The Wonga Coup

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of everything from cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and terrorism. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was it the target of a group of salty British, South African, and Zimbabwean mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane? The real motive? Oil. In The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth described a 1972 attempt by mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The chain of events surrounding March 7, 2004 is a rare case of life imitating art-or at least, life imitating a 1970s thriller-in almost uncanny detail. The Wonga Coup is a shocking tale of venality, overarching vanity, and greed whose example speaks to the problems of the entire African continent.

Author Biography

Adam Roberts is a staff correspondent of The Economist. For four years he was the publication’s Johannesburg bureau chief, reporting from Madagascar, Congo, South Africa, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and,illegally,from Zimbabwe, as well as from many corners in between. He has also reported from South- East Asia, the Balkans, Europe and the United States. A former student of international politics at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, he is now based in London.