The world this wiki

The idea of LLM Wiki applied to a year of the Economist. Have an LLM keep a wiki up-to-date about companies, people & countries while reading through all articles of the economist from Q2 2025 until Q2 2026.

DOsinga/the_world_this_wiki

people|Dogs of warble

Simon Mann

British private military contractor — mercenary, in the less flattering word — who died on May 8th 2025, aged 72. Eton-educated and from a brewing family, he chose soldiering over the family fortune. His father and grandfather had both excelled in war.

Military career

Mann received a commission in the Scots Guards before joining the Special Air Service (SAS), Britain's elite semi-secret fighting force. He first heard about the SAS at White's club, aged 21, from the regiment's founder; he signed on officially at 27.

He went on to part-run two private military companies: Executive Outcomes and Sandline International. At their peak, 2,000 ex-soldiers were on his list, with 3,000 more waiting.

Operations

  • Angola, 1993: Together with oil-company boss Tony Buckingham, Mann won back the city of Soyo from UNITA rebels fighting the former Marxist (but internationally recognised) regime. The operation led to a ceasefire and saved their joint venture, Heritage Oil and Gas, putting them in high favour with the government. The profits funded a house near Beaulieu once owned by the Rothschilds.
  • Sierra Leone, 1995: Cleared rebel forces out of the country's diamond fields. Payment in full proved hard to extract, and the rebels returned.
  • Papua New Guinea, 1997: Attempted to recapture the solid-copper island of Bougainville for the government, but the team was deported before operations began.

The Equatorial Guinea coup (2004)

Mann's most notorious operation was an attempt to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the long-time dictator of Equatorial Guinea. The plan called for 69 men, mostly ex-South African Defence Force veterans, to load weapons in Harare, fly to Malabo and install Severo Moto, a Spanish-based exile known as "the priest", in the palace. In exchange, the plotters would receive a cut of the country's oil rights.

The operation was compromised by leaks — Mann believed the CIA betrayed them — and all were arrested after landing in Harare. He served three and a half years in Chikurubi prison in Harare, then was transferred to Black Beach prison in Malabo to serve 32 years. He was released after less than two and expelled from the country.

A letter to his wife Amanda from Chikurubi, in which he said only "a large splodge of wonga" would secure his release, exploded the story into tabloid scandal. Mark Thatcher, son of the former prime minister, had been eager to help but never came through; his involvement, once revealed, made headlines. The episode became known as the "Wonga Coup".

In 2017 Mann defended Obiang and his spendthrift son Teddy in a French court — an apparent quid pro quo for his early release, along with the naming of dissidents while in prison.

Memoir

Mann published a memoir in 2011 titled Cry 'Havoc!', after the line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!' And let slip the dogs of war."

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? -- Tom Stoppard