scoone
03-24-2004, 09:42 AM
March 19, 2004: Ghana sent two warships to Equatorial Guinea to remove several hundred Ghanans who were endangered by anti-foreigner violence. The Ghanan warships were not allowed to dock, and the refugees were brought out by small boat. Journalists and foreign aid workers who had arrived on the warships were not allowed to leave the ships and enter Equatorial Guinea.
March 17, 2004: Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea has irked its neighbors by unduly harassing their nationals, after suspected mercenaries were accused of plotting a foreign-backed coup against President Obiang. Cameroon recalled its ambassador for "consultations" on the 16th, after 750 of its citizens had been unfairly expelled in the wake of a massive clampdown on foreign nationals. Over the March 13-14 weekend, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the deployment of a warship and about 1000 combat veteran troops to Malabo, the capital.
After coup plotter Nick du Toit (who owns a security firm in Equatorial Guinea jointly with the president's brother) was put on TV on March 6, government security forces sparked an orgy of arrests, rape, beatings and shootings. Some foreigners claimed to have been put in cells for days with no food, while others had to leave properties and savings behind.
Equatorial Guinea had arrested over 20 suspected mercenaries, including Armenians, Angolans, Kazakhs, a German and South Africans in connection with the coup plot. The Afrikaans-language weekly ******* published the names of 13 South Africans, 28 Namibians, 24 Angolans, three Congolese, one Briton and a Zimbabwean arrested in Harare. The accused mercenaries' lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, told the UN that his clients were allegedly in possession of a written agreement with the state-owned Zimbabwe Defense Industries for a consignment of AK-47s, grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition. He asserted that they had paid $180,000 for these weapons for mine security in the Congo, for which services his clients had been contracted.
According to Equatorial Guinea's Justice Minister, the plan was to abduct President Obiang and take him to Spain. Simon Mann (supposedly former SAS) and Simon Witherspoon, a South African, were allegedly going to lead the operation.
It's not like Equatorial Guinea's leaders are worth shedding any tears over. The majority of the $700 million per year in oil revenues paid to Equatorial Guinea was funneled into foreign bank accounts, many controlled by President Obiang. The population remains dirt-poor and abused. In 2003, an American human rights group put Obiang at sixth place among the world's 10 worst dictators.
The president has also been sick (supposedly prostate cancer), creating tensions among the ruling clan over who his successor would be. His son Teodorin is a government minister, rap promoter and jet-setting playboy, but no better a candidate to lead the country than his father. So with a power vacuum looming on the horizon, someone decided to act. The question remains, "who?" - Adam Geibel
March 17, 2004: Kenyans are openly discussing the new focus of US and European intelligence agencies on African countries where Al Qaeda may have a presence. But some of the discussion is about how the US and European intelligence presence had little to do with tracking terrorists and everything to do with snooping on Kenyans. Why snoop on Kenyans? That wasn’t made clear, except to say that the US and Europeans were sort-of neo-imperialists who sort-of want neo-protectorates. News articles claim there were US Marines operating near the Kenya-Somalia border. Don’t dismiss the reports as pure hogwash just because of the anti-colonialist rhetoric. US, European, and for that matter, Kenyan intelligence is very interested in tracking Islamist terrorists in the region. There is a new focus on Somalia as an Al Qaeda lair. It appears local Kenyans have picked up on intelligence agents and police as they collect data and (possibly) track terrorists. Tanzania, to the south of Kenya, also reports more counter-terror sleuthing. About a third of Tanzania’s population of 36 million is Muslim.
March 5, 2004: Wrangling over the “ivory ban” is big time politics in Africa. Battling poachers is not only a lot like battling guerrillas, often poachers are or have been guerrillas. Kenya has seconded army infantry to help police and park rangers run counter-poacher patrols. The Kenyan government is still against lifting the ban, despite increasing pressure by some African countries to allow “ivory cropping.” South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana all have large elephant herds. The elephant herds have been successfully managed and in some cases there is simply no place to move the elephants. Several tribal groups want to cull the herds (they destroy property and farmland when they wander off protected preserves) and sell the ivory to help support wild animal protection and restoration projects. Kenyan herds, however, are still depleted. In the 1980s poachers almost eliminated several Kenyan elephant herds. In the mid-1970s Kenya had around 200,000 elephants. That number dropped to around 15,000 in the mid-1980s. The ivory ban went into effect in 1989. Kenya now says it has around 28,000 elephants. Kenya argues that ending the ban would give poachers (who have large illegal ivory stocks) the chance to sell their ivory.
http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=pothot
March 17, 2004: Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea has irked its neighbors by unduly harassing their nationals, after suspected mercenaries were accused of plotting a foreign-backed coup against President Obiang. Cameroon recalled its ambassador for "consultations" on the 16th, after 750 of its citizens had been unfairly expelled in the wake of a massive clampdown on foreign nationals. Over the March 13-14 weekend, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the deployment of a warship and about 1000 combat veteran troops to Malabo, the capital.
