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Zimbabwe: Mann Deserves No Mercy
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 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
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The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
12 February 2008
Posted to the web 12 February 2008
Reason Wafawarova
Sydney
According to the BBC, the Zimbabwean lawyer representing British mercenary Simon Mann reportedly vowed to fight to bring the extradited dog of war back to Zimbabwe, on presumed legal loopholes.
Mann's case is just one of many cases at international law - cases that have produced a dilemma created by the extradition doctrine, the extra territorial jurisdiction doctrine and the doctrine of fair trial.
Here is one crime committed in 2004 by about 90 people, comprising the 68 mercenaries arrested at Harare International Airport by Zimbabwean security officials, the 20 advance party of mercenaries picked up in Equatorial Guinea and one Mark, son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who was arrested in South Africa.
Their mission was to attempt to topple the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
Mann and 67 fellow canines of war were charged under immigration, aviation and firearms laws in Zimbabwe and the hired hands were sentenced to between 12 and 18 months each while Mann got seven years for masterminding the misadventure.
The 20 members of the advance party were all charged with attempting to topple a democratically elected government in Equatorial Guinea and got lengthy jail terms ranging between 17 and 34 years apiece.
Mark Thatcher was convicted in South Africa and slapped with a wholly suspended four-year jail term and fined 3 million rand for financing the coup attempt. He paid the fine and immediately left South Africa for the US to escape the possibility of an extradition application from Equatorial Guinea.
Of course, the US only accepts Anglo-Saxon terrorists fleeing to their territory and no one else. The issue here is that for taking part in one and the same crime, some members of this unscrupulous gang got as little as one-year jail terms while others got up to 34 years just because of where they were caught at the time the crime was being committed.
Zimbabwe wanted to try these mercenaries under terrorism laws or something close to what these criminals were up to but there were no such provisions in Zimbabwean law and the mercenaries had to face lesser charges of violating immigration, aviation and firearms laws -- a development that led to much lower sentences.
South Africa had to resort to laws governing the supplying of military equipment because like Zimbabwe, they had no laws to try Thatcher on the grounds of the actual crime he had committed against the people of Guinea. This is why they say the law is an ass.
As Mann came to the end of his prison term, authorities in Equatorial Guinea duly applied for his extradition from Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe granted the application.
Mann's lawyer unsuccessfully put forward an argument to the effect that his client was not guaranteed a fair trial in Equatorial Guinea and when this argument was thrown out by the Zimbabwean High Court; Mann was promptly extradited to the requesting Equatorial Guinea.
While Mann's lawyer is evidently unamused with the extradition, the BBC was clearly more worried about alleged appalling conditions at Black Beach Maximum Prison in Equatorial Guinea than they are worried about the merits of the allegations levelled against their countryman.
This writer will assert that Mann is a suitable candidate for remand imprisonment at Black Beach Prison or any such other notorious detention centre, Guantanamo Bay included, for the reasons cited in subsequent paragraphs.
Here is the bigger picture of events that led to Mann's fateful encounter with Zimbabwean security details.
Gerald James, a former British paratrooper and accountant wrote a book titled "In The Public Interest" in 1995.
James was a friend of George Kennedy Young of the M16 and a member of the Monday Club, the Tory think tank that brought Margaret Thatcher to power.
James became the Chairman of Astra Fireworks after Mrs Thatcher's ascendance to 10 Downing Street and he turned the firm into an arms manufacturer -- a plan that chimed perfectly with the militarisation of the British economy under Thatcher.
In fact the illicit arms trade by the Thatcher regime was the "magic" at the centre of Thatcher's so-called economic miracle.
According to James, the British government through Astra, made big business through deals dubbed the "Big Five" -- a reference to arms deals involving Oman in 1981, Jordan between 1985 and 1987, Saudi Arabia from 1986, Malaysia in 1988 and 1991 and Indonesia from 1990.
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Most of these arms ended up in the hands of combatants fighting in the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1987 and were mainly paid for through the uninterrupted flow of cheap oil, the guarantee always put forward in case of failure to pay.
If it were left to the efforts of Africans, the natural resources of Africa would be very safe from any conversion into wealth. We simply have to look at the ridiculous happenings in Kenya, for example, for a contemporary example of African success by Africans.
The colonialists never stole anything, but the Africans surely did destroy and waste anything that was developed.
Lets send Mugabe to Black Beach prison too. He has just as little regard for life than Mann.
He'll be dead of old age any day now, so it would a waste of money and time. Good riddance.
Mann deserve the dealth penalty!! Mark Thatcher would be a wonderful consolation Prize for Robert Mugabe. Would it not be great if Mugabe himself shot Mark Thatcher for his retirement!!
And hopefully he will be buried the same day as Obiang!!!
And they will meet again at the gates of HELL!!!!!!!!!!!
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