Simon Mann, a former British Special Air Service (SAS) officer, led the coup attempt. SAS is an elite unit of the British military. A court in Zimbabwe convicted Mann in late August of attempting to buy weapons for the coup, according to BBC News. Mann headed Executive Outcomes, a mercenary force with a record of defending British imperialist interests across Africa over the past decade. Mann maintains his innocence.

Fourteen other mercenaries arrested in Equatorial Guinea are scheduled to be tried there. Meanwhile, the government of South Africa arrested Mark Thatcher, son of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, for allegedly providing financial backing to the mercenary forces. Mark Thatcher was subsequently released on bail. The government of Equatorial Guinea has also accused Ely Calil, a London-based oil millionaire, and David Hart, a Tory party political advisor, of involvement in the coup. According to an article in The Guardian, Hart was Margaret Thatcher’s “chief enforcer during the (1984-5) miners’ strike,” who “handed out money to strike breakers from a suite in Claridges,” a hotel.

Simon Mann had graduated from the elite military academy Sandhurst to rise to the post of SAS commander. He served the British military, including in Ireland and in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. Mann then left the army to establish mercenary operations, often referred to euphemistically as “security firms,” in the mid-1990s.

Writing in the London Times, Michael Groves described these firms as being “scrupulous about operating within western policy goals while maintaining a discreet distance” from actual British state forces. In his article, titled “Why the World Needs Men Like Simon Mann,” Groves argued that “the West would have been able to pocket a strategic gain without the sacrifice of precious regular soldiers,” if it had used Mann’s Executive Outcomes more consistently in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

In 1995 Mann’s mercenary group was responsible for defeating forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone and helping establish the more pro-imperialist regime of President Ahmad Tejah Kabbah. According to the BBC, Executive Outcomes also “earned millions from the Angolan government guarding oil installations.”

Two of those arrested alongside Mann were heads of the South African mercenary outfit Meteoric Tactical Solutions. The British government has hired this company to provide security for British officials involved in the current occupation of Iraq and to help train the new Iraqi police force.

Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony. Spain is now home to Severo Moto, head of the self-proclaimed government in exile. Miguel Mifuno, an advisor to Equatorial Guinea’s president, has charged Madrid with sending a warship with 500 marines that was due to arrive in Equatorial Guinea the day of the coup. The Spanish government has denied the allegations.

Equatorial Guinea has become Africa’s third-largest oil producer in the last decade. U.S. companies invested about $5 billion there in the late 1990s. The Texas-based CMS Energy discovered a significant new off-shore gas field in 2001. CMS Energy’s vice president Ken Keag admitted that “the petroleum sector…is still in a position where a large proportion of revenues generated are going to the oil companies.” Exxon is already exporting nearly 300,000 barrels of oil a day to the United States. Marathon is investing $3 billion in one of the world’s largest natural gas plants. Despite the newly found oil wealth of the country, making it attractive for imperialist intervention, Equatorial Guinea has a life expectancy of 48 years for men and 50 for women, according to United Nations figures.

The conviction of Mann and the arrest of Mark Thatcher come as competition among the imperialist powers, especially Washington and Paris, is sharpening over influence in the region. This includes a recent show of force by a U.S. Navy battle group off the waters of Nigeria, São Tomé, Equatorial Guinea, and other African countries that are major oil producers.  
 
 
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