The Comoros

Back from an extended hiatus, I wish to discuss last week's events in the Comoros.

The conflict in the Indian Ocean nation of the Comoros has now come to a resolution. After a brief fight following the seaborne landing of 600 Comoran and 1,500 AU troops from Tanzania, Senegal, Libya, and Sudan last Tuesday March 25, the Comoran federal government now has retaken control of Anjouan island which had been under the control of rebel president, Mohamed Bacar. Bacar escaped to the nearby French island of Mayotte and from there was taken by French military plane to Reunion. The Comoran government has requested the extradition of Bacar back to the Comoros to stand trial and has announced that elections will be held within three months for a new island president. The Comoros three main islands Grand Comore, Moheli, and Anjouan each have their own president who then rotate as head of the federal government. Hopefully, this will mark a new beginning for the Comoros which since independence in 1975 has experienced over 20 coups.

A number of lessons to take away from this episode. First, the threat of a renegade leader in a weak state is particularly acute and in many cases cannot be solved without international intervention as was the case in the Comoros. Without external support, Bacar would not have been deposed. Second, though efforts in Sudan have largely failed to get off the ground and the AU force in Somalia is too small to undertake serious operations, in the future AU forces may be able to conduct small scale operations similar to the Comoros. The Comoros operation should be a boost to the AU as an organization able to successfully coordinate and deploy multinational forces. Finally, it will be interesting to see what France does with Bacar. The French government should extradite him back to the Comoros to stand trial but if they don't I can't say I will be surprised. It would be just another incident of the French meddling in the affairs of a former colony.