The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs And A Ruthless Determination To Create Mayhem In An Oil-Rich Corner Of Africa (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa had me hooked straight from the title. Seriously, guns, thugs, and ruthless determination? I’m usually satisfied if a book provides me with just one, but all three? Seriously though, this story has all the intrigue and mysterious men of adventure of a Frederick Forsyth novel, only this one is true. The story follows Simon Mann, an Eton educated and SAS trained British aristocrat member of the South African expat community turned soldier of fortune, and his 2004 plot to overthrow Obiang Nguema, the President of Equatorial Guinea. The story is fascinating and Adam Roberts, the author and a correspondent for the Economist, does a remarkable job weaving together disparate strands, from the conditions within Equatorial Guinea to Mann’s past as a solider for hire in Angola to his assembling of a professional army to the wide group of companies and individuals who were exposed as financiers of this operation. It also goes into the past of Equatorial Guinea and explains that Mann’s was not the first attempt on this tiny country’s government. Frederick Forsyth himself, of Night of the Jackal fame, also funded and planned a coup that, when it failed, was the inspiration for his book The Dogs of War.* Roberts tells a tight yarn but occasionally zooms in too far, losing the momentum of the plot in the minutiae of its moving parts. It also feels as though each chapter was written as a stand-alone article with at least a couple paragraphs re-canvassing territory that had already been well trodden previously in the book. However, with the panoply of characters, any one of which could be the star of his own book, that Roberts has to sort through, he can be forgiven for doubling back occasionally. The Wonga Coup gives a crackling and insightful look into a forgotten corner of the world that, while successfully escaping colonialism, is still suffering from the covetous and grandiose ambitions of foreigners. *If 13 year old me knew that one of the books that had inspired daydreams of being a corrupt-government toppling superspy was based on a true, if failed, story, I can’t promise that I would have run off and tried to lIve a James Bond origin story, but the odds would have skyrocketed.
So far, I've read up until Chapter 15 and I won't recommend it to anyone for a combination of part or all of the reasons below.1. Unsubstantiated Claims. The author makes tons of outlandish claims but they're never substantiated. For example, In chapter 8 he claims the existence of contracts between the coup plotters and Mr Moto yet he never presents copies of these contracts in his "primary documents." How do we know the alledged contracts exist(ed)?2. Sources. What are his sources? Where are his footnotes? How can we check his sources?Even autobiographies (First hand accounts) provide more sources and footnotes.3. The writer and his subject. One who isn't careful might read the book thinking the author was a party to the events he's describing. Other parts of the book read like a bad gossip column about the adventures of mercenaries in tropical Africa intended for an audience hungry for stories about adventures in Africa.Why people read it and think it is well researched is beyond my (mis)understanding. The Sunday Times (UK) writes that The Wonga Coup is "Riveting and Superbly researched" And adds, "A brilliant, mordant, blackly comic read."I'm amazed at the Sunday Times (UK) this is the kind of work they qualify "Riveting and superbly researched." Maybe words stopped having meaning but this level of researched won't get anyone pass Graduate School, maybe not even in Equatorial Guinea.4. Africa seen by the World. In the final anaylysis, this book is anything but serious work let alone "superbly researched." It is one in a long list presenting exaggerated stories about Africa without feeling the need for substantiation. This because to many out there, Africa is still the "Dark Continent" where stories about the surreal and fantastic still enchant the imagination of many at the expense of Reality and History. How else explain the author echoing innuendos about Mr. Obiang Nguema eating testicles of political opponents supposedly to remain in power. But then again, Africa is the victim of different sorts of mercenaries; the white collar ones at the head of companies, the blue-collar-gun-toting ones and last but not the least, the pen-toting ones under the disguise of journalists, writers or pseudo-intellectuals.
What do You think about The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs And A Ruthless Determination To Create Mayhem In An Oil-Rich Corner Of Africa (2006)?
This book was made more enjoyable by my having recently finished Robert Klitgaard's Tropical Gangsters, which is a book about World Bank/IMF development activities in Equitorial Guinea nearly 20 years before the activities described in The Wonga Coup. I'm not sure if I would have given this one three stars had I not already had an interest in finding out where the country had ended up after the difficulties I read about in Klitgaard's book.Certainly don't read The Wonga Coup if you have a thirst for the more swashbuckling aspects of coup plotters (and/or coup executors). It just doesn't read that way. This is more about financial transactions, materials acquisition, and careless, drunken talk in restaurants and bars.Nonetheless, The Wonga Coup was interesting enough reading for a long flight. I'd never been exposed to the coup-plotting machinations of European adventurers in modern Africa, so the book was in that sense a view into a world I didn't know existed. I suppose there's some useful information in there if you ever want to plot your own African coup, though I think Adam Roberts, the author, would probably discourage the book's use as a guide or manual (and perhaps recommend others instead).
—Brock
Fun and revealing story about how mercenaries tried to stage a coup in a tiny African country in 2003. Apparently this is a regular thing that happens in Africa.The writing got a little bogged down and expository in the middle of the book. I was hoping for more action but instead I got page after page of "this guy said this, the other guy said that" stuff. Stil, overall the book was fun.Also I learned that Margaret Thatcher's son is an a-hole, and he was involved in financing the coup. Ridiculous.
—Philip Hollenback
