We are
extremely pleased to see Mr. Miguel d’Escoto
Brockmann presiding over the sixty-third session of the
General Assembly. I take this opportunity to express
my sincere thanks to His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of our Organization, for his
commitment and active role in the service of the
United Nations and for promoting its ideals of justice
and peace.
The world today is faced with innumerable
challenges. We who govern our respective countries
bear a heavy responsibility. We must become
increasingly concerned about the fate of our world.
Why are we going through all these crises? Why are
there so many centres of tension throughout the world?
Why is there so much poverty and vulnerability in our
universe? Why is terrorism spreading throughout the
globe? Those are questions that must be addressed by
each one of us, by our collective conscience and, first
and foremost, by the United Nations, whose key
purpose remains the defence of the ideals of peace,
justice, solidarity and development.
Today’s reality is quite different. Unfortunately,
all those values are far from being solidly established.
The most privileged nations must therefore show
greater concern for the fate of some parts of the world
and, in particular, for developing countries where
violence, hunger, disease, injustice of all sorts conflicts
and their consequences are facts of daily life.
The double crisis of food and energy, to mention
but two, requires a new surge of solidarity at the
international level. The crisis affects the entire world,
but is felt particularly in developing countries.
Furthermore, we firmly believe in multilateralism. That
is why the reform of the major organs of the United
Nations is required today to ensure greater firmness
and effectiveness.
Last March, Operation Democracy in the
Comoros put an end to a rebellion that had shaken the
island of Anjouan and re-established constitutional
legality. As I promised, free, transparent and
democratic elections took place on the island last June,
enabling us to complete the establishment of local
Governments on the islands of the Union of the
Comoros.
Therefore, I would like to pay heartfelt tribute to
the African Union, the League of Arab States and the
friendly countries of Tanzania, the Sudan, Libya,
Morocco, Senegal, France and the United States of
America, which have all supported us morally,
materially or financially in our task to complete
without bloodshed the delicate operation of freeing the
island of Anjouan.
Firmly resolved to consolidate the renewed
stability and in line with the commitment made to our
partners, I have decided to organize as soon as possible
an inter-Comorian conference to bring together
political movements, local island Governments, civil
society and the Comoros’ partners. The conference will
focus on the outstanding institutional issues that have
long been a source of misunderstanding between the
central Government and the federal entities. Initial
contacts with the international community have been
established to muster the support necessary to convene
that national gathering which is required to improve
the functioning of our national institutions.
Economic difficulties cannot allow us to lose
sight of other major challenges, including environmental
problems, which particularly affect the small island
developing States, of which the Indian Ocean islands
are a part. Thus, as head of State of the country
currently holding the chairmanship of the Indian Ocean
Commission, which has observer status at the United
Nations, I would like to reiterate our subregional
organization’s desire to contribute to implementing the
Mauritius Strategy. I also take this opportunity to thank
the European Union for having agreed to finance a
programme of support for the Indian Ocean
Commission within the framework of the tenth
European Development Fund as the Union’s
15 08-51845
contribution to the implementation of the Mauritius
Strategy.
I appeal to the United Nations and to the
international community to support the efforts of the
Indian Ocean Commission to ensure the successful
development and integration of its Member States and
to pay particular attention to the issue of implementing
the Mauritius Strategy.
Every individual and every nation aspires to
justice, dignity and freedom. Those are the ideals of the
United Nations system to which we must remain
faithful if peace, security and development are to
ensure the progress of humanity.
On the basis of respect for those values, allow me
to inform this Assembly of the great concern of the
people and the Government of the Comoros with
regard to the issue of the Comorian island of Mayotte. I
would like to note that, following talks undertaken with
France on that issue since last September following my
meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, I did not
intend to raise the issue at this session. The high-level
working group that was set up for that purpose on the
initiative of the French President provides, I believe,
an ideal bilateral framework to study all aspects of the
issue.
However, the intention recently declared by the
French authorities to organize a referendum in 2009
with a view to transforming Mayotte into a French
department forces me to raise the issue here. It will be
agreed that such a decision, coming at a moment when
discussions are under way between the two parties, will
not favour an open and constructive dialogue.
Therefore, in order to throw further light on the
justification of the Comorian claim to the island of
Mayotte, allow me to set out certain important facts
that need to be taken into account when we analyse the
issue.
