drama
Chris Gordon
The leader of a London-based mercenary recruitment group has been liaising between the British Foreign Office and DiamondWorks over the recent attack on the company’s Yetwene mine in Angola, according to a senior official in the Foreign Office.
Colonel Tim Spicer, the head of Sandline International, is acting as DiamondWorks’s representative in the search for 10 people still missing after the raid on the mine, a Foreign Office representative confirmed.
DiamondWorks accused a unit of Jonas Savimbi’s Unita of carrying out the raid. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Spicer’s links with British-based Branch Energy and Africa are longstanding. He has been at the centre of a Foreign Office inquiry into the unauthorised supply of arms by Sandline to representatives of the democratically elected Sierra Leone government to help overpower military officers who took over the country by force.
Spicer’s decision to liaise with Foreign Office officials suggests a warmer relationship between senior civil servants in Britain and Sandline than might have been expected following the inquiry into the Sierra Leone arms supply.
Spicer has always maintained that he believed he had the Foreign Office’s approval to supply arms to help restore the democratic government in Sierra Leone.
Spicer also has worked with Sierra Leone subsidiaries of the South African mercenary company, Executive Outcomes, and directly with the company in Papua New Guinea. Until now there has been no suggestion that Sandline is involved in the Angolan civil war.
Spicer was asked to liaise with the Foreign Office by Tony Buckingham, DiamondWorks’s single biggest shareholder.
DiamondWorks also shares the same London office and telephone number as Branch Energy and Sandline.
Branch Energy confirmed that Buckingham flew to Luanda last week following the raid. Spicer’s involvement in the investigation into the attack indicates a close relationship with Branch Energy and DiamondWorks.
DiamondWorks stated publicly in Angola that elite Unita units led the attack on the Yetwene mine. The mine has been shut until the Angolan government provides tighter security.
Spicer’s new role for DiamondWorks was divulged by Sir John Kerr, the Foreign Office’s highest-ranking civil servant, while cross-questioned by MPs in London during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Kerr said meetings with Spicer had taken place with ministerial authority.
DiamondWorks representative Sara Pearson asserted that Spicer believed it “extraordinarily irresponsible” for Kerr to speak about the captives in Angola while attempts to secure their release are in progress.