Equatorial Guinea - Zimbabwe update

In a remarkable tale of bizarre twists, millionaire Ely Calil, who once advised Lord Archer, has been accused of financing an operation to hire foreign mercenaries to overthrow the government of the oil-rich West African country [Equatorial Guinea]. The Information Minister of Equatorial Guinea has alleged Calil arranged to pay Old Etonian and former SAS soldier, Simon Mann, $5m to hire a group of mercenaries to oust the ailing President Obiang. In the 1980s Mann founded Executive Outcomes, one of the world's most successful mercenary outfits, which was involved in controversial operations in Sierra Leone and Angola. Calil has been accused of hiring Mann to help his friend Severo Moto, the exiled Equatorial Guinean politician now living in Spain who harbours ambitions to return as President. It is alleged that, had the coup been successful, its backers, including Calil, would be given oil concessions in the tiny state that is now producing more 250,000 barrels a day. Calil has hired Margaret Thatcher's favourite PR guru Lord Bell to rebut the alleged claims against him, which he says are an elaborate set-up. The allegations will be an unwelcome spotlight on Calil's commercial activities. The Lebanese-born millionaire, now a British citizen, made his fortune in oil trading with Nigeria. In June 2002, he was arrested by French police in connection with the payments of illegal commissions by a subsidiary of the French oil giant Elf-Aquitaine to the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. Calil was later released on appeal, although the payments are still under investigation.

  Observer article

By far the most intriguing questions, however, surround the identity of the financiers and orchestrators of the coup attempt. Enter Charles Burrows, senior executive of Logo Logistics, a British security firm, and Ely Calil, a wealthy London-based Lebanese businessman with close ties to Equatorial Guinea opposition leader Moto Nsa. According to the US-based Dodson Aviation Inc, they recently sold the Boeing 727 used by the mercenaries and seized at Harare, to Logo Logistics, which is based in the British Virgin Islands. Logo’s senior executive, Burrows, has admitted that Equatorial Guinea was one of its clients, but denied accusations that 15 of its employees working there were preparing a coup. “I haven’t the foggiest idea of what they’re talking about,” said Burrows, insisting the plane was delivering men and equipment to commercial mining sites in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. South African official sources confirmed, however, that late last year Logo Logistics had also acquired a fishing concession in Equatorial Guinea and bought or hired fishing trawlers. “Those guys had never caught a fish in their lives,” one source said. “They were all ex-Special Forces.” ..Despite Burrows’s denials, according to Patrick Smith, editor of the London-based Africa Confidential online newsletter, they have obtained copies of an “investor agreement” between Logo Logistics and the Lebanon-based Asian Trade And Investment Group SAL, which was alleged to have commissioned the overthrow of President Obiang, according to military sources in South Africa. Equatorial Guinea Information Minister Agustin Nze Nfumu has openly accused Lebanese businessman Calil of helping to organise and finance the coup attempt. “He is the ‘Godfather of Severo Moto’,” said Nze Nfumu. ...Whether Moto Nsa and others have indeed hired their own dogs of war as part of another oil-inspired coup remains to be seen. But in African politics, fact is invariably stranger than fiction.

  Sunday Herald article

But if who paid whom for what services has not yet been revealed, the intended target is not in doubt: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, leader of a country whose lack of renown belies its strategic significance. And for "strategic" read oil. Not for nothing is this land known in US government circles as the "Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea". Not without reason has President Bush welcomed President Obiang, a confirmed if not convicted corrupt despot, to the White House. He may be a despot, but as presider over an oil-rich state, he is their despot.

  Independent article

These are all UK sources. I'm not yet seeing any account of who paid the mercenaries in U.S. sources. In fact, there don't seem to be many U.S. sources interested. But there still remains the original claim of one of the men captured in Zimbabwe, Simon Mann (a Brit) that CIA, MI6 and Spanish intelligence were involved. I don't know where the Equatorial Guinea information minister came up with his charges against Burrows and Calil.

It's just so damned difficult to get any consistent information, isn't it?

Sheesh.