OAU intervention sought against separatists

Groups opposed to Anjouan’s unilateral independence from the Comoro Islands have called on the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to intervene militarily against the separatist administration. In a statement released here Tuesday, AFP said a collective of Anjouanese groups had urged the OAU “to weigh upon countries of the region .. to act militarily.” It was signed by the Collective of Anjouanese Unionist Associations, the Front for Action Against Separatism and the Future of the Comoros Reflection Group.

The OAU, at a meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, on Friday said it was dispatching an assessment team to the Indian Ocean archipelago which would report back within three months on the viability of a military intervention. In 1997, leading politicians in Anjouan broke away from the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros and last year declined to sign a deal which granted a degree of autonomy to the state’s three islands: Grand Comore, Moheli and Anjouan. Tuesday’s statement also denounced ongoing talks between the military junta in power in Moroni and the Anjouan separatists, saying they were “aimed at reaching a specious solution that could only lead to the disintegration of the Comoros.”