The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs, and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa

by Adam Roberts

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586485008
• ISBN13: 9781586485009
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

As of May 2008, this Saga STILL continues.....

I will not recite the many details already cited by the publishers and reviewers. What should give this book its second life (its first was not bad) is this ongoing saga STILL unfolding... Simon Mann recently turned over to EG authorities and promptly set to the dreaded Black Beach Prison (How many times has he said SORRY? And given his present plight, he will say that many more times)... new information in April-May 2008 on the "real" coup plotters. EG not shy to part with its oil money to extradite (Sir) Mark Thatcher through efforts with the Interpol on new information received. I've been to EG last June - just let me say it's a very interesting place. Read the book, follow the story still unfolding. The whole thing is quite an adventure... and as REAL as it gets!

Great read

Fascinating, humorous, and ultimately human and touching look into a world few of us ever see. Ok, just up front, let's mention in bold type: being in prison in Africa really, really sucks. I think this book makes that abundantly clear. Second: having a lot of excess time and money on your hands, and then being British or South African to top it off, and living in Africa also tends to create "mischief", apparently (especially if you have military experience and know other guys with military experience and time on their hands, plus wives who don't mind them going on some "reality adventuring" every 5 years). I have been reading a few books about Africa recently (by the way, the "Zanzibar Chest" is totally amazing). Wong Coup is very good and I read it fast (2-3 days). It tells the story in an amusing and human way of mercenaries who tried to overthrow a small African country. On the one hand, a "fun" read, on the other hand, very harrowing. And yes, it does give us a picture into the human being, because it shows how people react under pressure (for instance, Simon Mann writing "we" from prison, not just about himself, but at least having some notion of being responsible for others, not just himself). While the author does mock the men who tried the coup, at the same time, he does have a bit of sympathy I think for them. For instance, the statement by one of the South African mercenaries as to "would you try it again", was "Yes. Life is for living" sticks with me. Life is not for holding one's cards to one's chest, but for living out life. Let's face it, most of us sit at boring desk jobs until we retire, with no real risks involved, and no real great rewards either. These guys rolled the dice big-time and lost. I go home now to a Heineken and some reading, or a bar or movie. They spend their time in a hell-hole prison cell in Africa, made for one man, but that now houses 4, shackled and beaten and with food that would make us sick. Their life is terrible. They risked it and lost. At the same time, you do kind of have to admire their courage and sheer moxy for trying this. I am not saying it was ethical or morally desireable. The fact that the men did not keep the coup details private, and tried to just fly the guns in, is pretty much a joke, and the author portrays it as such. The coup itself was a joke, and the read is entertaining. These were men trying to live in the 21st century as if it were the time of Cecil Rhodes, in 1880s Africa. We can laugh at them, but let's face it, few if any of us will role the dice the way they do. I found it interesting to learn that there really are men like this out there. I was very interested in how the "world" works in Africa, of private armies, and dictators exchanging prisoners, mercenaries in their "mercenary frat house" (!), the wives, the media, etc, etc. It was fascinting because I knew so little about this world. By the way, if you want to see one of the main characters (plotters) in the mov

Fantastical Story

This is a quite amazing story, told with wit and verve. The greed and arrogance of the coup plotters is matched only by their fecklessness and stupidity. Beyond the complexities of the botched plot, the book provides a fascinating portrayal of the political, economic and military dynamicss of contemporary Africa -- it is a thoroughly engrossing read. I read the book cover-to-cover on a long-haul flight between London and Singapore and can thoroughly recommend it to anyone with 13 hours on a 747, time will fly by!

Fascinating story- How many lives for Obiang?

I first heard news of Simon Mann's arrest in Zimbabwe breaking over the BBC while living in neighboring Zambia. Couldn't imagine a fate much worse than a Zim prison cell- until I read Wonga Coup and learned of the conditions of the Black Beach prison in E.G. Pity for Simon's colleague... It's strange to feel pity for mercenaries, except that the utterly corrupt rule of Obiang and cronies can only encourage this. Siphoning off $350mm of the national wealth of E.G. into a personal bank account in the US is a crime greater than any that might be committed by would-be coup-makers. Given the stultifying poverty in E.G., this level of graft is disgusting and unforgivable. Add to this flagrant human rights abuses, and I find myself very disappointed the coup failed. Even more so after reading "Tropical Gangsters", which gives some perspective of the lives of ordinary E.G. citizens, and those locals and foreigners who have made real efforts to improve the situation in E.G. Even if Mann's coup was financially motivated, it's hard to imagine how things could be any worse in E.G. for the average person. Perhaps a shake up (any shake up) might offer the possibility for positive changes. Despite the very real problems that the world oil/gas enonomy has caused certain underdeveloped countries whose major resource is petroleum (and whose near-sighted and corrupt governments can't see fit to invest this wealth into the futures of their countries), in the case of E.G., rule in the country was despotic before they even discovered they had oil. Can't blame this particular demon on Western oil consumption. Seems to be cultural and even geographical, engendered by tribal disparities and the isolating and strange borders of the territory. Of course, the book can't answer these questions or outline a hopeful future for E.G. It was a nail-biting read nonetheless, even if it left the reader anxious for a more definitive and dramatic resolution than long prison sentences in Zim/E.G. jail cells (and business as usual in E.G.). Sadly, this is not an Executive Outcome.

Lessons from a Failed Coup

Equatorial Guinea isn't much of a nation, even for Africa. "In most atlases, the country lies hidden under the staple," writes Adam Roberts. But it has oil, and that makes quite the difference. In _The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa_, Roberts has told the story of an attempted coup by international businessmen and mercenaries in March 2004. The aim was not to gain political power, or to help the blighted nation's poor start claiming some of their country's riches. The aim was simply to get "a large splodge of wonga" as one of the plotters called a big infusion of cash. (Surprisingly, the _OED_ says that "wonga" is British, not African, slang.) The plot, for many reasons explained here, did not work, and plenty of the plotters and their henchmen suffered, but it has had some effects on Equatorial Guinea, and also reflects the current larger problems in the economic development of Africa. The book is well researched, and at times reads like an adventure novel, sort of a failed _The Dogs of War_. This is no coincidence. _The Dogs of War_ was written by Fredrick Forsyth, who has recently, after formerly secret British documents were unsealed, admitted his own role in financing a similar, and similarly failed, coup against Equatorial Guinea in 1973. In some ways, it is a shame that the 1973 coup didn't succeed; it was less for riches than for removal of the deranged dictator Macias Nguema, who went on for a further six mad years. He was succeeded by his nephew, Obiang Nguema, about whom the best that can be said is that he is not as crazy as his uncle. Torture and death were his ways of getting things done, but he has successfully brought foreigners and oil companies of the west into his little country, which now gets about six billion dollars a year for the very good and pure oil beneath it. The benefits do not go to the citizens, for whom spending on education is less than any country and for whom public health efforts are so stunted that the average life expectancy is fifty years. Obiang did have an opponent in exile, Severo Moto. The old Etonian and former Special Air Service Officer Simon Mann thought that he could put Moto in but run things commercially himself. Such a coup requires plenty of money, and Mann had it, but he was also competent at finding investors who were interested in the potential gains in a regime change. One was Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former Prime Minister, who helped pay for a rental combat helicopter. Mann recruited black Angolan soldiers and Afrikaner thugs for the proposed action and plenty of armaments and aircraft. The plotters may have thought that South Africa and Zimbabwe supported their plans, but it was these two countries that stopped the coup while the forces were gathering. Hapless mercenaries, 64 of them, were arrested from their airplane in Zimbabwe and were consigned to the bad prison there, while the rest of t