South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) gave the green light to the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt, along with the intelligence agencies of America, Britain, China and Spain, mercenary Simon Mann has claimed.
The man who led a private army against dictator Teodoro Obiang in 2004, said this weekend that his plan was known – and sanctioned – by Britain’s MI6, the US’s CIA and NIA bosses, all keen for a regime change without getting their hands dirty.
He cites as evidence a secret, detailed report which his team hacked from the computer of a spy with NIA, in 2003. The NIA has close ties to the CIA, and Mann is confident the Americans shared their information with London.
In March 2004, 64 mercenaries were arrested after their plane landed in Harare, Zimbabwe, to pick up weapons.
Three men who went to meet them in Harare, including Mann, were also arrested.
Questions were raised at the time about how the plane could have left South Africa without the authorities knowing about the coup plot.
After being extradited to Equatorial Guinea, with some other South Africans, Mann was found guilty.
Most of the men received one-year sentences for violating Zimbabwe’s immigration laws. After their release they were deported back to South Africa. Several of them were charged under SA’s anti-mercenary laws.
Mann was pardoned and released after serving 15 months of a 34-year sentence, along with four other South African mercenaries, just after a visit by President Jacob Zuma to Guinea in 2009.
Mann told London’s Daily Mail on Saturday night:
“I believe Britain and America had full visibility on what we were doing. The South Africans passed on intelligence to the UK and the USA, who had vested interests.
“When I saw the NIA report, I thought we were busted, that the coup was off. But my South African staff, who were linked to the government, reported back that not only did Pretoria support the coup, but wanted it swiftly executed.
“Later, a South African spook asked me for contact details for Severo Moto (who Mann planned to install as Equatorial Guinea leader) so the South African president could hold clandestine talks with him.
“The Spanish government told our main backer it would recognise Moto’s new administration. That would have legitimised it.
“Once Spain, the former colonial power, had led the way, the UN would follow. That would allow the US in.”
Other countries such as China were also involved to a lesser extent. One of Mann’s minor backers was a Chinese arms agent who insisted a new regime must not support Taiwan in the UN.
“Hardly the request of a private individual but certainly something Peking would seek,” Mann said.
“Any of these countries could have busted the operation but they didn’t want to…
Equatorial Guinea has been in play for years. Israel was there, the French were desperate to get in, the Spanish wanted it back, and America was watching from the sidelines.
“None of them was officially willing to achieve regime change so a private military company was always going to be permitted to try. If MI6 or any of the others had said ‘back off’ I would have had to. But they didn’t, and that gave us the green light we needed.”
Yesterday Brian Dube, the spokesman for State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, refused to comment on any link the NIA had to Mann or the failed coup.
“We have not seen either the report or his (Mann’s) book and its contents. But anyway we would not get involved in acts which contradict the country’s foreign policy,” he said. - Cape Argus