Ted Botha

Bob Denard is the 'King of Coups,' deposing governments at a whim. A heroic anti-hero with a phenomenal libido, he recently carried out a spectacular coup in the Comores.

Bob Denard takes my hand, directs it toward the back of his cranium and lets my fingers rest on a concave area the size of half a bowling ball, the contents of which he says were blown away by shrapnel. He laughs at my surprised reaction. I don't expect a mercenary's grasp to be so gentle.

Denard arrives late for our appointment in the lobby of the Concorde Lafayette in Paris. It's more than a year since he ended his four-year-long exile in South Africa and returned to France to be indicted for leading a coup in Benin, West Africa, in 1977.

On arrival at Orly airport, he was taken to jail, faced trial, and then was released. He took a gamble in facing the French judicial system, and it paid off. The court decided what everyone else suspected all along: that Denard hadn't acted as a lone gun in staging the failed Benin coup, but that the French government was somehow involved. No details were made public; but the upshot is that Denard's a free man in his homeland.

After a half-hour of waiting, I get impatient. I expect someone who's been in a dozen wars and commanded more than 7,000 men in combat to be punctual. I don't have Denard's aptitude for waiting, something he could (and did) do for weeks, sitting in a hotel room anticipating a call from some French Deep Throat who would tell him which war to fight next - Yemen, Indochina, Angola, Congo.

I have this sneaking suspicion that he might be in the hotel already, checking me out from a distance, making sure I'm not a radical intent on writing yet another nasty story about how mercenaries really do have KILL and MAIM tattooed on their forearms.

I have no idea what to expect of Denard. I've read books such as Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War (said to be based on the failed coup in Benin) and have seen movies starring Dolph Lundgren. I picture a man in camouflage fatigues, necklaces of bullets over his shoulder, steel-capped boots.

The conspiracy of silence that has surrounded the lives of mercenaries like Denard has been a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they've been able to fight their wars in secret. On the other, a gap's been left in the history books. More than 17 years after Denard led his coup in Benin and 15 years after his takeover in the Comores, not much has been written or is known about either of them. It's the coup in the Comores that interests me. it's a battle plan that military tacticians have called brilliant.

What I can't find out about Denard in books, I eventually discover in that other repository of modern history: Hollywood. In 1980, shortly after Denard took over the Comores, Warner Brothers studio not only found out about the mission, but also optioned the rights. Some smart movie boss saw all the vital ingredients for major box office: adventure, a heroic anti-hero with a phenomenal libido, and violence. In preparation, the studio shot extensive footage of several of the coup participants sitting around a table, waxing about war, sex and Denard. In the end, the movie was shelved.

It's from this little-known footage that I learn several things about Denard. Such as, his men practically worship him. They call him "the Chief," "the Boss," "God," but mostly "The Colonel." They talk about his almost insane bravery: how he was shot in the leg in Katanga in the mid-Sixties and was almost crippled, but carried on leading from a stretcher; how he was always first to jump out of a plane or step from a strike-craft onto the breach, something a colonel in a conventional army isn't accustomed to doing; how he insisted on riding in the first jeep, even though it was also the first vehicle to go over any landmines. Which is how he lost part of his head.

The transcripts also contradict numerous rumours.

Rumour: Denard is a man of undisciplined excess. Fact: Denard doesn't smoke or drink (except for an occasional glass of champagne), and he chooses tea instead of coffee.

Rumour: Denard would fight for any cause, as long as it paid enough. Fact: Denard only took up arms if the fight was against disorder or communism.

Rumour: He fought for his benefit alone. Fact: For every one of his men who died in battle, Denard can remember the date and place he fell, and always adds: "He was a good man." He plans to erect a museum to mercenaries in his hometown, and to start a social welfare scheme for them, all with the profits from his biography and any possible future movie project.

Rumour: He's an anti-Semite. Fact: He's been married to a Jew, as well as to a Bedouin, a Christian and a Muslim.

Rumour: He's a racist. Fact: The mothers of his children (eight at last count, all of whom he still cares for), are European, African and Asian.

I learn that if Denard has any weakness, it's women. He lost his virginity at the age of 13 (to his father's mistress) and since then his list of amorous conquests - as a marine, a travelling salesman, a bodyguard and finally a mercenary, which he became with a loan from a girlfriend - has been as long as his list of military ones is short.

His libido, even today, is hyperactive. As one of his soldiers once noted: "He can carry out his work at full steam over long and difficult periods, but still get in a lot of fucking."

