Comoros, 1985 — dissident coup attempt

Event Summary

On 8 March 1985 one of the most serious attempts to overthrow President Ahmed Abdallah of the Comoros began as a mutiny by around thirty Comoran soldiers of the Presidential Guard against their European officers. The Presidential Guard was the elite force, commanded for years by the French mercenary Bob Denard, that underpinned Abdallah's autocratic rule over the small Indian Ocean archipelago after Denard had installed him in a 1978 mercenary coup. The March 1985 mutineers, who had formed ties to the opposition Democratic Front, turned against the guard's foreign command in a bid to shake the regime.

The uprising was suppressed, and Abdallah used it as a pretext for a sweeping crackdown on dissidents, arresting many opposition figures whose leaders denied involvement. Later in 1985 seventy seven people were convicted, and seventeen, including the Democratic Front's secretary general Mustapha Said Cheikh, were sentenced to life at hard labor, though most were released in 1986 after Amnesty International documented illegal arrests and torture. Abdallah ruled on until his assassination in 1989 by members of that same guard.