Portland Public Library

The Wonga coup, guns, thugs, and a ruthless determination to create mayhem in an oil-rich corner of Africa, Adam Roberts

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-290) and index

maps

index present

non fiction

The Wonga coup

bibliography

70176939

Adam Roberts

guns, thugs, and a ruthless determination to create mayhem in an oil-rich corner of Africa

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny African country. Humid, jungle-covered, and rife with disease, even some of its own people call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and general rule by terror. Why, in March 2004, was Equatorial Guinea the target of a group of British, South African and Zimbabwean mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard military plane, that was flown to Africa by American pilots? The real motive lay deep below the ocean floor: oil. In The Dogs of War, novelist Frederick Forsyth had described an attempt by mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea--in 1972. 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, in a tale of venality, vanity and greed.--From publisher description

pt. 1: The ocean of oil. The rise of Mann -- Mad Uncle Macias -- The albatross of war -- Obiang in charge -- The gushing prize -- pt. 2: The three hundred days. Smelly and the Priest -- Assembling the Wongamen -- Plans and documents -- Future moto -- Filthy lucre -- Enter scratcher -- Money and recruits -- Spain -- Get your guns -- pt. 3: The big push. Strike one -- The Wonga coup (mark one) -- The Wonga coup (mark two) -- Playa Negra pedicure -- Send me a splodge -- Smiling and dying -- Riggs and the oil firms -- The price of failure -- Thatcher falls -- Back from the dead