"The Wonga Coup": Scrapping for Oil Profit in Equatorial Guinea

[Up2Late]

Remember back in 2004 when we heard about that plane load of "Private Military Contractors" (Mercenaries) getting arrested in Zimbabwe and jailed for plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea so that they could control the Oil Profits? No?!?

Well how about the story that one of the coup plotters was Margret Thatcher's son Mark?

Well, here's the book and the author interview from today's "Fresh Air." Excellent interview, very enlightening in regard to a bunch of things. The audio runs 25:42. I hope they make a movie of this before the 2008 election!

'The Wonga Coup': Scrapping for Oil Profit in Equatorial Guinea

Fresh Air from WHYY, August 9, 2006 · Journalist Adam Roberts of The Economist talks about his new book, The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa.

Roberts tells the story of a group of mercenaries and merchants who hatched a plan to topple the dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea in order to reap the profits from the country's oil resources.

(audio at link above) <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5629868>

Here's a link to some book reviews at Amazon .com (Note: if you decide to order this book on line, order it through the NPR website, it helps them out a little).

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586483714/sr=8-1/qid=1155175789/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7711394-7614354?ie=UTF8>

Here's more from the Amizon website:

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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. Roberts, an Economist staffer, chronicles the plot by foreign mercenaries and merchants to topple the country's brutal dictatorship solely for the "wonga" (British slang for "money, usually a lot of it"). An irresistibly lurid tale is peopled with bellicose profiteers, particularly of the neocolonialist sort from Europe and South Africa, with long histories of investment in oil, diamonds and war-for-profit. Among these self-styled gentleman adventurers are Margaret Thatcher's son, Sir Mark Thatcher, and "rag-and-bone intelligence men" who linger in hotel bars, "picking up scraps of information... selling them on to willing buyers, whether corporate or government." The audacity of the coup's planners is almost admirable, though Roberts rightly chastises them for their oil-soaked greed. As he lifts the curtain to the backrooms of power in postcolonial Africa, the reader finds that not much has changed on the continent since 1618, when the "Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa" became the first private company to colonize Africa for profit. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and general rule by terror. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was Equatorial Guinea the target of a group of salty British, South African and Zimbabwean mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane specially adapted for military purposes, that was originally flown to Africa by American pilots? The real motive lay deep below the ocean floor: oil.

In The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth effectively described an attempt by mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea - in 1972. And the chain of events surrounding the night of March 7, 2004, is a rare case of life imitating art-or, at least, life imitating a 1970s thriller-in almost uncanny detail. With a cast of characters worthy of a remake of Wild Geese and a plot as mazy as it was unlikely, The Wonga Coup is a tale of venality, overarching vanity and greed whose example speaks to the problems of the entire African continent.

(more at link) <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586483714/sr=8-1/qid=1155175789/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7711394-7614354?ie=UTF8>

[likesmountains 52]

1. Yes, I listened to the interview on Fresh Air...sounds very good .

[MountainLaurel]

2. Thanks for the tip.

I don't know nearly enough about the machinations that have been happening in post-colonial Africa.