Comoros tries to salvage unity

MORONI - As it prepares to forcefully regain control of rebel Anjouan, the Comoros Federation is struggling to salvage its fragile unity, torn between independence dreams and the lure of life under its rich former colonial ruler.

The tiny Indian Ocean archipelago of around 710,000 inhabitants has survived 19 coups and coup attempts since it acquired independence from France in 1975.

"Comoros as a nation exists, but not the idea of a state," said Damir Ben Ali, an anthropologist and the vice chancellor of the University of Comoros. "The basis of Comoran society is the same in the four islands, but there has never been an acquisition of modern structures of government," he told AFP.

The archipelago, which lies off the coast of Mozambique and north of Madagascar, is made up of four isles. Grande Comore, Moheli and Anjouan form the Union of Comoros, while the fourth - Mayotte - opted to remain French.

"Anjouan’s independence drive, launched in 1995, has lasted so long because of Mayotte, where the standard of living is quasi-European. This has stoked the myth of accessible wealth," Ben Ali explained.

The federation is overwhelmingly Muslim and half of its inhabitants live in abject poverty, prompting thousands to attempt the perilous crossing to Mayotte each year.

Under a power-sharing constitution adopted in 2001, the federation has a rotating presidency between the three islands, which is currently held by Anjouan’s Ahmed Abdallah Sambi.

The islands also elect local presidents who each run local governments and parliaments in the confederal arrangement.

However, since he held "illegal" local elections last year in defiance of an order by the union government and the African Union (AU), Anjouan leader Mohamed Bacar has been at loggerheads with Sambi, who has vowed to use force to regain control of Anjouan. The pan-African bloc and western powers are backing a military offensive against Anjouan.

"Mohamed Bacar has toughened his stance and can only buy time because if he flees now, his men, who have committed abuses, will kill him," said Mohamed Djaanfari, who ran against Bacar in the election.

Libya, Senegal, Sudan and Tanzania - which chairs the AU - have offered to supply troops for the offensive to oust Bacar.

Bacar, who faces trial for war crimes if arrested, has consistently refused to bow to foreign pressure and said he wanted to negotiate. Bacar sees Anjouan’s port - which serves the whole archipelago - as a strategic asset.

The port handles around 30,000 containers every month through an "illegal" contract between Bacar and the British-Kenyan firm SpanFreight, said Mourad Taiati, the AU’s representative to the Comoros.

"Only 1.5 percent (of the containers) are destined to the Comoros, the rest are dispatched," Taiati told AFP. "The deal Bacar has negotiated is worth 2,400 dollars per container, yet nothing goes to the isle’s coffers, let alone the union’s. That is why he is clinging on. He has his interests to safeguard," Information Minister Mmadi Ali said.

In addition, a long-standing rivalry between Anjouan’s more affluent residents with Arabic origins and the poorer ones of African ancestry has fueled the crisis between Bacar and Sambi, a local journalist told AFP. "Sambi is of Arabic ancestry, while Bacar pretends to represent the others," said the journalist, on condition of anonymity.

The conflict has stifled efforts to unify the three-island country, notably attempts to better define whether the island and the federation has jurisdiction on many key administrative issues.

"After the military restores constitutional order in Anjouan, a lasting stability can only be achieved by Sambi, who can overcome traditional divisions thanks to his moral and religious authority," Ben Ali argued.



notre commentaire: un très bon article en anglais qui aborde les différents aspects de cette crise politique et qui met bien relief le combat inadmissible que se livre mohamed bacar et sambi au dépens du peuple pris en otage
l'éternel combat entre wamassaha et wagoina!!!!!!!


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