"Colonel" Bob Denard, known in Arabic as Said Mustapha Mahdjoub (born April 7, 1929 in Bordeaux, France as Gilbert Bourgeaud) is perhaps the most famous and influential mercenary in the last fifty years. He is known for having done various jobs in the Françafrique for Jacques Foccart, in charge of French president Charles De Gaulle's coverts actions, in particular in Africa. He is the father of eight children and has been married seven times (polygamously), after converting to Islam. Countries where Arabic is spoken. ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... New city flag (traditional tri-crescent) City coat of arms Motto: Only the fleur-de-lis rule over the moon, the waves, the castle, and the lion Coordinates : , Time Zone : CET (GMT +1) Administration Département Gironde (33) Région Aquitaine Mayor Hugues Martin (UMP) (since 2004) Intercommunality Urban Community... A mercenary is a soldier who fights, or engages in warfare primarily for private gain, usually with little regard for ideological, national or political considerations. ... Françafrique is a term first used by president of the Côte dIvoire Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and borrowed to him by François-Xavier Verschave in a critic of Frances neocolonialism in Africa. ... Jacques Foccart (1914–1997) was French President Charles de Gaulles and then Georges Pompidous spindoctor for African policy, who founded in 1959 the Gaullist organization Service dAction Civique (SAC) with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in shady operations. ... Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle ( ) (22 November 1890 - 9 November 1970), in France commonly referred to as le général de Gaulle, was a French military leader and statesman. ...

History

Denard served as a volunteer for the Forces Françaises Libres (FFL - "Free French Forces") in Indochina and then in Morocco, before leaving the army in 1952 and going private in the early 1960s. After working for some time as a policeman in Morocco, he found plenty of work with the tumultuous decolonization of Africa and the battle against communism in the region. Denard is known to have participated in conflicts in Zimbabwe, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Angola, Zaire and the Comoros, which has been subject to more than twenty coup d'états in the past decades. For most of his career Denard had the quiet backing of France and the French secret services which wished to maintain French influence over its ex-colonies. The Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres in French) were French fighters in World War II, who decided to continue fighting against Axis forces after the surrender of France and German occupation, following the call of General De Gaulle, and the de jure government (Free French Government) of France... French Indochina was a federation of protectorates in Southeast Asia, part of the French colonial empire. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1961 to 1970, inclusive. ... Colonialism in 1945 Decolonization is the process by which a colony gains its independence from a colonial power, a process opposite to colonization. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Because of both the secrecy of secret services and the controversial nature of the issues involved, there is some difficulty in separating the definitions of secret service, secret police, intelligence agency etc. ...

History

After having serving with the French Marines in Indochina, Denard served as a colonial policeman in Morocco. He began his mercenary career, which was to last over three decades, in Katanga probably in December 1961 when he was one of a number of mercenaries brought in by the leader of the mercenaries in Katanga, Roger Falques. Denard fought in Katanga until the secession of Moise Tshombe collapsed in January 1963. Denard and his men fled to Portuguese Angola.

In mid-1963 he made his way to North Yemen, which was then in the middle of a civil war between a Nasserist government and royalist tribesmen. The royalists were supported by the Western Europeans and Saudi Arabia. The French and British sponsored a number of mercenaries to train the royalist volunteers in military techniques. After about eighteen months Denard returned to the Congo to take employment under Moise Tshombe who was now the prime minister of the central government in Kinshasa. Denard served for two years in the Congo battling rebel supporters of the late Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, who had been murdered in Katanga in late 1961 after having been overthrown by rival politicians and severely tortured while in transit. The rebels were backed by the Chinese and Cubans, including Che Guevara. Denard was in charge of his own unit of French mercenaries. Denard helped put down an attempted coup on behalf of Tshombe by Katangan separatists in July 1966. Tshombe had been overthrown while abroad by Colonel Mobutu Sete Seko, the leader of the army, in November 1965. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 â€“ October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentine-born physician, Marxist revolutionary, politician, and Cuban guerrilla leader. ...

