The 1981 Seychelles coup d'état attempt, sometimes referred to as the Seychelles affair or Operation Angela, was a failed South African–orchestrated coup to overthrow the government of Prime Minister France-Albert René in Seychelles and restore the previous president, James Mancham, to power.
The South African government encouraged a mercenary group to force a change of government. Still, the poorly organised and underfunded operation was obstructed when a Seychelles customs official discovered weapons in the baggage of one of the arriving mercenaries and raised the alarm. After an extended firefight, the mercenaries hijacked an aircraft and fled to Durban in South Africa. They were charged in the South African courts but received lenient sentences. United Nations and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission enquiries condemned the South African government for their participation in an attempt to overthrow a neighbouring government.
Background
The Republic of Seychelles achieved independence on 29 June 1976 from the United Kingdom. James Mancham was president and France-Albert René was prime minister, but relations between the two quickly soured. In 1977 René's leftist supporters launched an armed coup while Mancham was in London. Though René denied any responsibility, he assumed the presidency in June. Being a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the René presidency was considered by the United States to be Marxist in its outlook and favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union. This led to a US-initiated plot against his government in 1979 – the plot was uncovered and resulted in the expulsion of several of the 120 American civilians working at a USAF Satellite Tracking Facility on the main island of Mahe (for economic reasons the station was permitted to remain operational – but the terms of lease were re-negotiated to be more equitable towards the Seychelles). The US Ambassador to Kenya as well as the Chargé d'Affaires in the Seychelles were also implicated in the coup.
Later in 1979, René's party won the elections and he pursued a socialist agenda, upsetting the small but influential middle-class population. His reign also saw the withdrawal of South Africa's landing rights as well as a deterioration of economic ties between the two countries. René frequently warned that sympathizers of the old government were conspiring to use mercenaries to stage a counter-coup. Most of his critics dismissed the alleged plots as exaggerated or even fabricated excuses to jail political opponents.
In 1978 the deposed Mancham approached the South African government through Seychelles exiles to garner support for a counter-coup. The South African government was willing to assist and set aside a small number of special forces for a plot, but directed Mancham's representative to Mike Hoare and a South African government front company called Longreach. "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. He agreed to lead the coup.
Planning
South African support
South African officials organised the coup under the code name "Operation Angela". As plans developed, an internal struggle emerged between the Defence Intelligence Division (SADF-ID) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) over which agency would be responsible for the operation. In the end, SADF was given charge of the plot but an NIS agent, Martin Dolinchek, was appointed to be a liaison officer with the task force. Seychellois exiles Gérard Hoarau, Paul Chow, and Edie Camille helped orchestrate the coup plot. Hoare determined that bringing in weapons via boat was, despite its effectiveness, too expensive a method to carry out.
Kenyan support
Several prominent Kenyan politicians were alleged to have had prior knowledge of the coup, most prominently Attorney General Charles Njonjo, Police Commissioner Ben Gethi, JD Irwin, head of Kenya's Criminal Investigation Department and Andrew Cole, the current 7th Earl of Enniskillen and then owner of Sunbird Aviation, now a part of Air Kenya. 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. There have also been allegations that Kenya was to play a larger role in the plot. 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". These troops would only arrive in the Sunbird Beechcraft after ‘Mad Mike’ had secured the army barracks, the airport and the radio station, which never came to pass. In the aftermath of the attempt, when Dolinchek was arrested, details of the Sunbird flight were found in his possession. Had Dolinchek not been left behind, perhaps the Kenyan connection would never have surfaced. Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, then Chair of the OAU was embarrassed by the affair and may have been kept in the dark by Gethi and Njonjo who were both sacked the following year.
Recruitment
An article in Gung Ho magazine edition of May 1981 titled "Mercenary opportunities west of Suez" extolled the benefits and possibilities associated with a mercenary take-over of Seychelles and Mauritius, noting former Seychelles Prime Minister Mancham's support for such an operation. 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." The word of a large recruitment drive was known in mercenary circles in London, Paris, Johannesburg and Durban.
Hoare managed to assemble a force of 54 mercenaries (himself included). Of these, 27 were members of the South African Defence Force, 9 were ex-Rhodesian soldiers, 7 ex-Congo mercenaries, 1 NIS agent (Dolinchek), and 3 civilians. Hoare also advised that US$5 million be raised for the operation, but only US$300,000 was garnered. The rest of the mercenaries' salaries would come from the Seychelles Treasury.