When I finally spy Denard in the hotel lobby, I recognize him by his limp. He's about 1.7metres tall, now aged 64, and, dare I say it, almost avuncular. He's dressed in an Armani suit, silk tie, silk handkerchief sticking from his top pocket, holding a leather briefcase. No steel-capped boots, no visible scars, no KILL tattoos.

I ask if we can talk about the Comores. Denard first went to these Indian Ocean islands in 1975. His mission was not to launch a war, but to help patch one up. Ali Soilih had carried out a coup against the previous president, Ahmed Abdallah, who, only a month earlier, had declared independence from France. Abdallah fled, taking refuge on the island of Anjouan. Soilih called in Denard as a "Mr. Fixit."

Once he'd finished his job, Denard left, first to fight Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement in Angola, and later to plot the Benin coup. All the while, though, he kept in touch with friends in the Comores.

Denard had totally misjudged Soilih, who turned out to be a hot-headed, radical neo-Maoist. Soilih legalised dope and put kids in charge of revolutionary committees. He drank whiskey in public, no matter how offensive it was to the Islamic population. He always had several women in tow. He banned numerous Muslim customs. He expropriated property. His private guard, the Moissi Commando, was ruthless, and prisoners were tortured.

Near the end of his 30-month rule, Soilih clearly became paranoid, fearing for his life. He dreamed he would be murdered by a man in black with a dog. As a result, he ordered all dogs on the islands to be killed. When Denard carried out the coup later, one of his men did, in fact, have a dog, but it wasn't he who pulled the trigger that killed Soilih.

Comorians in exile, Abdallah in particular, begged Denard to help topple Soilih. "If you help us recapture the islands, you will become a living god," pleaded one Indian merchant.

Once Denard had decided to lead the operation, it consumed him so utterly that he did the unthinkable for a hired soldier. When Abdallah ran out of finances, Denard put up $200,000 of his own money. Several of his men also put up some money. The Comores became their "investment," which explains why they grew so fanatically possessive about it.

Because of the islands' location, Denard's options were few. An air strike was out of the question because they had nowhere to refuel en route from Europe. Denard finally decided on a manoeuvre untested in recent memory, a coup by sea.

In late 1977, Denard bought a trawler in the French port of Lorient. He paid cash. He posed as Henry Antoine, leader of a geosurvey vessel on its way to Argentina. Everybody got code names: Denard was Bako.

The subterfuge seemed excessive at times, but Denard preferred it. He'd failed in Benin because he'd lost the element of surprise - the Beninoise army was waiting for him and his men as their plane touched down - and he didn't want that to happen again.

He told only two people about the operation. The rest of the men would find out their destination three days before the coup. Denard bought riot guns and elephant rifles, not assault rifles, to avoid unnecessary rumours spreading among gun dealers.

They set sail in March 1978, heading for Puntarenas, Argentina. Once in the Atlantic, however, they turned due south. At Las Palmas, they picked up the rest of the men.

They sailed outside the normal shipping routes and sent phoney radio messages about being rerouted from Argentina to the Persian Gulf, so that the Soviets wouldn't question their movements. The men made their own hand weapons and concocted a potion of potassium, saltpeter and chlorine to use as smoke bombs during their attack on Camp Voidjou. At night, when the military planning was done, Denard turned to politics. After the coup, there would have to be a new army, civil service and ruling council. Abdallah, in a show of incredible faith, had given Denard the authority to run the country until his return. It was probably during the late-night strategising that the rot of power-hunger first set in, and Denard started crossing a very dangerous line: from soldier to soldier-politician.

Abdallah also suggested that Denard take a new name, so people wouldn't realise it was the infamous "Dog of War" who had led the coup. Denard became Said Mustapha M'hadjou. Three days before landing, the men were told their destination and detailed off. Their objectives: the Palace, Radio Coconut Tree and Camp Voidjou.

Everything went off like clockwork. Grande Comore was quiet the night they anchored off Itsandra Beach: it was 2 a.m. at the beginning of a Muslim weekend. The men kept to the palm groves, but most streets were empty anyway. They shot as few rounds as possible, and killed the first sentinels with knives.

Captain Noel captured the radio station and armory. Captain Gerard and Lieutenant Marque killed three of the president's guard and then blew down his bedroom door. Ali Soilih, in bed with two women, shouted, "Don't shoot!" They threw him down and put a gun to his head. Then Denard arrived.

"You know what happens when you don't keep your word to your friends," Denard accused his former employer.

