Zimbabwean authorities said 64 men on a plane seized Sunday at the airport in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, were mercenaries on their way to sow conflict in Equatorial Guinea, and threatened to execute them.
The Herald, Zimbabwe's state-owned newspaper, reported that 20 of the men were South Africans. There were also 23 Angolans, 18 Namibians and two Congolese, the newspaper reported, and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport.
The president of Equatorial Guinea, a county whose recent oil discoveries have made it one of the continent's biggest oil producers, said the group was part of a quest by "enemy powers" to overthrow his government. The president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, said South Africa and Angola had alerted him to the plot, in which countries and multinational companies hostile to his 23-year rule had conspired to replace him with a politician now living in exile in Spain.
An executive with the company that operated the plane, an aging Boeing 727, said it had been engaged to transport security guards hired by mining companies to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"It is all a dreadful misunderstanding," Charles Burrows, a senior executive for the company, Logo Logistics Ltd, told South African reporters.
But Obiang said that confirmation of the plot had come from questioning about 15 people -- seven of them South Africans -- arrested Monday in his country and accused of conspiring to stage a coup.
"In the course of questioning, we have found that they were financed by enemy powers, by multinational companies, by countries that do not love us," the president said in a speech broadcast Tuesday on state radio and television.
Without naming them, Obiang said certain countries knew of the coup attempt but did nothing and would be considered enemies.
"Multinational firms operating here and outside who contributed to this operation are also enemy companies," Obiang said.
Vast oil reserves have been discovered in Equatorial Guinea, a country the size of Maryland with about 500,000 people, and it has become the third-biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria and Angola. Exxon Mobil pumps the most oil there, followed by a long list of multinational companies.
The South African minister of foreign affairs, Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma, said her department was in no hurry to help either the 20 South Africans detained in Zimbabwe or the seven arrested in Equatorial Guinea.
She told South African reporters that "there was a link between the plane and Equatorial Guinea" and that one man arrested in Equatorial Guinea had "spilled the beans."
"They are not exactly innocent travelers finding themselves in a difficult situation," she said, adding, "We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries."
The plane belonged to a small aviation company in Kansas until last week, when, an executive of the company said, it was sold. South African aviation officials said the plane landed at a small domestic airport near the capital, Pretoria, on Sunday morning, and took on the 64 passengers and a three-member crew.
The men in Zimbabwean custody were to appear in court in Harare yesterday or today, The Herald reported. "They are going to face the severest punishment available in our statutes, including capital punishment," the Zimbabwean foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, said at a news briefing in Harare.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS