Storyboard18 | Bookstrapping: ‘Cry Havoc’ by Simon Mann: Is there such a thing as a point of no return?

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea, during a trip to Sochi, Russia, in 2019. (Image: The Kremlin, Moscow, via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)

First up, the story is not entirely new.

In 2004, Simon Mann, ex-British military, tried to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Africa's longest serving leader. Mann was in cahoots with Western intelligence agencies and Mark Thatcher (son of Margaret Thatcher). Mann was caught. The coup failed. He was put in prison.

This is the story of Simon Mann’s book ‘Cry Havoc,’ in a nutshell. As I sat across him, in London, my first thought was simple -

How is he walking around a free man? Didn't he try to oust one of Africa’s most brutal dictators. It was astonishing really!

Simon Mann’s book Cry Havoc, cries havoc. The prologue announces that the book is about oil - oil wars in Africa. But the language is colourful and pragmatic. Here’s a sample -

“Gun-smoke grey vapour rips past. A silver spate river of cloud flashes by. A jagged mountain ridgeback lies too close beneath the thin metal hull of our Hawker Biz Jet.”

Definitely the words of a doer; rather than a writer. A writer who is writing as things come to his mind; with not a care in the world for syntax, structure and the like. Dilemma time... but there’s a lot to take away from the book.

1. Progress is an inside job: The book refers to President Teodoro Obiang Nguema as a tyrant. Mann says, “how many people does any tyrant have to kill or torture before something can be done about the bastard?” This is how he justifies accepting the coup as a mission. Equatorial Guinea is an oil rich country that doesn't lack resources; its leadership lacks intent. This is the tale of much of Africa.

2. Know your history: Mann’s book was published in 2011, but is so relevant today. Before the coup in Equatorial Guinea, Mann had earned millions fighting rebels in Angola. About this, he writes, “Angola had been the Cold War’s hottest proxy war. More than once I was shocked to see miles of burnt-out Russian tanks. They looked like the relics of a Second World War battle. A Kiev.” Makes me wonder how we came to be in the middle of another war in Russia-Ukraine in the first place.

3. Peace is priceless: This is much more than a line for beauty queens to win pageants. Cry Havoc is one in a long line of books that clearly shows how governments of the world are causing wars for profit, for arms sales, for oil. We need better, more conscientious leaders, all around.

4. When faced with ambiguity, backtracking is not a weakness: We talk about ambiguity in the business environment. But politics is another level. And it can be extremely difficult to backtrack publicly, when you know you've gone wrong. The big lesson in the book is that backtracking is better than going in blind! Mann confesses to having plenty of doubts about going ahead with the coup. Why did he, then?The book also leaves some questions unanswered, about the level of international intelligence support for the coup and who was really in charge.

5. Taking a break offers perspective: A rare light moment in the book, lies a paragraph about life in prison. “One of the things I miss about having my cell so clean is the gladiatorial spectator sport of Spider Wars. I used to lie on the floor and watch the spiders battle away up on the ceiling, and up in the corners. There are vast numbers of flies and therefore plenty of food. I watch as different species work in different ways, forcing out others.” Far removed from his guns and his goons, Mann was able to appreciate life and its nuances.

Mann is unable to shrug the Etonian in him as he quotes Chaucer and Cervantes in the book. Readers might also wonder why he got released at all! But here’s a line by Mann I’ll leave you with - that applies to pretty much all kinds of mess. “So what the bloody hell did go wrong? I'll never know for sure, I know that.”