Bob Denard, recidivist overthrower of African governments, was Exhibit A in the case for the fragility of the state structure on that continent - and perhaps a corresponding bit of evidence that governments hadn't yet managed to matter much in the daily lives of Africans. He got up to no good in Nigeria, the Congo, Chad, Benin, Angola, and staged several coups in the Comoros. A mercenary, an anti-communist, and, he claimed, a French spy, it is amazing that he lived to be 78 and died in Paris. Denard also demonstrates that corporate ventures like Executive Outcomes and Blackwater Security are hardly novel and far from extreme versions of the privatization of military functions, the oversight of which continues to trouble us today.
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