EurasiaNet Organization
Oct 7 2004
ARMENIAN PILOTS TRAPPED IN AFRICAN MERCENARY PLOT
Emil Danielyan 10/07/04
Difficult economic times have forced many Armenians to search for
work abroad. For most, especially the large number of Armenians in
Russia, a foreign job means leading a relatively Spartan
lifestyle – the main aim being saving enough to send money back to
loved ones at home. For the six-man crew of a charter cargo jet,
however, what appeared at first to be a routine assignment has turned
into an ordeal in which they stand accused of participating in a
failed coup attempt in the African nation of Equatorial Guinea.
Ashot Karapetian and his five-man crew departed in their heavy
Antonov-12 transport jet from Yerevan’s international airport in
January. They, along with dozens of other Armenian aviators, had
taken on many jobs in the past shuttling cargo across Africa, and had
no reason to believe that their current assignment would be any
different than others.
They were mistaken.
The six Armenians found themselves under arrest last March, accused
of participating in an international plot to overthrow Equatorial
Guinea’s longtime president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Their trial in
Equatorial-Guinea’s capital, Malabo, began August 23. The trial had
been slated to resume October 4, but was postponed with no new
resumption date set. If convicted, the six Armenians face long prison
terms.
The aviators vigorously deny involvement in coup preparations. They
enjoy the strong support of the Armenian government, which insists
that they are innocent and which has lobbied hard to secure their
release. President Robert Kocharian has personally appealed to Obiang
to release the Armenian detainees.
Obiang, whose regime is seen by the United States as one of the most
repressive in the world, has been in power ever since overthrowing
his uncle and predecessor Macias Nguema in a 1979 coup. The
impoverished former Spanish colony began to attract Western interest
in the mid-1990s with the discovery of substantial hydrocarbon
reserves off its Atlantic coast.
According to British news accounts, a group of South African and
London-based businessmen, including the son of former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher, sought to grab their share of the oil
riches by plotting to topple Obiang and install an exiled opposition
leader in his place.
The reported conspiracy was uncovered in early March. The arrests of
the Armenians and other foreigners in Malabo were announced a few
days later. The accused ringleader is Nick du Toit, an apartheid-era
soldier who ran a mercenary firm in South Africa until it was banned
in 1999.
Prosecutors in Malabo have not provided details on the Armenian
aircrew’s supposed role in the coup. Their Soviet-made Antonov-12
aircraft belonging to the Yerevan-based firm Tiga Air was chartered
to carry out flights across the region by Central Asian Logistics
(CAL), a German airfreight company.
CAL’s representative to Equatorial Guinea, Gerhard Eugen Merz, was
also among the foreign detainees. Merz died, officially of cerebral
malaria, in Malabo’s notorious Black Beach prison just days after his
arrest. The human rights group Amnesty International said he was
tortured to death.
The director of Tiga Air, Boris Avagian, insists that his company’s
contract with the Germans only envisaged the transportation of
“civilian goods and equipment.” He also claims to have never known or
dealt with the reputed South African mercenary du Toit.
“The charges against our pilots are groundless,” Avagian said in a
recent interview. “They are honest professionals who went to
Equatorial Guinea to do their job.”
CAL chief executive, Thomas Rinnerd, speaking in a telephone
interview, denied any connection between his Frankfurt-based company
and the alleged coup conspirators. “The Armenian pilots are 200
percent innocent. So are Mr. Merz and our company,” he said. He added
that the Armenian cargo jet had been hired by CAL to ship various
supplies to oil companies operating in the African country
Officials in Malabo announced in early September that a team of
investigators would travel to Armenia to probe possible links between
the Armenian transport firm and the alleged coup plotters. Armenian
authorities have maintained that they have no information about such
a mission. But, a person close to the arrested aviators’ families
claims that a visit did take place, and that the Guineans told the
relatives not to talk to journalists.
The pilots, for their part, have testified at the trial that they
carried out only one flight from Equatorial Guinea, bound for the
Democratic Republic of Congo. They said the Congolese airport they
were bound for was closed and they returned to Malabo with nothing in
the hold.
Du Toit’s court testimony did not explicitly implicate the Armenians
in the coup preparations, a fact that the Armenian government says
proves their innocence. “These are quite serious ground for
optimism,” Sergei Manaserian, Armenia’s ambassador to Egypt who has
repeatedly visited Malabo since March, told the official Armenpress
news agency on September 7.
The saga of the Antonov-12 crew is somewhat symbolic of the overall
state of Armenia’s civil aviation sector. During the Soviet era, the
small South Caucasus republic operated 13 airports and a possessed a
fleet of commercial aircraft that employed more than a thousand
pilots and technicians. Today, 0nly Yerevan’s Zvartnots international
airport now functions at full capacity.
The post-Soviet economic decline coupled with government corruption
and mismanagement is taking a heavy toll on the sector. Last year’s
scandalous bankruptcy of Armenian Airlines, the state-run carrier
flagship, left more than 300 pilots and flight engineers out of work.
The luckiest few of them found new jobs with local small companies
like Tiga Air that carry out charter flights in Asia and Africa.
The Armenian aircrews are cheap labor for the foreign firms that pay
them a fraction of what they would spend on Western pilots. Aviation
experts say they also run additional health and safety risks in third
world countries. Two Armenian planes have already crashed in Iran and
Sudan under mysterious circumstances.
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.