anyone else’s. The goal of a Stock Exchange-listed Branch Minerals diamond company might yet be reached.
Ian’s announcement had been a bombshell, just as his pitch had been pure panto.
So Executive Outcomes stayed in Sierra Leone, to the huge relief of the entire population. Tony and I went on paying. Elections did take place, under UN supervision.
But the real security, without which no election would have been possible, was EO. At one point the UN had to be rescued by Daisy. A UN-manned polling station, attacked and besieged by RUF, called for help.
The end result of the election was the inauguration of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, with full international recognition, de facto and de jure, and the UN stamp of ‘free’ and ‘fair’.
Strasser went so quietly that nobody saw him go. We helped him with the money that he needed. He went to study at a university in the north of England; nobody knew what. Cap’n Strasser, De Main Man, had turned out to be De Main Hero.
It wasn’t long before Kabbah told EO we had to go. This came as no surprise. By this time, the same thing had happened in Angola. When President Dos Santos had met Clinton in the White House – the meeting when the MPLA became OK, and UNITA not OK – it had been made clear that EO should have our contract ended and be sent home.
We had moles at this meeting – one in each camp. These sources both told us that Dos Santos had spoken up on EO’s behalf. He had made it clear to Clinton that EO had been legally enrolled as FAA troops. That we’d left no cupboards, or villages, stuffed full of skeletons…
‘No incident.’
Dos Santos, of course, agreed to the US demand to send us home. In the event, the MPLA spun out EO’s depart
ure as long as they reasonably could.
It was as well that Angola had spun out the EO contract as it did. Otherwise, the money needed to pay for the operations in Sierra Leone, through to the elections and beyond, would not have been there. The country would have sunk down into the pit the RUF had dug for it.
President Kabbah, 64 at the time of his election in March 1996, had spent most of his working life as a UN apparatchik. What that really meant, God alone knew – self-administration? My direct experiences of the UN in action in Angola and in Sierra Leone had left me with a dim view.
This CV of Kabbah’s was a two-sided coin. On the one side it was a weakness. Kabbah was inexperienced with the real world. With dealing with a bunch of psychopaths and torturers like the RUF. On the other side it was a strength. Sierra Leone needed help badly. Kabbah knew how to make the help machine pay out. He, and some of his advisers, knew that the only thing keeping the RUF in their distant box was the threat of EO.
Kabbah therefore introduced two important measures. He asked for, and got, a 30-man EO close protection team. And he allowed a security company to be incorporated in Sierra Leone, which would be EO run and manned, but would sail under a different flag. He also started, slowly, to pay off the mounting EO debt. And to get the debt itself on the books, properly recognised.
Kabbah also made it clear that, all things being equal, Campbell and Branch Minerals should be given a friendly hearing when they submitted their Koidu Kimberlite application for a production licence.
I juggled being in London with Amanda with trying to make Ibis and my Angolan projects work. I found my friendship with Tony coming under strain. We saw little of each other. When we did speak, often we were nit-picking. I felt in my gut that something was wrong with our business: with Andy Smith and the mining.
Tony and Michael never refused Smith’s ever-growing calls for money, men, machines. At the same time, I felt my Angolan projects – the source of our revenue – squeezed and squeezed again. It was torture.