1981 Seychelles coup attempt
[7][8] "Mad" Mike Hoare had served as a mercenary during the Congo Crisis and, at the time, had retired to Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal and was living as a stock broker and investment manager.Twenty days before the attempt, Gerard Hoarau and Paul Chow were sent to Nairobi to book a Sunbird Aviation Beechcraft Super King Air 200, registration number N 821CA, to transport the exile government to Seychelles from Mombasa.Just prior to the operation, Mike Hoare would tell South African intelligence officer Martin Dolinchek that Kenya had agreed to send "troops and police while the government-in-waiting was assembled in Nairobi".According to the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times newspaper of 29 November 1981, Jim Graves (the editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine) admitted that he had known about a large African mercenary operation being planned and his visit to Johannesburg two days before the attempted coup was "pure coincidence."[12][18] The rest would arrive on a chartered Royal Swazi National Airways Fokker F-28 in the afternoon of 25 November 1981, disguised as vacationing rugby players and members of a charitable beer drinking club.One security guard ran towards the office to request assistance and bolted the door, successfully raising the alarm,[18] which lead to the beginning of a six-hour gun battle at the airport.Hoare's men erected a roadblock on the north end of the airport and mounted an unsuccessful attack on the Pointe La Rue Barracks[23] in which one mercenary was wounded.[23] While the fighting was underway, Air India Flight 224 (a Boeing 707) en route from Salisbury (now Harare) to Bombay (now Mumbai) carrying 13 crew and 65 passengers closed in to land for a scheduled refueling.Berlouis was afraid that the plane might be carrying mercenary reinforcements and he thus ordered trucks to be used to block the runway while flares were fired to direct the pilot to abort the landing.[27] Of the five mercenaries who had been arrested and charged in Seychelles, four (Rhodesian Aubrey Brooks, South African Jerry Puren and Britons Bernard Carey and Roger England) were sentenced to death for treason on 6 July 1982.All other mercenaries had their charges dropped and were released[29] The international response was swift and vitriolic, because South Africa had been a strong opponent of terrorism, including air piracy and it is also a signatory to many conventions on hijacking.[31] After a five-month trial, Provincial Supreme Court Judge Neville James absolved the South African government and Prime Minister Pieter W. Botha of complicity in the coup attempt as had been alleged by the mercenaries.[38] The UN Commission instituted under Resolution 495 revealed that the South African government had issued military mobilisation orders for forty-three of the mercenaries who were either serving in- or were reservist SADF soldiers.[39] Martin Dolinchek (alias Anton Lubic) declared that his department (NIS) and the SADF had full and prior knowledge of the coup plans and they were presented to the South African Government in 1979 and rejected, only to be accepted in 1980."[42] Seychellois police found a document amongst Dolinchek's belongings that showed flight times for a Beechcraft Super Kingair 2000 that was scheduled to fly to Comoros on 24 November 1981 from Mombasa.Under questioning, Dolinchek filled in details that the charter plane from Mombasa would be carrying James Mancham, his wife and three colleagues ready to retake power in Seychelles.[42] Tanzanian troops were helping man airport and coastal defense positions after the coup attempt by mercenaries, Maj. James Michel, the Seychelles Information Minister reported.[42] The commission, composed of Panamanian, Irish and Japanese representatives concluded that "..it was 'hard to believe' South Africa had no prior knowledge of the plot to overthrow the leftist government on the Indian Ocean island."For these acts, the Commission finds the following to be accountable in their capacities as heads of agencies of the state directly involved in the operation:[46] Mike Hoare later authored a book on the coup attempt, entitled The Seychelles Affair.
Cold WarSeychelles International AirportMahé, SeychellesSeychellesSouth AfricaFrance-Albert RenéOgilvy BerlouisMike HoareTullio MonetaSouth AfricanJames ManchamDurbanSouth African Truth and Reconciliation Commission1977 Seychelles coup d'étatRepublic of Seychellesan armed coupNon-Aligned MovementMarxistSoviet UnionSatellite Tracking Facilitywon the electionscounter-coupCongo CrisisHilton, KwaZulu-NatalDefence Intelligence DivisionNational Intelligence ServiceGérard HoarauEarl of EnniskillenSunbird AviationDaniel arap MoiSouth African Defence ForceRoyal Swazi National AirwaysFokker F-28Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowersfalse bottomsPointe La RueDefence ForceforecourtMolotov cocktailAir IndiaBoeing 707SalisburyBombaycontrol towerZimbabweGeneral Magnus MalanterrorismpiracyhijackingSouth African Associated NewspapersP.W. BothaUN CommissionHistory of SeychellesSoldier of FortuneCowell, AlanThe New York TimesAxelrod, AlanThe Times of IndiaThe Christian Science MonitorGreek Ministry of CultureUnited Press InternationalAviation Safety NetworkarticlesHistoryColonial governors1977 coup d'état1981 coup d'état attemptGeographyCapitalCitiesIslandsDistrictsRiversWildlifePoliticsElectionsForeign relationsLGBT rightsMilitaryNational AssemblyPolitical partiesPresidentVice-PresidentPrime MinisterSupreme CourtEconomyAgricultureCentral BankRupee (currency)TelecommunicationsTourismTransportAbortionCultureDemographicsEducationLanguagesPeoplePublic holidaysReligionOutlineCoups d'étatRepublic of the Congo (1960)Ethiopia (1960)Rwanda (1961)French Algeria (1961)Somalia (1961)Senegal (1962)Dahomey (1963)Togo (1963)Gabon (1964)Algeria (1965)Dahomey (1965)Burundi (1965)Democratic Republic of the Congo (1965)Central African Republic (1965–66)Burundi (July 1966)Burundi (November 1966)Ghana (1966)Upper Volta (1966)Nigeria (January 1966)Nigeria (July 1966)Republic of the Congo (1966)Dahomey (1967)Sierra Leone (1967)Ghana (1967)