Throughout the years of French colonization, the
Comorian archipelago, comprised of the four islands of
Anjouan, Grande Comore, Mayotte and Mohéli, was a
single physical, geographical, religious, cultural and
linguistic entity. Under French domestic law, and ever
since Anjouan, Grande Comore and Mohéli were
established as a French protectorate, they were
combined with Mayotte to form a single territory.
The first text on that issue was the decree of
September 1889. Since then, the political and
administrative unity of the Comoros archipelago has
never been questioned in any document, despite the
plethora of provisions adopted with regard to the
Comoros. I would refer, for example, to the law of
9 May 1946, the law of 17 April 1952, the decree of
22 July 1957, the law of 22 December 1961 and the
law of 3 January 1968.
Thus, each time the French legislature or
regulatory authority has acted, it has done so by
considering the archipelago of the Comoros to
constitute a single territory.
It is clear then that the French Republic has never
called into question the territorial unity of the
archipelago of the Comoros, while international public
opinion has consistently considered that the four
islands of the Comoros form a single territory, subject
to the French Republic and administered most recently
under the provisions of article 72 and following the
French Constitution.
It was in that spirit that at the end of 1974 we
implemented the procedure provided for by article 53
of the French Constitution, which aimed to gain the
support of those affected by the accession to
independence of the archipelago of the Comoros.
In accordance with the law of 23 November 1974,
the people of the archipelago of the Comoros were
invited to vote on whether they wished the territory to
gain independence.
In all the islands, namely, in Anjouan, Mohéli,
Mayotte and Grande Comore, on 22 December 1974,
overall a positive answer was given to the question
posed.
The question was put to the Comorian people as a
single, indivisible people and over 96 per cent voted in
favour of independence, in accordance with the law
based on article 53 of the French Constitution.
However, at that time the French Parliament,
rather than simply ratifying that decision of the people,
wanted to draw up another law organizing another
referendum on the pretext that in Mayotte about 60 per
cent had voted against.
But the question had been put to the Comorian
people, comprising the population of Mayotte,
Anjouan, Mohéli and Grande Comore, and the result
translated into overall terms as that did not in any way
affect the letter and spirit of the law.
08-51845 16
Faced with the unwillingness of the French
Parliament at that time to recognize the irrevocable
verdict of the Comorian people, the late President
Ahmed Abdallah Abdérémane, with the backing of the
Comorian people, unilaterally declared the
independence of the Comoros on 6 July 1975.
Looking beyond such measures, which come
under French domestic law, I should like to stress the
principle of the inviolability, under international law,
of borders inherited from the colonial era and thereby
to make it clear that the Comorian demand is indeed in
conformity with the law.
Lastly, I would like to remind the Assembly that
the Comoros, comprising Mayotte, Anjouan, Mohéli
and Grande Comore, was admitted into this prestigious
Organization on 12 November 1975, as demarcated by
its borders, without France showing its opposition to
that admission.
Today, there are good grounds for our great
concern over France’s official statements regarding the
departmentalization of the Comorian island of
Mayotte. Those statements are not in keeping with the
principles of justice, fairness and respect for
international law, for which the great country of France
is known.
For that reason, my country as of now considers
any ballot organized on the question of making the
Comorian island Mayotte a department to be null and
void. Such are the facts — and the facts speak for
themselves.
However, today the reality is that France is in
Mayotte notwithstanding the relevant resolutions of the
United Nations and all the other international
organizations that have been regularly seized of the
matter. Against that background, I have entered into
talks with the French President, His Excellency
Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, who has shown a willingness to
find a solution to the problem.
It may therefore be hoped that that legitimate
claim of the Comoros to the island of Mayotte will
soon have a happy outcome. I am particularly
confident of that, because many outstanding problems
throughout the world have been settled and others are
on the way to being settled since His Excellency
President Nicolas Sarkozy assumed France’s highest
office.
Let me take this opportunity to make a solemn
appeal to the French Government to strive to preserve a
climate conducive to a committed dialogue, which has
our support and which, in order to result in a
negotiated settlement will need to take into account the
concern of the Comoros that its national unity and
territorial integrity be respected.
Moreover, I urge the international community to
help to reconcile the views of the two parties along
those lines, because the unity of the four islands of the
Comoros, as well as peace and lasting stability for the
archipelago, are a prerequisite for its harmonious
development.
In conclusion, may I express the sincere thanks of
the Comorian delegation to all the American authorities
for the particularly warm welcome and the good
arrangements made to ensure the success of this sixty-
third session of the General Assembly.