Plan
Nine members of Hoare's team were sent to the island of Mahé, Seychelles as an advance team. They were to identify potential targets and rally support from dissident Seychellois soldiers. 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. They took the name of their beer club –Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers (AOFB)– from a London society that had been defunct since the 1930s. As part of their cover, the mercenaries disguised as AOFB members filled their baggage with toys that were to be supposedly distributed to local orphanages. In reality, these were meant to conceal the weight of AK-47 rifles hidden under the false bottoms of each item of luggage. Hoare ensured that the toys were as bulky as possible to best suit the purpose.
The mercenaries plan was to arrive on Mahé, rendezvous with the advance team and disperse around the island to various hotels. They were to wait for several days until René would be holding a cabinet meeting in the Maison du Peuple during which time they would launch their coup. They would seize the parliament, the airport, the radio station, police station, the army camp at Pointe La Rue, and other strategic locations. From the radio station they would broadcast that they had taken power on behalf of Mancham. The Seychellois exiles had assured the mercenaries that they would have the assistance of a 400-strong "local resistance force", but no such force existed.
Operation
At 17:30 on 25 November 1981, Hoare and 43 mercenaries flew into Seychelles International Airport at Pointe La Rue on Mahé. All but two of them had made it through customs when a security supervisor began a thorough search of the luggage of a mercenary, discovering an AK-47. Realising their cover was blown, the mercenaries produced their weapons. One security guard ran towards the office to request assistance and bolted the door, successfully raising the alarm, which led to the beginning of a six-hour gun battle at the airport. About 70 airport staff and passengers were taken hostage by the mercenaries.
President René was in his residence when he received a phone call about the incident at the airport. He immediately put the island on alert, calling all police and militia into service and imposing a 24-hour curfew. Colonel Ogilvy Berlouis, the chief of the Defence Force, was ordered to secure the airport and prevent the mercenaries from escaping.
The number of mercenaries was unknown to the Seychellois, as was the question of whether the attack at the airport was supposed to coincide with a seaborne invasion. Hoare's men erected a roadblock on the north end of the airport and mounted an unsuccessful attack on the Pointe La Rue Barracks in which one mercenary was wounded. Seychellois forces, with two armoured vehicles, occupied the airstrip, confining the mercenaries to the airport's buildings. They also fired upon the chartered aircraft, disabling it. One of the armoured vehicles made its way to the terminal forecourt, but the lights were out in the building and the driver had difficulty spotting the mercenaries. The vehicle's tires were quickly shot out and it was set ablaze by a Molotov cocktail. 2nd Lieutenant David Antat, the vehicle's commander, emerged from the top and engaged the mercenaries. They surrounded the vehicle and shot Antat several times in the chest, killing him.
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 refuelling. The mercenaries, having just seized the control tower, gave permission for it to land. 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. At that point the plane was too committed to the landing and proceeded to land and despite the lack of runway lighting, the pilot managed to manoeuvre the aircraft to avoid the trucks, only sustaining superficial damage to its right wing.
Seychellois forces then began firing in the direction of the Boeing, spreading worry among some of the mercenaries who saw the aircraft as their only means of escape. The mercenaries then boarded the flight and the operational leader, Peter Duffy, instructed Captain Umesh Saxena to take them to Zimbabwe. After an argument regarding the lack of fuel, Saxena agreed to fly them to the nearer city of Durban, South Africa.
The advance team of five mercenaries, NIS agent Dolinchek (under the alias Anton Lubic) and one female civilian accomplice were subsequently arrested. Out of the total coup force, one mercenary was killed (SADF 2 Recce member Johan Fritz) and two wounded. One Seychellois soldier was killed and a police sergeant was wounded.
Aftermath
Arrests, charges and sentences
Treason charges in Seychelles
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. Martin Dolinchek was also found guilty of treason and was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for indirect participation in the coup attempt. Robert Sims, the fifth mercenary was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on charges related to smuggling arms into the Seychelles. Charges were dropped against Susan Ingles (47), Sims' common law wife who had been arrested and was subsequently released. After extended negotiations between the Seychelles and South African governments and a US$3.0 million payment directly to President René – all six prisoners were pardoned by René and deported to South Africa in mid-1983.