New OAU peace initiative launched

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on Monday announced the launch of a new peace initiative aimed at resolving secessionist tensions in the Indian Ocean Comoro islands. It called for the “urgent convening” of an inter-island conference in March once a team of senior regional officials had assessed the situation. The initiative was announced in a 12-point joint statement after talks chaired in South Africa last week by OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim. Salim and the foreign ministers of South Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Seychelles, and representatives of Algeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso said they were concerned at the “continuing state of insecurity” in the island of Anjouan, and especially at the presence of armed militias which were currently observing a truce following a week of fighting in December.

If the African representatives found that the security situation had continued to degenerate in Anjouan, or if they failed to receive the cooperation of all sides, the statement said regional leaders, “should consider the adoption of all possible security measures to deal with the situation”. They also called on the international community to support the OAU initiative “and to refrain from any action that can undermine these efforts.” They recommended that the inter-island conference be “followed immediately by a meeting of donors in Mauritius to address socio-economic problems in the archipelago.