Bob Denard, a colorful and well-known French mercenary who staged coups, battled communism and fought for French interests and his own across post-colonial Africa and elsewhere for more than three decades, has died. He was 78.
Denard died on Saturday in the Paris area, his sister, Georgette Garnier, said by telephone on Sunday. She declined to specify where he died or the cause of death. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and was known to have had cardiovascular problems.
Denard was perhaps best known for controlling the impoverished Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros Islands behind a figurehead leader for most of the 1980s following a coup he led.
coup
Denard was twice convicted in France for his role in an attempted coup in Marxist-ruled Benin in 1977, and a later short-lived coup in Comoros in 1995. He received suspended prison terms in each case.
A fervent anti-communist who worked for several dictators and monarchs, Denard was among the postcolonial French mercenaries known as les affreux -- the horrible ones. He claimed the backing of Paris, but as a man of the shadows was never given official support.
Denard was born in southwest France on Jan. 20, 1929, the son of a non-commissioned officer in the French colonial army. His real name was Gilbert Bourgeaud -- Bob Denard was one of about a dozen aliases that he assumed.
Garnier described Denard as a "very obliging" man "who liked to joke," and a military man who was "adored by his men."
In the 1950s, Denard served in France's colonial army in French Indochina and assisted Morocco's police force before it gained independence from France. A later stint in business left him restless.
His career as a hired gun began in 1961, when he moved to the Belgian Congo which was recruiting experienced soldiers to help train government troops. From there, he sold his skills for uprisings in Nigeria, Angola and Zimbabwe, when it was white-ruled Rhodesia.
intelligence work
Denard served the Shah of Iran. He trained royalist troops in Yemen. He claimed he worked with British intelligence there, and with the CIA in Angola -- where he once led mercenaries in by bicycle.
He suffered at least four serious injuries -- one of which, in Congo, left him with a limp for the rest of his life. Another time he was grazed by a bullet on his head in Angola, but remained undaunted, a biographer said.
"He believed in what he was doing," said Pierre Lunel, author of the 1992 biography Bob Denard, Le Roi de Fortune (Bob Denard, King of Fortune).
"He did a job, and of course there were casualties," Lunel said. "It was a time that doesn't resemble today at all. The planet was split between two worlds: The communist world and free world in the West."
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