Under the reign of Abdallah, Bob Denard was commander of the Presidential Guard (PG) and de facto ruler of the country, trained, supported and funded by the white regimes in South Africa (SA) and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in return to the permission to set up a secret listening station on the islands.

South-African agents had to keep an ear on the important African National Congress bases in Lusaka and Dar es Salaam and to watch the war in Mozambique, in which SA played an active role.

When in 1981 François 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.

[3] Although the restoration of good relations with France represented a sharp break with the policies of the previous regime, Abdallah built on Soilih's efforts to find new sources of diplomatic and economic support.

[3] Thanks in large part to aid from the European Community and the Arab states, the regime began to upgrade roads, telecommunications, and port facilities.

[3] Abdallah endeavored to maintain the relations established by Soilih with China, Nigeria, and Tanzania, and to expand the Comoros' contacts in the Islamic world with visits to Libya and the Persian Gulf states.

[5] At the same time, he kept the door open to Mahoré by writing a large measure of autonomy for the component islands of the republic into the 1978 constitution and by appointing a Mahorais as his government's minister of finance.

[7] Given the absence of an ideological basis for resisting the regime, it was also not surprising that some opposition leaders were willing to ally themselves with the head of state if such a move appeared likely to advance them personally.

[9] The GP, whose numbers were reported to range from 300 to 700 members, primarily indigenous Comorans, were led by about thirty French and Belgian mercenaries, mostly comrades of Denard's in the post-World War II conflicts that accompanied the decolonization of Africa and Asia.

[9] During elections to the National Assembly in March 1987, the GP—which had become known as les affreux, "the frighteners"—replaced several hundred dissident poll watchers who had been arrested by the army.

[11] President Abdallah used the uprising as an opportunity to round up dissidents, primarily FD members, whose leadership denied involvement in the coup attempt.

[11] Later in 1985, seventy-seven received convictions; seventeen, including the FD's secretary general, Mustapha Said Cheikh, were sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.

[11] With Abdallah's acquiescence and occasional participation, Denard and the other GP officers used their connections to the head of state to make themselves important players in the Comoran economy.

[11] An official South African trade representative conceded that a number of his country's investment projects, including a 525-hectare experimental farm, housing, road construction, and a medical evacuation program, were brokered and managed by guard officers at the mercenaries' insistence.

[13] The result was the creation of a client state whose meager and unpredictable cash crop earnings were supplemented with increasing infusions of foreign aid.

[13] Throughout the 1980s, export earnings from the Comoros' four main cash crops—vanilla, ylang-ylang, cloves, and copra—experienced a wrenching sequence of booms and collapses because of weather and market factors, or else steadily dwindled.

[13] The regime's principal form of response was to apply the president's considerable diplomatic skills to developing an extensive network of governments and international organizations willing to extend loans and donate aid.

[13] Other more plausible projects, such as the protracted development of a seaport at the town of Mutsamudu, construction of paved ring roads linking each island's coastal settlements, and the building of power stations, nonetheless tended to be instances of placing the cart before the horse.

[13] That is, capital-intensive improvements to infrastructure had not been coordinated with local development projects; hence, little, if any, domestic commerce existed to benefit from road networks, electrical power, and world-class port facilities.

[14] The importation of huge quantities of building materials and construction equipment provided immediate benefits to import-export firms in the islands, of which Établissements Abdallah et Fils was the largest.

[15] The president joined with vanilla growers in resisting international pressure to divert vanilla-producing land to the cultivation of corn and rice for domestic consumption.

[15] Under Abdallah's tutelage, the Comoran economy finished the 1980s much as it had started the decade—poor, underdeveloped, and dependent on export earnings from cash crops of unpredictable and generally declining value.

[15] Only weeks before the violent end of the Abdallah regime in late 1989, one observer noted that the "Comoros is still run like a village, with a handful of tough men in charge and supported by foreign aid.

"[16] As Comorans prepared for a 4 November 1989, referendum on constitutional changes that would enable President Abdallah to run for a third term in 1990, human rights remained in precarious condition, and the only avenue of economic advancement for most islanders—the civil service—faced cutbacks at the urging of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

[17] The official result of the referendum was a 92.5 percent majority in favor of the amendments proposed by Abdallah, which now created "the conditions for a life presidency", warned one opposition leader.

[17] In Njazidja voters smashed ballot boxes rather than have them carted away by the army; the governor's office was set on fire in Nzwani, and a bomb was found outside the home of the minister of finance in Moroni.

[17] More than 100 people were arrested following the election, and in subsequent weeks the international media described a deteriorating situation in the islands; the head of state claimed that France "authorizes terrorism in the Comoros", and leaders of the banned opposition in bold public statements questioned the legitimacy of the referendum.

[17] President Abdallah was shot to death on the night of 26–27 November, reportedly while asleep in his residence, the Beit el Salama (House of Peace).

[17] Following consultations among Abdallah, the French government, and South Africa's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a decision was made to expel Denard and his fellow officers of the GP by the end of 1989.

[19] Although the mercenary initially blamed the assassination on the Comoran army, he later conceded that he was in Abdallah's office when the president was killed, but called the shooting "an accident due to the general state of mayhem" in the Beit al Salama.