'Dogs of war' hog front pages
2004-03-10 10:49
Johannesburg - Foreign Affairs officials were still awaiting details on Wednesday on the identity of about 20 South African suspected mercenaries taken into custody on Sunday after their plane was detained in Zimbabwe.
Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said once their names were known, consular services would be offered and their families informed. The names would only then be made available to the media.
Nearly all the South African and Zimbabwean newspapers have been giving the story front page treatment.
Business Day said the aircraft was carrying 64 mercenaries on their way to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea.
'Dogs of war'
If the men arrested in Zimbabwe turned out to be "dogs of war," South Africa would abandon them to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's justice, The Star newspaper reported Mamoepa as saying.
The Citizen said other reports indicated the men were security guards headed for various mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Zimbabwe's state-owned The Herald newspaper quoted the country's home minister, Kembo Mohadi, saying the plane was carrying 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two DRC citizens and a Zimbabwean travelling on a South African passport.
The plane was detained and the crew and passengers arrested after airport authorities became suspicious of the pilot's claim that the plane was only carrying three crew and four cargo handlers.
The paper added that the aircraft was to be met on the ground by Simon Mann, identified by another paper as a senior Logo Logistics Limited official, and two other men.
Logo is a British company and has claimed the men are mine security staff.
SABC radio reported that retired Colonel Tshinga Dube, chief executive of Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), was also at the airport.
'Enraged' that deal scuttled'
The Afrikaans daily, Beeld, reported that the arms for the alleged coup would have been supplied by ZDI. Dube was reportedly "enraged" that the aircraft was impounded and the $180 000 transaction scuttled.
The paper identified the pilots as Niel Steyl, a South African commercial pilot and Hendrik Hamman, a Namibian. Both had in the past worked for defunct mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes.
Logo executive Charles Burrow, speaking from London, called the incident a "misunderstanding".
The aircraft, flight planned to Bujumbura in Burundi, were taking personnel to the DRC. What appeared to be military items aboard was mining equipment, he claimed.
The company's cryptic website listed operations in places as diverse as China and Pakistan, Venezuela and Guyana and African countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, the two Congos, Angola, Zambia and Mozambique.
Services offered by Logo Logistics include "risk intelligence and assessment, support helicopter operations, service support in harsh environments, (and) rough field and parachute air re-supply".
- SAPA