Coup Plot Deepens
Earlier this year Zimbabwe officials stopped a plane full of mercenaries apparently on it's way to Equatorial Guinea for what appeared to be a coup attempt. The plane involved was traced back to South Africa. There were denials all around. Well today Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark Thatcher was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the coup attempt. That, to me, leads the trail to Great Britain. If it does lead to GB, then it's position against Zimbabwe's current leadership becomes even more untenable and hypopcritical.
quote:
Police are investigating Thatcher on charges of violating South Africa's tough anti-mercenary law in connection with what officials have called a plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer.
Eighty four foreigners, mostly South Africans, have been put on trial simultaneously in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea in one of Africa's most spectacular mercenary cases for decades.
"We have alleged that he (Thatcher) is a financier in that particular coup attempt ... we are looking for documents that are going to assist us in our investigation. We take this very seriously," Ngwema said as his colleagues searched the house.
"He should not use our country as a springboard to export violence and disorder," he added.
Local media said he is a friend of Simon Mann, the former British special forces member regarded as the leader of the Zimbabwe group of suspected mercenaries, who were arrested in March when their plane landed in Harare on what officials said was a trip to join co-conspirators in Equatorial Guinea.
At their trial in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday, a South African suspect told the court the plotters hoped to install an exiled opposition politician at the helm of the oil-rich state.
South African Nick du Toit said he had met with Mann, who is among those now held in Zimbabwe, to discuss buying weapons, recruiting personnel and logistics for the alleged coup plot.
links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3596948.stm
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040825/0701903354.htm&photoid=20040825LON803
(17 years of informed commentary)
1 comment:
On : 8/26/2004 4:38:47 AM d sekou (www) said:
i think that simon mann was one of the founders of the mercenary company , "executive outcomes" .
the rap on 'sir mark' is that he was always a tactless piece of scum who made his fortune primarily by playing on his mommy's name and office.
the guy actually did foreign business deals that would coincide with his mother's state visits to the very same country...as expressed in the term "conflict of interest" ...
They said one deal he did with the Saudis got him a 12 million pounds comission and put him financially in the big leagues , but could have also forced his mother's resignation if it had leaked out that she signed a political deal with the saudis at the same time her son was making a buisness deal with the saudis to purchase military hardware...
one scandal after another followed this guy ...one of his mother's chief aides once told him he could best help her election bid by leaving the country...lolol
BBC radio says it appears that they busted him in S.A. because he had put his house up for sale and was going to leave that country ...where he only lives for 179 days a year to preserve his tax exempt status...and supposedly was to return to texas where his wife is from ...they say he and his american millionaire wife originally moved from texas to south africa because of irs tax investigations back in the USA...
he seems like a "bad news" kinda guy...Some of the captured mercenaries who were part of this Equatorial Guinea plot were veterans of battalion 32 --angolans trained by the apartheid government to fight against their own country back in the days when S. Africa and the US and Brits supported jonas savimbe and unita...
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