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Madagascar COMOROS
Security Concerns
Comoros faces no external threats. However, during the
1970s
and 1980s, various groups of European mercenaries, all
supposedly
supported by foreign powers, played a significant role in
Comorian domestic politics.
Since independence the Comorian government has
contended with
several internal threats. This domestic instability
reflects the
weakness of the island's central government, the
unpopularity of
its rulers, and the presence of European mercenaries. On
July 6,
1975, the Comorian Chamber of Deputies approved a
unilateral
declaration of independence from France, named Ahmed
Abdallah as
president, and constituted itself as the National
Assembly. On
August 3, 1975, a group of notables, radicals, and
technocrats
overthrew the Abdallah regime. These individuals replaced
the
National Assembly with a National Executive Council, led
by
Prince Said Mohammed Jaffar. In January 1976, Ali Soilih
succeeded Jaffar as president.
Soilih embarked on a revolutionary program, based on
Maoist
and Islamic philosophies, to facilitate the development of
an
economically self-sufficient and ideologically progressive
state.
Apart from alienating France, which terminated its aid and
technical assistance programs to Comoros, Soilih's
policies
aroused resentment among the island's traditional leaders.
To
make matters worse, Soilih established his version of
Mao's Red
Guards, the Commando Moissi. These vigilantes, trained by
Tanzanian military advisers, further alienated Comorian
society
by acting as a repressive political police. Growing
popular
discontent resulted in four unsuccessful coup attempts
against
the Soilih regime during its two and a half-year
existence.
On May 12-13, 1978, a fifty-member European mercenary
unit,
hired by Ahmed Abdallah in France and led by French
Colonel
Robert Denard, finally overthrew Soilih. Two weeks later,
security personnel killed Soilih, allegedly while he was
trying
to escape from house arrest. Ahmed Abdallah and his former
deputy, Muhammad Ahmed, then became co-presidents.
Although it
initially experienced some opposition because of the role
played
by Denard and his mercenaries in the coup, the new
government
eventually gained popular support. Its popularity rested
on its
ability to restore relations with France, which resumed
economic,
military, and cultural aid to the island, and to gain
assistance
from the European Community and several Arab countries,
including
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. On October 22, 1978,
Abdallah was
elected to a six-year term as president.
Despite the influx of foreign aid, political conditions
in
Comoros remained unsettled, largely because Abdallah
failed to
establish a government that included adequate
representation for
the people who lived on the outlying islands of Njazidja,
Nzwani,
and Mwali. Moreover, Abdallah frequently used repressive
methods
against his real and imagined adversaries. In this
turbulent
atmosphere, opponents of Abdallah's regime made at least
four
unsuccessful attempts to overthrow his government.
In February 1981, loyal Presidential Guard (Garde
Presidentielle--GP) units crushed an army mutiny on the
main
island of Grande Comore and the authorities subsequently
arrested
about 150 people. In December 1983, another plot surfaced
after
the arrest of a group of British mercenaries in Australia.
According to the Comorian government, they had planned to
overthrow Abdallah on behalf of a former Comorian
diplomat, Said
Ali Kemal. A March 1985 plot against Abdallah by the GP
also
failed and resulted in seventeen people being sentenced to
forced
labor for life and fifty others being imprisoned for their
part
in the coup attempt. In November 1987, French mercenaries
and
South African military advisers, based in Comoros,
reportedly
thwarted a coup by a small number of GP and armed forces
personnel.
On November 27-27, 1989, the Abdallah regime finally
fell
after members of the GP, which included several European
advisers
under Colonel Denard's command, assassinated the
president. As
outlined in the constitution, the Supreme Court president,
Said
Mohamed Djohar, became interim head of state, pending a
presidential election. However, Colonel Denard and his
associates
engineered a coup against Djohar, disarmed the army, and
killed
at least twenty-seven police. Growing French and South
African
pressure forced Colonel Denard to leave Comoros for South
Africa.
In April 1990, the Comorian government announced that
France
would maintain a military team on the islands for two
years to
train local security forces.
Despite the presence of French troops and a general
amnesty
for all political prisoners, Comoros continued to suffer
from
internal instability. On August 18-19, 1990, armed rebels
unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Djohar by attacking
various
French installations on the island of Njazidja. A small
group of
European mercenaries allegedly the coup attempt and
believed that
the Djohar regime would fall if they could force the
French to
withdraw from the islands. The authorities detained more
that
twenty people in connection with the uprising. Another
coup
attempt occurred on September 26, 1992, when Lieutenant
Said
Mohamed and 100 Comorian army personnel tried to overthrow
Djohar. According to plotters, the coup's purpose was "to
ensure
state security and to put in place a true democracy."
Troops
loyal to Djohar quickly crushed this coup attempt. Since
then,
political instability has continued to plague Comoros,
largely
because of opposition to Djohar and growing demands for
democratization.
Data as of August 1994
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