The attack in Equatorial Guinea

Hartford Web Publishing is not the author of the documents in World History Archives and does not presume to validate their accuracy or authenticity nor to release their copyright.

Mercenary intrigue spotlights West Africa's oil curse
By Ed Stoddard, Reuters, Environmental News Network, Friday 12 March 2004. Oil should have brought wealth and development to bitterly poor West Africa, but instead it has fueled wars, coup plots, and even mercenary intrigue. “Enemy powers” and multinational companies had been plotting against the tiny state.
Zimbabwe: Mercenaries with intriguing links
People's Weekly World, 18 March 2004. Leaders of the mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe March 7 have some intriguing ties to Western intelligence services. The 64 mercenaries, detained when their U.S.-built plane landed at Harare, allegedly planned a coup against the president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. They included men from South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport.
Mercenaries & oil
Editorial, Workers World, 18 March 2004. According to a former British special forces officer who talked to the Zimbabwean government, the 64 men on the plane were headed toward Equatorial Guinea. Their bosses had allegedly bought off top officials of the police and army there who would do nothing to stop them from ousting the president.
Capitalist greed behind aborted coup in Africa
By Monica Moorehead, Workers World, 25 March 2004. The mercenaries have admitted that they were flying from South Africa to a secret military base in Cameroon, with the objective of kidnapping the president of nearby Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema. They intended to replace him with a leader of the Spanish-based opposition, Severo Moto Nsa.
Pentagon Links Found to Guinea Coup Plot
By David Leigh, David Pallister and Jamie Wilson, The Guardian (UK), 8 October 2004. Links have been discovered between senior American military officials and the failed coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. A member of the Bush administration in charge of African affairs at the Pentagon twice met a London-based businessman in Washington before the coup attempt who is accused of being one of its organisers.
Revealed: how Britain was told full coup plan
By Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, “Outside the Box”, from The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2004. Straw failed to act on warning. Foreign Office kept silent over oil plot.
Thatcher ‘directly involved in coup’
By David Leigh, The Guardian, Thursday 20 January 2005. Troubles deepened for Lady Thatcher's disgraced son last night when a self-confessed coup plotter surfaced to accuse him of direct involvement in the attempt to overthrow the regime in Equatorial Guinea.