8684 Comores Presidential Guard pocket fob badge (Army Comores)

8684 : Comores Presidential Guard pocket fob badge

1978 – 1989

Comoros Presidential Guard pocket fob badge, a force of around 500 soldiers trained and led by Mercenary Bob Denard and his group of French mercenaries. (Comoros Garde Presidentielle) In 1978, president Ali Soilih, who had a firm anti-French line, was killed and Ahmed Abdallah came to power. Under the reign of Abdallah, Bob Denard was commander of the Presidential Guard and de facto ruler of the country. He was supported and funded by South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in return for permission to set up a secret listening post on the islands. South African agents kept an ear on the important ANC bases in Lusaka and Dar es Salaam watched the war in Mozambique, in which SA played an active role. The Comoros were also used for the evasion of arms sanctions. When in 1981 Fran?ois Mitterrand was elected president Denard lost the support of the French intelligence service, but he managed to strengthen the link between SA and the Comoros. Besides the military, Denard established his own company SOGECOM. Between 1985 an 1987 the relationship of the PG with the local Comorians became worse. At the end of the 1980s the South Africans did not wish to continue to support the mercenary regime and France was in agreement. Also President Abdallah wanted the mercenaries to leave. Their response was a coup resulting in the death of President Abdallah, in which Denard and his men were probably involved. South Africa and the French government subsequently forced Denard and his mercenaries to leave the islands in 1989. On September 28, 1995 Bob Denard and a group of mercenaries again took over the Comoros islands in a coup (named operation Kaskari by the mercenaries) against President Djohar. France immediately severely denounced the coup, and backed by the 1978 defense agreement with the Comoros, President Jacques Chirac ordered his special forces to retake the island. Bob Denard began to take measures to stop the coming invasion. A new Presidential Guard was created. Strong points armed with heavy machine guns were set up around the island, particularly around the island’s two airports. On October 3, 1995, 11 pm, the French deployed 600 men against a force of 33 mercenaries and a 300 man dissident force. Denard however ordered his mercenaries not to fight. Within 7 hours the airports at Iconi and Hahaya and the French Embassy in Moroni were secured. By 3:00 pm the next day Bob Denard and his mercenaries had surrendered. This operation, codenamed Azal?e, was remarkable, because there were no casualties, and just in seven days, plans were drawn up and soldiers were deployed. Denard was taken to France and jailed. Prime minister Caambi El-Yachourtu became acting president until Djohar returned from exile in January, 1996. In March 1996, following presidential elections, Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim, a member of the civilian government that Denard had tried to set up in October 1995, became president. (Wikipedia)