After coup plotter Nick du Toit (who owns a security firm in Equatorial Guinea jointly with the president's brother) was put on TV on March 6, government security forces sparked an orgy of arrests, rape, beatings and shootings. Some foreigners claimed to have been put in cells for days with no food, while others had to leave properties and savings behind.
Equatorial Guinea had arrested over 20 suspected mercenaries, including Armenians, Angolans, Kazakhs, a German and South Africans in connection with the coup plot. The Afrikaans-language weekly ******* published the names of 13 South Africans, 28 Namibians, 24 Angolans, three Congolese, one Briton and a Zimbabwean arrested in Harare. The accused mercenaries' lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, told the UN that his clients were allegedly in possession of a written agreement with the state-owned Zimbabwe Defense Industries for a consignment of AK-47s, grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition. He asserted that they had paid $180,000 for these weapons for mine security in the Congo, for which services his clients had been contracted.
According to Equatorial Guinea's Justice Minister, the plan was to abduct President Obiang and take him to Spain. Simon Mann (supposedly former SAS) and Simon Witherspoon, a South African, were allegedly going to lead the operation.
It's not like Equatorial Guinea's leaders are worth shedding any tears over. The majority of the $700 million per year in oil revenues paid to Equatorial Guinea was funneled into foreign bank accounts, many controlled by President Obiang. The population remains dirt-poor and abused. In 2003, an American human rights group put Obiang at sixth place among the world's 10 worst dictators.
The president has also been sick (supposedly prostate cancer), creating tensions among the ruling clan over who his successor would be. His son Teodorin is a government minister, rap promoter and jet-setting playboy, but no better a candidate to lead the country than his father. So with a power vacuum looming on the horizon, someone decided to act. The question remains, "who?" - Adam Geibel
March 17, 2004: Kenyans are openly discussing the new focus of US and European intelligence agencies on African countries where Al Qaeda may have a presence. But some of the discussion is about how the US and European intelligence presence had little to do with tracking terrorists and everything to do with snooping on Kenyans. Why snoop on Kenyans? That wasn’t made clear, except to say that the US and Europeans were sort-of neo-imperialists who sort-of want neo-protectorates. News articles claim there were US Marines operating near the Kenya-Somalia border. Don’t dismiss the reports as pure hogwash just because of the anti-colonialist rhetoric. US, European, and for that matter, Kenyan intelligence is very interested in tracking Islamist terrorists in the region. There is a new focus on Somalia as an Al Qaeda lair. It appears local Kenyans have picked up on intelligence agents and police as they collect data and (possibly) track terrorists. Tanzania, to the south of Kenya, also reports more counter-terror sleuthing. About a third of Tanzania’s population of 36 million is Muslim.
March 5, 2004: Wrangling over the “ivory ban” is big time politics in Africa. Battling poachers is not only a lot like battling guerrillas, often poachers are or have been guerrillas. Kenya has seconded army infantry to help police and park rangers run counter-poacher patrols. The Kenyan government is still against lifting the ban, despite increasing pressure by some African countries to allow “ivory cropping.” South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana all have large elephant herds. The elephant herds have been successfully managed and in some cases there is simply no place to move the elephants. Several tribal groups want to cull the herds (they destroy property and farmland when they wander off protected preserves) and sell the ivory to help support wild animal protection and restoration projects. Kenyan herds, however, are still depleted. In the 1980s poachers almost eliminated several Kenyan elephant herds. In the mid-1970s Kenya had around 200,000 elephants. That number dropped to around 15,000 in the mid-1980s. The ivory ban went into effect in 1989. Kenya now says it has around 28,000 elephants. Kenya argues that ending the ban would give poachers (who have large illegal ivory stocks) the chance to sell their ivory.
http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=pothot