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The Wonga Coup |
| Guns, Thugs, and a Ruthless Determination to
Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa |
Adam Roberts
ISBN: 1586483714
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: August 2006
Publisher: Perseus Publishing
BBP Sales Rank: 10,847
List Price: $26.00 |
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Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state 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 cannibalism,
belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and general rule
by terror. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was Equatorial
Guinea the target of a group of salty British, South African and Zimbabwean
mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane
specially adapted for military purposes, that was originally flown to Africa by
American pilots? The real motive lay deep below the ocean floor: oil.
In The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth effectively described an attempt by
mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea - in 1972. And 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. With a cast of characters worthy of a remake of Wild Geese and a plot
as mazy as it was unlikely, The Wonga Coup is a tale of venality, overarching
vanity and greed whose example speaks to the problems of the entire African
continent. |
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| 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. |
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