Part 1: The 1981 Seychelles Coup Attempt
On 25 November 1981, at 5:30 p.m., 43 tourists arrive at Seychelles International Airport aboard a chartered Royal Swazi National Airways charter plane. They are members of a Johannesburg-based charitable beer-drinking club, and they have toys in their luggage that they intend to donate to local children's homes. At 6 p.m., all but two of the tourists have made it past customs when a customs officer discovers an AK47 hidden in a false bottom beneath the toys and raises the alarm.
When the other tourists discover that their colleague’s weapon has been detected, they remove their own AK47s and open fire, triggering a six-hour battle between them and the security forces. It turns out that the visitors are not tourists but mercenaries planning to overthrow the Seychelles government of France-Albert René and reinstate ex-president James Mancham, who René had overthrown in 1977.
Mancham has asked the South African government to help him regain power, and it has agreed. As a result, it has tasked Mad Mike Hoare, a veteran mercenary, with leading the operation. Hoare is one of the soldiers of fortune now disguised as tourists at Seychelles International Airport. Among them are 27 members of the South African Defense Force.
Mancham and his government in exile are waiting in Mombasa, Kenya, from where they hope to fly to Seychelles aboard a Sunbird Aviation (later renamed Air Kenya Aviation) charter plane when the operation is complete.
The mercenaries had hoped to disperse to various hotels throughout the city, where they would finalize their plans over the course of several days. An advance party of nine mercenaries has already arrived in the country and has identified installations to occupy or disable.
Seychellois security forces respond to the alarm by sealing off the airport, trapping the mercenaries inside. They also fire at the chartered plane the mercenaries arrived in and disable it. The mercenaries, for their part, kidnap and use 70 airport employees as human shields and unsuccessfully try to take over a nearby military barrack.
By 10 p.m., the mercenaries have been cornered but they have seized control of the airport’s control tower. An Air India Boeing 707 from Bombay (Mumbai) to Salisbury (Harare) approaches the airport for a scheduled fueling, and they give it permission to land. It is their only available means of escape. The security forces, however, fear that the plane may be delivering reinforcements for the mercenaries, so they block the runway with trucks and fire flares at the plane to warn the pilot to abort the landing. However, because he has already committed himself, there isn't much he can do but continue with the landing. He successfully does so and avoids the trucks, but the plane sustains minor damage to its right wing.
The mercenaries board the plane shortly after it lands and instruct Captain Umesh Saxena to fly them to Zimbabwe. The captain, however, informs them that he does not have enough fuel to fly them to Zimbabwe, but offers to take them to Durban, South Africa.
Within a day, five of the nine-member advance party of mercenaries are apprehended, including Martin Dolinchek, a member of South Africa's intelligence bureau, NIS, who reveals the South African and Kenyan connection to the coup plot. He claims that Kenya was the base for planning the return of Mancham's cabinet-in-exile following René's overthrow and that high-ranking members of Kenya's government, including the minister of constitutional affairs, Charles Njonjo, and police commissioner, Ben Gethi, were aware of the plot. Following these revelations, the Seychelles government protests against the Kenyan government, and it emerges that President Daniel arap Moi, who is also the Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, of which Seychelles is a member, was unaware of the plot and is embarrassed.
In 1984, a judicial commission appointed to investigate several allegations against Njonjo hears the testimony of several witnesses on this matter. Among them is William Henry Boyd Parkinson, an Irishman resident in Kenya but with South African connections. Parkinson claims that he procured the plane that was supposed to fly Mancham’s cabinet-in-exile to Seychelles in response to a request from the late D.J. Irwin, a former deputy director of CID and a friend of Charles Njonjo. He says Irwin assured him that the operation had been approved by a higher authority.
Captain David John Gilchrist Leonard tells the commission that Parkinson hired him as a co-pilot for the plane that was supposed to fly Mancham’s cabinet-in-exile back to Seychelles, and that Parkinson assured him that the operation had the approval of his "former employer." Leonard says he understood this to mean Charles Njonjo, a shareholder of Boskovic Air charters, where he previously worked.
The commission also hears that in the months leading up to the coup attempt, there were dozens of South Africans in Kenya involved in the coup planning, and that Njonjo facilitated their acquisition of Kenyan visas.
The commission concludes that Charles Njonjo was a key figure in the Seychelles coup attempt.