"You!" Soilih cried out. "You're the only person who could have pulled his off. I should have expected it."

A detachment of men stormed Camp Voidjou, but it was virtually empty. Most soldiers had gone home and had left their weapons behind. Sixty prisoners were taken and a dozen freed. When the Moissi Commando and members of the revolutionary committees heard what had happened, they fled to the countryside.

Only two men stayed on board the Antinea - their vessel - but they met no opposition. Military forces on the French protectorates of Mayotte and Réunion didn't budge, which meant that France tacitly approved of what Denard was doing.

Denard's actions were swift and decisive. He stopped all looting, warned people about taking retribution against Soilih's family, and implemented a curfew. He announced that the liberation army had landed and that he, Colonel Said Mustapha M'hadjou, had captured the president. He exaggerated their numbers because he couldn't risk letting them know that 44 men had managed to take over a country of more than 300,000 people.

The trick worked, and 600 soldiers on Anjouan, the island where Denard had once gone as "Mr. Fixit," gave themselves up. Wherever the mercenaries went, people shouted: "We are free! Vive la France! "

Soilih was told to write a confession, but people demanded a religious court. In the end, he avoided hanging, but on May 29 he tried to escape and was shot.

Denard couldn't believe how simple it had been. In all the wars he'd fought, the countries (Congo, Yemen, Angola) had always been huge, the wars had raged on for years, and you seldom saw the beginning or the end of the fighting. On the Comores, however, he could see the start and the finish in 24 hours.

With the military operation over, he immersed himself in government. Feast after feast was held for him. He was a redeemer, a national hero.

The men used their new prisoners to clean up the capital, Moroni. Medics treated cases of yellow fever, typhoid and dysentery. Prostitutes were injected for VD. Later, the men would oversee the building of roads. By the time Abdallah returned, the island was running well, and Denard was getting used to his new role. But the world had, in the meantime, also found out who Said Mustapha M'hadjou really was.

Nearby countries like Madagascar, equally unstable and ripe for coups, got edgy about a mercenary being so close. When they found out it was Denard, they urged French politicians to denounce him. Against his will, Abdallah asked Denard to go. He agreed.

Several months later, however, Denard came back to the Comores, married a local beauty and swore allegiance to his new homeland. People initially believed the famous "Dog of War" had retired, that he was putting away his bazookas for good. But it wasn't long before his real intentions became clear.

Denard took control of the Presidential Guard, a crack group of mercenaries. His role as the president's right-hand man soon turned into more than that: once more he became the soldier-politician. It was partly Abdallah's fault for being too weak, partly Denard's for taking advantage of him.

Considering how scathing Denard is today of the politicians who've used, manipulated and dumped him, you'd think he would have been more circumspect about falling into the trap himself.

Political opposition was nipped in the bud. Through a network of informers, Denard knew everything that happened on the islands. His control became so autocratic that people talked of him and the Comores the same way they did about Hastings Banda and Malawi, Muammar Gadaffi and Libya. Denard had come full circle: he'd turned into the kind of leader he once used to launch coups against.

By late 1989, Abdallah was no longer prepared to play the cuckold, and the situation in Moroni grew violent. The Presidential Guard, trained by Denard and always faithful to him, clashed with the Comorian army. On November 27, shooting broke out at the palace, apparently launched by members of the army. The guard went to subdue the action, while Denard rushed to Abdallah.

After he arrived, there were only four people in the president's chamber: Abdallah, Denard, and two mercenaries. In the chaos, a guard named Jaffar stormed into the room, took aim with his AK-47 and fired, apparently at Denard, who instinctively fell to the ground. The shots tore into Abdallah, who died instantly. One mercenary immediately shot the assassin.

The end of Denard's reign was almost as swift as his brilliant 24-hour coup. There was an international outcry against him. French ships anchored off the island, the Presidential Guard was disbanded, and Denard agreed to leave, accepting exile in South Africa.

Denard avoids discussing those last hours with the slain president. Abdallah's family has repeatedly threatened to take him to court, believing it wasn't a soldier who killed their father, but Denard.

All through our meeting, I keep wondering whether Denard could have done it. Could he really have killed his friend, his employer, the leader of a country, in cold blood? If you believe, as I do, that in his life he's been a kind father, an assassin, a courageous hero and a bloodthirsty killer, you realise Denard is capable of anything. Of course, he could have murdered Abdallah. But then again, maybe I've just seen too many Dolph Lundgren movies.