A year later Denard sided with Katangan separatists and Belgian mercenaries led by Jean Schramme in a revolt in eastern Congo. The rebels soon found themselves bottled up in Bukavu. Denard was wounded in the initial rising and flew out with a group of more seriously wounded men to Rhodesia. In January 1968 he invaded Katanga with a force of a hundred men on bicycles in an attempt to create a diversion for a breakout from Bukavu. The invasion was a farce.

Denard missed out on mercenary activity in Biafra during the Nigerian civil war during the late 1960s. From 1968 to 1978 he was employed supporting the government in Gabon and was available to carry out military actions on behalf of the French government in Africa. He may have been involved in a raid against Guinea in 1970. He was involved in a failed coup attempt in Benin in 1977.

The Comoros

His "favorite" targets were the Comoros. He has overthrown the government of this small island group four times. On orders from Jacques Foccart, he ousted the first president, Ahmed Abdallah, who had just unilaterally proclaimed the Comoros' independence on September 5, 1975. Ahmed Abdallah was replaced by Ali Soilih. Jacques Foccart (1914–1997) was French President Charles de Gaulles and then Georges Pompidous spindoctor for African policy, who founded in 1959 the Gaullist organization Service dAction Civique (SAC) with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in shady operations. ... Ahmed Abdallah Abderamane (June 12, 1919 _ November 26, 1989) was a leader in the Comoros. ... September 5 is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years). ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Ali Soilih (January 7, 1937 - May 29, 1978) was a Comorian socialist revolutionary and political figure. ...

He then failed at coups in Benin in 1977 and 1978, and returned to the Comoros with 43 men and successfully carried out a coup against president Ali Soilih, who had turned toward socialist policies and was killed under mysterious circumstances on May 29, 1978. Helped by Denard, Ahmed Abdallah took the presidency back. For ten years Denard headed Abdallah's 500-strong presidential guard and had strong influence and business interests in the archipelago, marrying and converting to Islam and eventually becoming a citizen of the country. The Comoros also served as his logistic base for military operations in Mozambique and Angola. Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... May 29 is the 149th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (150th in leap years). ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...

In 1989, fearing a probable coup d'état, president Ahmed Abdallah signed a decree ordering the Presidential Guard, led by Bob Denard, to disarm the armed forces. Shortly after the signing of the decree, a military officer allegedly entered president Abdallah's office and shot him, injuring Denard at the same time. A few days later, Bob Denard was evacuated to South Africa by French paratroopers. Decree is an order that has the force of law. ...

1995 coup against Said Mohamed Djohar

On the night of September 27, 1995, Bob Denard landed on the Comoros with 30 men in Zodiac inflatable boats in an attempted coup against president Said Mohamed Djohar. On October 4, in accordance with an agreement between France and the Comoros, the French army put an end to the attempt. However, Djohar wasn't restored, but was replaced by Mohamed Taki Abdulkarim, who was supported by Paris. Bob Denard was brought back to France by the French SDECE intelligence agency for trial. September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Zodiac Group is a diversified corporation with a worldwide presence and a blue-chip stock specialising in the production of aerosafety systems, aircraft systems, airline equipment, airbags, remote transmissions, boats and swimming pools. ... Said Mohammed Djohar (22 August 1918 – 23 February 2006) was a Comorian politician who served as President of the Comoros during the mid-90s. ... October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim (1936 - 6 November 1998) was President of the Comoros from 25 March 1996 until his death on 6 November 1998. ... The Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, generally known as SDECE, was Frances external intelligence agency from November 6, 1944 to April 2, 1982 when it was replaced by the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. ...

