Links have been discovered between senior US military officials and the failed coup plot in Equa-torial Guinea.
Theresa Whelan, a member of the Bush administration in charge of African affairs at the Pentagon, twice met a London-based businessman, Greg Wales, in Washington before the coup attempt.
Wales has been accused of being one of its organizers, but has denied involvement.
Equatorial Guinea official sources claim that last November, when the plot was in its early stages, English mercenary Simon Mann paid Wales about US$8,000. Mann was subsequently jailed for seven years in Zimbabwe on charges linked to the coup plot.
A few days after the alleged payment, Wales went to Washington to a dinner and conference organized by an influential group of US "private military companies," the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA).
The US Africa affairs chief told the group that the Pentagon was eager to see them operate in Africa, saying: "Contractors are here to stay in supporting US national security objectives overseas." They were cheaper, and saved the use of US forces in peacekeeping and training, Whelan said.
She added: "The US can be supportive in trying to ameliorate regional crises without necessarily having to put US troops on the ground, which is often a very difficult political decision ... Sometimes we may not want to be very visible."
A US defense official told Newsweek magazine on Sunday: "Wales mentioned in passing ... there might be some trouble brewing in Equatorial Guinea."
The regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea has accused the US of backing the plot, but the Pentagon denies supporting it.
IPOA's members include MPRI, a firm formed by retired generals. MPRI had already been allowed to compile a survey of Equatorial Guinea's military weaknesses on Obiang's behalf, overcoming objections by the Clinton administration that it would help prop up a dictator.
Wales made his first contact with Whelan at the dinner. Two months later his firm, the Sherbourne Foundation, was paid another US$35,000 by the coup plotters, according to Equatorial Guinea.
Wales then organized another meeting at the Pentagon with Whelan on the eve of the day originally planned for the coup, Feb.19. The Pentagon says the meeting ranged over many African topics, and that Wales' statements did not call for any action to be taken. However, the Obiang regime has complained that the US did not warn it of the coup plot, although it received intelligence from South Africa.
The Feb. 19 plan is said to have been aborted after a hired aircraft broke down. The plotters then acquired a former US Air National Guard Boeing from Kansas.
Both the US and Britain have extensive oil interests in Equatorial Guinea which, in the words of one US official, is "the new Kuwait." There also is a good deal of unofficial sympathy in US military circles for the coup plotters. One of those present at the IPOA dinner said on Sunday: "Ethically, you have to want to see Obiang removed."
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS