Fact imitates Dogs of War fiction in Equatorial Guinea
Frederick Forsyth wrote it up as The Dogs of War, and set it in Equatorial Guinea: A rag-tag band of mercenaries, recruited by a British elite, tries to seize control of a mineral-rich, African backwater.
Forsyth – writing during a Cold War stay three decades ago on the palm-lashed volcanic island capital of Malabo – rechristened the country Zangoro for the thriller, and put his soldiers of fortune in quest of platinum, not oil.
With those broad variations, the basic plot is playing out again as a trial unfolds for 19 South Africans, Armenians and others accused of a failed plot to overthrow the government of the former Spanish colony that is now Africa’s number three oil producer.
Equatorial Guinea insists this time it is fact, not pulp fiction.
The country has been emboldened by the arrest in recent days of Margaret's Thatcher's son Mark in South Africa, and the Zimbabwe conviction of famed Eton-educated mercenary Simon Mann in connection with the plot. It accuses Thatcher, and his London friends of scheming to replace President Teodoro Obiang’s 25-year-old regime with a puppet government.
Star witness Nick du Toit, a South African arms dealer, appears to be “an intermediary between the mercenaries and the financiers,”
Attorney General Jose Olo Obono, who is leading the prosecution directly, said Du Toit, who faces the death penalty for his role in the plot, has co-operated with prosecutors.
For the elites in the novel, a coup has an allure beyond any run-of-the-mill robbery.
“Knocking off a bank or an armoured truck is merely crude. Knocking off an entire republic has, I feel, a certain style,” Forsyth’s coup-plotter, Sir James Mason, observes in the fictional version.
What prosecutors say is the real coup plot fell apart in March, when security forces in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, tipped off by South Africa’s intelligence service, arrested 90 alleged mercenaries as they were said to be moving into position for the coup.
Prosecutors in Malabo so far have built their entire case on the testimony of du Toit – and their stated scepticism that the Cold War- and apartheid-era veterans he recruited really came to this oil-rich nation for the fishing and agriculture opportunities, as du Toit and his co-defendants say.
Equatorial Guinea says du Toit was the advance man for Mann, the plot’s alleged mastermind, and Mann’s alleged British associates – including Thatcher, financier Eli Calil, and businessman Greg Wales. Equatorial Guinea reportedly has filed a civil case against alleged British backers in London, and says it is pursuing its own international warrants against them.
Other evidence cited by Equatorial Guinea out of court – such as a note sent out of prison by Mann, allegedly seeking help from Thatcher, Calil and others - has yet to be introduced in court.
Du Toit’s wife says his confessions were obtained under torture, as the US State Department and others say is routine. One of the original 90 defendants, a German, died in his first days of custody after what Amnesty International said was torture.
Belinda du Toit, who has attended the trial, shows a photo of her husband before he left South Africa for Equatorial Guinea, looking trim, prosperous and relaxed. The Nick du Toit testifying in chains is 60 pounds thinner, his face gaunt, hair and beard shaggy, clothes hanging off him.
Obiang, whose tiny nation of 500,000 pumps roughly £8 million in oil daily, has engaged European public-relations firms and lawyers to advise him on conduct of the trial. It was those British and French lawyers who intervened to allow in most of the journalists covering the trial.
The foreign lawyers – who refuse to be identified – at times present themselves as orchestrating the trial, which is playing out in a renovated convention centre. On one day, a British lawyer used a journalist to pass a note to a French colleague reminding the prosecution to introduce photos of Thatcher and the other Britons as evidence.
Obiang’s government faces deep suspicions over the impartiality of the eventual verdicts, in a nation that the International Bar Association and others say is essentially an enterprise of Obiang’s tribe, with a suppressed opposition and no independent radio or press.
Forsyth’s thriller, and its coincidentally overlapping plot, hangs over the courtroom at times. Obono referred to du Toit as a “dog of war” not only in the courtroom but in the criminal charges themselves. In a 1988 coup attempt, mere possession of Forsyth’s book was enough to net one soldier’s conviction in Guinea.
Diplomats and rights groups monitoring the trial daily cite the suspected torture and shortcomings of the trial, which is being translated from Spanish - the official language – the Afrikaners, Armenians and other foreigners on trial.
Local defence lawyers, compelled by the government to represent the 19, met their clients only the day before the trial, and complain of intimidation.
Du Toit, the only defendant facing the death penalty, is laying out the prosecution’s case daily as the government publicly raises the prospect of a possible presidential pardon for him.
A member of Equatorial Guinea’s security services suggested a different fate, approaching Belinda du Toit in court one day to draw a hand across his throat, she says.
In fiction, The Dogs of War ends disastrously for the mercenaries, with their plot collapsed and mercenaries dead. Ultimately, Nick du Toit believes the real-life end will be different, his wife says.
“He believes he’s coming home,” she said.
