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.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese