Citation
The “Affreux”: French mercenaries, types of violence and systems of domination by
extra-African forces (1960-1989)
(57th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association Rethinking violence, reconstruction and
reconciliation, Indianapolis, November 20-23 2014. The book is a extended version of this paper)
The revival of mercenaries is a phenomenon occurring concomitantly with the
African decolonization. From 1960 to the end of the Cold War, mercenaries took part in the
development of political and armed violence on the African continent. Those men stand out
as “The Affreux”, a term referring to the first mercenaries in Katanga (DRC), right from
1960. Among them appeared some French men. The most emblematic of all, Bob Denard,
made his career from his experience in Katanga to his stranglehold on the Comoros
presidential guard between 1978 and 1989.
This paper is based on public archives but also on the personal documents belonging to the
famous French mercenary. Since the end of the 60’s, he has become the leader in the
underworld of the French “dogs of war”, by winning recognition right after the Biafra war.
Under his command, the French mercenaries are taking a decisive part in this private or
paragovernmental military violence in Africa. They are interesting, first of all, because,
thanks to paramilitary actors, we are able to understand the linkages between the
numerous actors who contribute to the implementation of an underlying violence of the
political life in post-colonial Africa from the 60’s to the end of the Cold War. The paper aims
at highlighting their actions and questioning the modalities of implementing violence in
which the mercenaries are just instruments during this period. Who are their sleeping
partners? By which means can the “Affreux” act? Those questions imply analysing their
links and interactions with global private forces (mining industry, arms traffic), with nonAfrican actors trying to impose their influence (France or the US in the cold War context for
instance), and also with the African powers themselves.
Mercenaries, violence and private economic interests
The links between mercenaries and business have been proved since the revival of
the phenomenon. In Katanga (DCR), and in the background of the recession, the Mining
Union of the Haut-Katanga (MUHK) takes a leading part. According to several sources,
Moïse Tshombé, president of the Katanga, received from the MUHK not less than 35 million
$ for organising the secession1. The company also seems to be related behind the scenes to
the events leading to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, handed to the Katangese by
Mobutu. Thus, the Prime Minister of the independent Congo is fiercely opposed to the
Belgian interests. Then, the MUHK is blamed by the UN for keeping funding the government
in Elizabethville: “As you know it, the MUHK, those two past years, had settled to the local
authorities of Katanga its fees and taxes related to its operations in Katanga while it should
settle to the central government. As you also know it, the instalments of the company
proved to be crucial in allowing the Katanga authorities not only to defy the central
authorities, but also to harass and attack the UN 2.” Thus, the UN makes connexions between
the funding of mercenaries fighting against the UN forces and the payments of the mining
company. Besides, in the company, staff would be devoted more directly to the
“organisation hiring mercenaries for fighting in Katanga3.”
Furthermore, the company staff proves to show systematically solidarity with the
Katanga cause. This is particularly obvious when the UN forces intervene on the ground.
Thus, in Kolwezi, in January 1963, the employees provided the Katanga with phone access,
and the European and African population with food and medicaments 4. After the Rumpunch
operation, the company funded the reconstitution of the mercenary troops, according to
Bob Denard. Indeed, the men enlisted by Jean Schramme in his Leopard commandos
received wages from the MUHK as a result of civil contracts. The MUHK could also be
incriminated in the death of the UN General Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold, who intervened
in the Katanga crisis5. The Company also took part in the military struggle that the Affreux
made possible and in the violence symbolised by the deaths of Lumumba and
1
Letter from U Thant to Paul-Henri Spaak, 1962 August 2nd, Diplomatic Archives of Belgium, carton 18 882/IX..
UN document -S/5053/add.11/ann.XXVI.
3
Secret report by R. Rothschild in Brussels, 1961 October 10th,, Diplomatic Archives of Belgium, carton 18 882/IX.
4
« Journal des événements décembre 1962-janvier 1963 par Frédéric Vandewalle au ministre des Affaires étrangères
et des Affaires africaines », Diplomatic Archives of Belgium, 18 882/IX.
5
Article in the Guardian, 2011 August 11th (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/17/dag-hammarskjold-unsecretary-general-crash) and also Susan Williams, Who Killed Hammarskjold? The UN, The Cold War, and White
Supremacy in Africa, London, C. Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2011, 256 p.
2
Hammarskjold. A few years later, in 1967, the cassiterite mine nearby the headquarters of
the mercenaries led by Jean Schramme in the Maniema area was still exploited. Exported by
train by a Belgian company, the ore is certainly given a particular overseeing by the “dogs of
war”6. Moreover, the MUKH still worked with the mercenaries. In 1967, while the
mercenaries’ uprising against Mobutu ended up with Bukavu besieged by the ANC, some
contacts were established with Bob Denard when his group withdrew to Angola and tried
to go up an operation of diversion. One of the experts in files among Denard’s adjuncts
works as an intermediary: “Ghys goes to Paris and says he is in touch with Pierre Joly,
MUKH President’s brother. Among the Belgian financial circles, some look favourably at
Denard after Schramme failed to continue the fight7.”
The mining interests and the white workforce who remained after the
decolonization in order to work in those companies allowed to fuel financially the political
violence provoked by the secessions. Weapons are then the main instrument of the
mercenaries. In the case of the secession in Biafra in 1967, the arm traffickers carry weight.
Pierre L. offers to supply Biafran President, Colonel Ojukwu, with an aviation, a navy, and
mercenaries, mentioning the famous names of the time: Jack Mallock, Michel de Clary,
Roger Faulques, John Peeters (fMike Hoare’s former adjunct in RDC) and Bob Denard 8. Since
June 1967, the deliveries went on. In October, when Denard tried to sell his team to
Ojukuwu, he had Pierre Joly (for) as a partner. Guy Cardinal, who negotiated the contract
with the Biafrans, wrote to his boss: “Try to get in touch with Pierre according to the orders.
Pierre is out of Portugal, left for Paris (…) Pierre told me that the money hasn’t been put
into Robert Denard account9.” In the stakes of the contract they try to get but also in the aim
of assuring the provisions they sold, the mercenaries are looking for partners in those
inevitable intermediaries.
6
Account of Henri Clement (2013, July 23th in Paris).
Compte rendu de mission du 23 octobre 1967, Bob Denard’s private papers, file 74.
8
Pierre Lunel, Bob Denard. Le roi de fortune, Paris, Editions n°1, 1991, p 234, 396 et suivantes. Pierre L. can’t be
identified.
9
Letter from Guy Cardinal, 1967 October 30th, Bob Denard’s private papers, file 74.
7
Those private interests, which also had a part in the violation of the embargo on
South Africa in the 80’s thanks to the Comoros GP, are however only intermediaries and/ or
extra forces for funding dramatically onerous operations. Money and weapons come from
other sources more significant and more long-lasting, the non African state actors.
Mercenaries, violence and geopolitics of postcolonial Africa in the Cold War
From the beginning, French mercenaries are connected to secret services. The “Affreux”
are very convenient tools to exercise a shape of political violence against States which Paris
wants to submit to its influence. Secretary in the African Affairs of the French President, Jacques
Foccart aims to strengthen the French backyard in Africa. The French influence in the former
Belgian Congo is made possible by the secession of Katanga. Bob Denard became increasingly
powerful between 1964 and 1967 at the expense of the Belgian advisers. So Captain Bottu writes
to the King of Belgium in 1965: “ The command is still Belgian
; that is of paramount
importance for our country. But I know that, after his departure (of Colonel Lamouline), a power
struggle will happen in which French people, who do everything to eliminate Belgian people in
certain headquarters positions and which you have certainly heard about, will go out victorious.
The same French people who took the place of any Belgian people in Katanga, stand out again10”.
In the seventies, the mercenaries destabilized much more the African politics as they were now
overthrowing regimes by commandos actions : Comoros in 1975 and 1978, Benin in 1977 (even
if it failed), or plans against Libya in 1971. In each of these cases, the French secret services were
informed, at least, and gave a "yellow light". If they aren’t the one sleeping partner, they are party
to the logistics of the operations of the mercenaries.
So the French geostrategy in Africa requires this destabilization of certain States. Paris is
ready to let the war violence grow to enlarge its backyard. The political violence involving
mercenaries is also part of the Cold War as mercenaries receive missions and support according
to the logic of West-East confrontation. The CIA is present in Congo in the sixties (with the
WIGM, private aircraft company which support mercenaries fighters with anti-Castro pilots). But
we are more able to see the Cold War context in the seventies. The mission of Denard‘s group in
10
Letter from Captain Bottu to the king of Belgium, 1965 July 1st, Bob Denard’s private papers, file 78).
Angola in 1976 was obtained through the SDECE but with US funds (about 450 000 dollars)11.
As part of the operation AI Feature approved by the President, the CIA initially in 1975 had a
budget of $ 14 million to help the party of Jonas Savimbi. The ideologic fight and the civil wars
in seventies are thus particularly intense.
Mercenaries, violence and state building.
Given the private interests, the French geostrategic motivations in Africa, or the Cold
War context, mercenaries are an aggravating factor of the political instability that young
States born from decolonization are facing. They can count on African relay of France
(Gabon, Ivory Coast or Morocco) and the Western world (Rhodesia or South Africa) and are
narrowly linked to the prolongation of infranational, religious, or interethnic violence:
struggles between Balubas and other ethnic groups encouraged by the Belgians in Katanga,
between Katangese and central power in DRC, in civil war in Angola or between Blacks and
Whites in Rhodesia.
Built at the beginning with military circles hostile to the decolonization in Algeria,
and then renewed with circles close to the initial crucible, the French mercenaries benefit
from counter-insurrectional know-how used in Indochina and later in Algeria. Since the
Congolese experience in the 60’s, combat techniques have been in line with those practiced
in Algeria. In Congo, the mercenaries try to reduce Simba resistance and burn villages to the
ground during the course of their progression toward Kisangani. This atmosphere of
violence wears down relationships, including between them. The mercenary vocabulary is
used as an outlet for the volunteers’ spleen. Everyone shouts at each other with some “Two
bullets in your face” or “two buckshot in yours”, when they don’t shout “To the river”,
referring to the capital executions in which the corps are engulfed in the dark waters, and
that are practiced both by the mercenaries and their adversaries 12. During the 1970’s, this
counter-insurrectional struggle becomes systematic, especially in Rhodesia. A mercenary
11
John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: a CIA Story, New York, W. W. Norton, 1978, 285 p. It’s confirmed by
“Budget pour l’utilisation de conseillers techniques avec prime de risques pour une période de 6 mois 20 hommes”,
Bob Denard’s private papers, file 29.
12
Pierre Chassin, Baroud pour une vie, Paris, Picollec, 2001, 241 p.
testifies in 1978: “ I wasn’t really keen on those operations. Fighting in the bush is one
thing. To beat someone up with your feet or your stick, simply to have them gone from their
hut, is another. The so-called terrorists were put back in the hands of the Special Branch,
who had to make them talk. The end justified the means. Electric dynamo, burning feet, and
so on13.”
In the service of the African regimes, the “dogs of war” are also crucial instruments
of non-democratic states and of the political violence they provoked. Comoros are a good
example. After facilitating Ali Soilih’s takeover in 1975 by driving Ahmed Abdallah in
Anjouan out of his function, the mercenaries allow (unwillingly) the installation of an
autocratic socialist regime. In 1978, Bob Denard overthrows the same Ali Soilih, who is then
executed in unclear circumstances. In 1989, Ahmed Abdallah’s death was not clarified. In
the 70’s already, several Gabonese dissidents were missing, and those disappearances had
been imputed to the mercenaries. If Denard’s men were probably not responsible for them,
they have certainly been led by the Gabonese GP who hired former mercenaries.
Ahmed Abdallah seizes power in Comoros again thanks to the “Affreux”. The
implementation of the Presidential Guard explains the authoritarian drift of the new regime
because it's the guarantor for its continuity. From 1982 opposition parties are dissolved
and only the "blue party" of the president remains. The GP widens then its skills in the
counter-intelligence and in the supervision of the political opposition; that's particularly
true in France with the GP's office of Paris. Mercenaries are so important that attempts to
destabilize the regime are systematically organized in order to hit the Europeans of the GP
(in 1985 and in 1987). In these most successful attempts, especially in 1985, there is a real
question raised about the violent repression and extra-legal practices. According to the
journalist Pierre Péan, " Twenty or thirty GP soldiers were arrested. Of these, some have
been submitted to torture, 3-5 GP would be dead or dying 14.”In 1987, the representative of
the Comoros Democratic Front (FDC) in Paris protest against arrests deemed arbitrary,
13
14
« La confession d’un chien de guerre », Le Nouvel Observateur,1978 July 3th.
Pierre Péan, Affaires africaines, Paris, Fayard, 1983, 340 p.
violence against detained militants, whose number is estimated at close to one hundred 15.
Journalists write about bodies cut in pieces and thrown in plastic bags or even found in
tanks, even if the GP lets families come and see the people arrested in their cell and thus
allows them to make sure they are safe16.
The participation of mercenaries, in particular French, in police, political or military
recurrent violence drives to the construction of international legislation for regulation.
From this point of view, the mercenary action leads to an international debate and to the
regulation of political and military violence. After the fall of the mercenaries to Bukavu in
1967, the UN General Assembly voted for the resolution 2465 which decrees that the use of
mercenaries against liberation movements national fighting for the independence of
colonized territories is criminal17. The condemnation of mercenaries is strong and at the
same time, remains in the symbolic realm. The attempt to overthrow Kerekou in Benin gave
rise to new advances at the level of the OAU and at the world level (Additional Protocols to
the Geneva Conventions of 1977). From then, France must keep its distance from the GP’s
men : the new socialist government tried in 1981 but it quickly gave up. Finally Paris put an
end to the mercenary system in 1989 whereas the UNO published its text against the use of
the mercenaries.
To conclude, we are able to observe how the use of mercenaries has changed since
1989. While the French mercenary system organized in the eighties in the Comoros works
in agreement and with South African funds, its disappearance and political transition taking
place in Pretoria led to the use of local mercenaries rather than European (Executives
Outcomes). It doesn’t preclude initially violence by mercenaries. Besides, there are always
the same global forces (mining industry in particular). It will be necessary to wait for the
national legislations (South African then also French) to see the military role of the
mercenaries go down in infranational wars in Africa. As at the time of the Frenchmen of Bob
Denard, political violence is especially built on the system of the presidential guards. The
15
Letter from the representative of the FDC to the ambassador of Comoros in Paris, 1985 March 28th, Bob Denard’s
private papers, file 44.
16
Letter from Lieutenant Suresnes in Paris to Bob Denard, Bob Denard’s private papers, file 44.
17
General Assembly Resolution 2465, 23 UN GAOR Supplément (N°18), Document ONU A/7218 (1968).
expertise of the mercenaries in anti-subversive fighting and their tactical know-how allow
very authoritarian regimes to remain by more or less coercive ways. However, the recent
period differs from the Cold War during which these breaches of the democratic spirit were
tolerated by the major Western countries (USA, France,...) on behalf of the fight against
communism. The end of it logically coincides with the fall of the French "Affreux".
Walter Bruyère-Ostells
