Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Margaret Thatcher 'gave her approval' to her son Mark's failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/14/thatcher-knew-of-equatorial-giunea-coup-attempt


Margaret Thatcher 'gave her approval' to her son Mark's failed coup attempt
in Equatorial Guinea

Unpublished version of memoir by former SAS officer Simon Mann records
Baroness Thatcher's endorsement of plan to depose oil-rich country's
president

·The Observer, Saturday 13 April
2013

Simon Mann (L) the leader of the group o

Simon Mann at the time of his arrest on charges of trying to topple the
president of Equatorial Guinea. Photograph: Getty Images

Margaret Thatcher
approved of a failed
attempt to use an army of mercenaries to overthrow the president of
Equatorial Guinea, according to the unpublished memoirs of the chief
protagonist of the bid, former SAS officer Simon Mann.

The former prime minister, whose son, Sir Mark, was
convicted in
a South African court of involvement in the attempted 2004 coup, allegedly
told Mann at a meeting at her Belgravia home: "I'm sure it's going to work".

It is claimed that Thatcher likened the need for radical change in the
oil-rich  Equatorial
Guinea to the way London's Docklands had been redeveloped during the 1980s.

She is also alleged to have encouraged Mann to talk to a group seeking to
overthrow the then president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, with the words: "We
must always look after our friends, Simon … as I'm sure you know."

In an affair known as the Wonga coup, Mann and 69 mercenaries attempted to
replace Equatorial Guinea's dictator Teodoro Obiang with an exiled
opposition politician, Severo Moto, in March 2004. The escapade went
dramatically wrong and led to Mann being convicted and imprisoned.

Mann, whose father was George Mann, captain of the England cricket team in
the 1940s, was pardoned and released from the regime's notorious Black Beach
prison in 2009, on humanitarian grounds.

Sir Mark attempted to avoid implication in the illegal coup, but was
found guilty by a court in South Africa, where he was living at the time, of
having provided finance for helicopters to be used in the overthrow. He was
fined $500,000 and given a four-year suspended prison sentence.

On his release from prison, Mann
said he could never forgive Sir Mark, who he claimed was a key participant
in the military adventure rather than a mere investor, for failing to come
to his aid. Details of the meetings between Mann and Baroness Thatcher, held
in the lead-up to the attempted coup, were originally due to be published in
Mann's memoir,  Cry
Havoc, which came out in 2011. This section was removed on the advice of the
publisher, John Blake. However, an early manuscript of the book has been
obtained by the Observer and its full claims can be revealed for the first
time.

Thatcher's mental capacity was already on the wane in 2003 – the year her
husband, Denis, died – when the conversations are said to have occurred.
Their content will prove embarrassing for her son as he prepares for his
mother's funeral on Wednesday.

Mann had known Thatcher for a number of years by this time: the two were
introduced by Sir Mark, who was a neighbour of his in Cape Town. Recording a
meeting that took place in the first-floor sitting room of Thatcher's home
in Chester Square, in London's Belgravia, in autumn 2003, Mann says it
became clear that the former Tory leader knew and approved of the plans for
the Equatorial Guinea coup, describing them as "jolly good".

He writes: "Maggie asks me how 'their' money is being handled. I reassure
her that it is going through an air ambulance joint venture, separate to any
other investment. Maggie talks about the Docklands redevelopment in London.
How everything had to be razed to the ground first."

In a later conversation in South Africa, Thatcher is said to have commented: "I do hope you'll be getting on
with this job of yours soon, Simon. We mustn't let anyone down, must we?"

Thatcher is also said to have asked whether Mann had yet met a group, led by
a man called Sanchos, who were seeking to remove Chávez from Venezuela. Mann
writes: "No – I hadn't: but, Mark says, we are seeing him next day, in Eaton
Place, just next door."

He continues with Thatcher's reply: "'Good. Well, I hope that goes well
too.' She looked at me with her imperial gaze. 'We must always look after
our friends, Simon … as I'm sure you know.'"

Mann declined to comment.

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