Fresh OAU initiative

An OAU delegation arrived in the Comoran capital Moroni on Monday in a further bid to persuade the military government to step down, and resolve the separatist Anjouan crisis. The OAU’s special envoy for the Comoro Islands, Jose Francisco Madeira Caetano of Mozambique, is heading a team of top civil servants from Indian Ocean region nations and the organisation’s conflict resolution organ, AFP reported. The OAU has been trying to sort out the secessionist and constitutional crises in the archipelago - comprised of Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli - for more than three years.

The latest mission was authorised on 29 December by Southern African foreign ministers meeting in Pretoria. The trip comes after the opposition offered the regime of Colonel Azali Assoumani “a global solution to the crisis” on 5 January, according to ousted prime minister Abbas Djoussouf. Djoussouf outlined the “priority objective: to give the archipelago democratically elected institutions in the shortest possible time,” but “on the basis of parity between those currently in power and the opposition.” Assoumani seized power in a coup in April 1999, but has delayed returning power to civilians.