The breakaway island of Anjouan in the Comoro Island archipelago will go to the polls in a referendum on 23 January to vote as to whether or not the island will remain part of the Comoro federal republic. According to media reports the referendum will focus on the April 1999 Antananarivo accord which called for the transformation of the island chain from a federal republic to a looser union with a more a decentralised form of government. Anjouan refused to sign the accord, and last month the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) warned Anjouan that it had to sign the accord before February or face isolation. In a new year’s message the island’s leader, Colonel Said Abeid Abderemane said: “This deal does not respond to our aspirations. We want total independence.” Anjouan declared itself independent from the Comoro Islands in August 1997.
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