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Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa
PublicAffairs
August 2006
On Sale: August 7, 2006
304 pages
ISBN: 1586483714
EAN: 9781586483715
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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