Trial concerning the 1989 coup against Ahmed Abdallah

Bob Denard then waited in the Médoc region, in France, for his trial for the murder of president Ahmed Abdallah. With his lieutenant Dominique Malacrino, he had to face charges in May 1999 for his role in the 1989 coup, in which, according to the French prosecution, president Ahmed Abdallah was killed on the orders of Denard because he was about to remove Denard as head of the presidential guard. The prosecution said Ahmed Abdallah was shot on orders from Denard during a faked attack on his palace on the night of November 26, 1989. But a few days before the trial, Abdallah's family dropped their suit, and finally Bob Denard and Dominique Malacrino were acquitted because of lack of evidence. The Comoros experienced its twentieth coup attempt since independence on the day that the trial began. The Médoc is one of the most famous of the French wine-growing regions, consisting of the region in the département of Gironde, on the left bank of the Gironde estuary, north of Bordeaux. ... 1999 is a common year starting on Friday Anno Domini (or the Current Era), and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... November 26 is the 330th day (331st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Afterward, president Mohamed Taki Abdulkarim declared that he refused Bob Denard's return to the Comoros. On November 6, 1998, Abdulkarim died under suspicious circumstances. His family suspected a poisoning and asked for an autopsy. The post-mortem examination was refused and Abdulkarim was said to have died of natural causes. November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 55 days remaining. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

Arrest

Denard was arrested in 1995 when he launched a fourth coup, Operation Kaskari, in the Comoros without French backing. The French government sent an expeditionary force to capture Denard and his 33 mercenaries. Despite having over 300 armed Comorians ready to fight and having machine gun posts set up, Denard surrendered without a shot being fired and spent ten months in a Paris jail. At his trial a number of former Gaullist politicians, including Charles Pasqua, spoke on his behalf. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Operation Azalee was the name of a French military expedition to remove the provisional government of the Comoros that was led and put into power by famed merecenary Bob Denard. ... Gaullism is a French political ideology based on the thought and action of Charles de Gaulle. ... Charles Pasqua (born April 18, French businessman and politician. ...

On March 9, 2006, attorney Olivier Bray asked for five years of prison for the 1995 coup d'Etat against Said Mohamed Djohar under the code-name "Eskazi", and sentences between one and four years for his 26 accomplices. During the three-week-long trial, Bob Denard and his accomplices tried to convince the court that they had acted with implicit support of French authorities. Dominique Malacrino talked about the "numerous phone calls of Jacques Foccart, then responsible for the African office at the Elysée palace" to Bob Denard. Emmanuel Pochet, another suspect, declared that Denard had "support from senior officers of the special forces of the DGSE", the French external intelligence agency. Olivier Feneteau, another suspect, declared that he had belonged in the past to the "action service" of the DGSE. On March 9, Denard's lawyer presented declarations by former president Djohar, who had stated, during an interview to Comorian newspaper Kashkazi, at the end of October 2005, that his security chief, captain Rubis, a French officer that the French authorities had recommended to him, "was aware of the coup" ^[1]. March 9 is the 68th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (69th in Leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jacques Foccart (1914–1997) was French President Charles de Gaulles and then Georges Pompidous spindoctor for African policy, who founded in 1959 the Gaullist organization Service dAction Civique (SAC) with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in shady operations. ... The entrance to the Élysée Palace. ... The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (generally known as DGSE) is Frances external intelligence agency. ...

In 2001, Guido Papalia, Italian attorney of Verona, prosecuted Denard for having tried to recruit mercenaries in the far-right Italian movement in order to make a coup against Colonel Azali Assoumani, the current president, also opposed to his return to the Comoros. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Map of Italy showing Verona in the north Verona (population est. ... Azali Assoumani (born January 1, 1959) is the current president of the Comoros. ...

More on the Denard coups on the Comoros can be found at History of Comoros. // Early inhabitants Over the centuries, the islands of Comoros were invaded by a succession of diverse groups from the coast of Africa, the Persian Gulf, Indonesia, and Madagascar. ...

External links

• [1] More on the 1995 Azalee Operation

References

1. ^ (French) "Putsch aux Comores : cinq ans de prison requis contre Bob Denard", Le Monde, March 9, 2006.

Sources

• [2] More on the 1989 Coup
• [3] The outcome of the trial the Denard process of 1995