Ron, wake up!!
I'm bringing you your ''breakfast news diet''...
FRANCE: FROM "WIN-WIN" TO "LOSE-LOSE" WITH THE BOB DENARD AFFAIR
Press reports have been speculating on Bob Denard's 28 September mercenary invasion of the Comoros and who in the government and DGSE foreign intelligence "let it happen".
There are rumors of Denard's multiple illegal trips throughout France and abroad (INT, N. 25/62) and talk of meetings with high-level French officials, including a powerful "General L.". What is certain is that such officials would not "let it happen" if they were not in a "win-win" situation, meaning a successful invasion or a failure would be to their advantage.
Unwittingly, the press has confirmed this by reporting that a successful invasion of the Comoros would have provided Denard -- and therefore the DGSE -- with an ideal "staging ground" for other such operations throughout Africa. One press report explicitly mentioned an operation against the Congo.
If, on the other hand, Denard's invasion failed, the press underlined that it would provide a perfect occasion for the new French administration under President Jacques Chirac and the government under Prime Minister Alain Juppe to "clean out the stables" left by the 14-year presidency of Socialist Francois Mitterrand and put the new administration's men in key intelligence community positions, particularly in the DGSE and in France's African networks. But this "win-win" situation degenerated to the present "lose-lose" end game which finds different factions in the press, the government and the
intelligence services blocking the investigation headed by Judge Chantale Perdrix who does not have security clearance for access to classified information.
COMMENT - As we previously mentioned (INT, N. 24/62), defense sources leaked names of individuals and organizations associated with the DGSE and Denard to the press. One can be tried for revealing defense secrets for publishing such information, but one can defend oneself by threatening to reveal from whom the information came. And with Denard refusing to answer Judge Perdrieux "for reasons of national security", observers are now beating on a "lead-lined cover-up". In short, nothing further will be heard about the DGSE and the Denard case. According to press reports, Denard's "choice" of a lawyer seems to have confirmed this: Maitre Soulez-Lariviere, the same lawyer, who, in 1985 and 1986, defended DGSE agents Dominique Prieur and Alain Maffart in New Zealand where they were caught after participating in the
sinking of the Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior". So what originally looked like a "tree-trimming exercise" by the current government has turned into a "business as usual" cover-up so that feuding factions within the government, the intelligence community and France's African networks won't reveal "the dirt" on each other.
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