One of the world’s best known mercenaries is back in the news again but not for a daring coup where he pockets the victory spoils of oil, gas, mineral wealth or diamonds. Instead, he finds himself as a highly prized commodity, an apt victory spoil, traded by one jailer to another for oil. It is a complete reversal of fortune for a man born into a privileged British life and once again puts the spotlight back on the murky world of “soldiers of fortune”.
In a plot worthy of a best selling thriller, “old Etonian” mercenary Simon Mann finds his fate resting in the hands of unstable and poverty stricken country he allegedly tried to seize. That country is the west African state of Equatorial Guinea, once described as the “Dachau of Africa” because of its state-sponsored brutality.
But if Mann, who used to profit from the dysfunctional African continent, thought he’d seen its darker side in Robert Mugabe’s notoriously harsh and inhumane Chikurubi maximum security prison in Zimbabwe, he is likely to experience a new benchmark.
His new captor Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, dictorial president of Equatorial Guinea, according to English newspaper Daily Mail has “already vowed to sodomise his high-profile prisoner, before skinning him alive and parading his body through Malabo, the rat-infested capital of the former Spanish colony.” However as of February 8 Mann has only been paraded in front of national television cameras by his new captors looking none too worse for wear.
Mann’s original capture at Harare Airport in 2004, was followed by the high profile arrest in Cape Town and charging of Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, on charges that he helped bankroll the coup plot. Thatcher pleaded guilty in South Africa and fined after admitting he had unwittingly helped to finance the Equatorial Guinea coup.
Prior to his arrest Mann, a former British Special Air Services (SAS) had already profited handsomely from his African ventures with his company Executive Outcomes founded in 1989 in South Africa. In 1993 the company’s mercenaries seized the prime Angolan oil town of Soyo from rebel group UNITA and returned it to the Angolan government. Their reward included a US$30 million mining contract and the chance to restructure and train the Angolan army against the rebels.
From 1995 to 1997 Mann could be found dabbling behind the scenes in Sierra Leone allegedly running guns and 120 mercenaries to the country in direct contravention to a UN embargo designed to limit arms and stop the bloodshed. He was paid around $40m and an ongoing interest in diamond mines.
Little could have Mann imagined that only a few years later he would be swapping the lucrative rewards of his exploits for three years in Zimbabwe’s most inhospitable jail and now the prospect of a new trial and the charge of plotting to overthrow Equatorial Guineas president.
His notoriety and uncertain future are securing him a notch in the mercenary hall of fame alongside other colorful characters such as French mercenary Bob Denard now deceased and Mad Mike Hoare who lives in obscurity after trying to take over the Seychelles.
While Denard was the role model for Frederick Forsyth’s Dogs of War and Hoare the inspiration for the movie Wild Geese, it remains to be seen how Mann’s life will be documented. Will it be in a best selling book or block buster movie, an unmarked grave or as previously noted, “skinned alive and paraded” through the streets of a country renowned for its atrocities against human life?
For Mann, the wheel of fortune seems to have almost come full circle with him as one of Africa’s high profile casualties. It is sombre story of a soldier of fortune who has become a soldier of misfortune. This is a real life drama, not a block buster movie plot and those who seek such fortunes as Mann in Africa should heed this reality.
