Diplomatic intervention needed

An accord reached earlier this year aimed at ending secessionist agitation on the Comoro island archipelago is under threat following two days of political violence this week on the breakaway island of Anjouan. "Right now the situation is very confused and fluid," a diplomatic source on the main island of Grand Comore told IRIN on Wednesday. "There's a political impasse, an outside initiative is needed. The OAU (Organisation of African Unity) needs to come back and restart negotiations." An OAU-mediated agreement was reached in April in Madagascar, giving greater autonomy to the two smaller islands of Anjouan and Moheli, and introducing a three-year rotating presidency between the three islands within a federal structure. But the process "has taken too long to move forward," the diplomat said. The violence on Anjouan began on Sunday and involved heavy gunfire. It pitted government supporters who want to renegotiate the Madagascar agreement to create a union of independent islands, against those opposed to secession. The anti-separatists lost, and on Tuesday many of them fled to the French territory of Mayotte where they have reportedly been detained as illegal immigrants. Last week political disturbances also broke out in the Grand Comore capital of Moroni. Three senior civilian politicians opposed to the military government of Colonel Azali Assoumani were arrested after barricades appeared on city streets and leaflets were circulated demanding that people of Anjouan origin leave the island. "What is happening is some politicians here are testing the waters," the diplomat said. "They are trying to find a way to oppose the military regime." The military took over at the end of April in the wake of communal violence in which hundreds of Anjouanese were forced to flee Grand Comore.