COMOROS: BACAR DENIED ASYLUM, FRANCE SEEKS 3RD

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000899 SIPDIS EUCOM PASS AFRICOM E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/09/2018 TAGS: PREL PINS PHUM CN FR SUBJECT: COMOROS: BACAR DENIED ASYLUM, FRANCE SEEKS 3RD COUNTRY; NO IMMEDIATE CHANGE IN MAYOTTE'S LEGAL STATUS EXPECTED Classified By: Deputy Political Counselor Andrew Young, 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: France has denied political asylum to Colonel Mohamed Bacar, who fled to French territory in March after being driven from Anjouan in the Comoros. However, the GOF agency that ruled on his asylum request determined that he could neither stay in France nor be returned to the Comoros. The French are therefore seeking a third country that would accept him. France has already approached the UAE, Qatar, Senegal, Haiti, and Morocco, with no responses to date. The MFA viewed the request by Mayotte's General Council to make Mayotte an overseas Department as motivated solely by economic interests, noting that Mayotte could not become a Department simply by asking. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) MFA Comoros desk officer Jacques Biau on May 7 provided an update on Col. Mohamed Bacar, the renegade leader of the Comoran island of Anjouan, who was driven from power (and from Anjouan) on March 25 by a coalition of forces from several countries, an operation that enjoyed broad international support, including that of the U.S. and France. Bacar and a number of his supporters landed in Mayotte and then were transferred to the French island of Reunion, where they have been under house arrest while the GOF considered their cases, including their requests for political asylum. In the meantime, the Union of the Comoros government requested that Bacar and his associates be extradited to the Comoros for prosecution. Separately, local French authorities in Reunion initiated legal action against Bacar and some of the others for having entered French territory illegally (i.e., without visas and with contraband such as weapons). ¶3. (C) Biau said that the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA in its French acronym) was charged with reviewing Bacar's request for exile, which is OFPRA's primary function. OFPRA ended up reviewing the cases of Bacar and 57 other individuals associated with him. OFPRA decided 16 of the cases on April 22 and the remainder on May 5. OFPRA's decisions have not, to date, been publicly released, although Biau said that he expected the information to be released forthwith. ¶4. (C) OFPRA ruled as follows: -- One individual (not specified by Biau),who was not the subject of a Comoran extradition request, was ordered to be returned to the Comoros, apparently because of the individual's violation of French immigration and customs laws as a result of the illegal entry into Mayotte. -- 28 individuals (not specified by Biau) were granted refugee status. These individuals would be placed under French protection and would receive a residency card. -- 29 other individuals -- including Bacar -- were determined to have committed "serious" acts in the Comoros, which precluded them from being granted refugee status in France. However, these individuals could not be returned to the Comoros because OFPRA found legitimate their claim that they would be subject to persecution if returned. They would be allowed to stay in France until a third country accepted them. ¶5. (C) The Comoran Government's formal request for extradition remained pending, Biau explained. It would be reviewed by the appropriate French judicial authority in due course. Biau indicated that, in the event of a conflict between the court's findings and those of OFPRA, the latter's determination would prevail. ¶6. (C) Biau said there was some urgency in finding a third country that would accept Bacar and his associates. When pressed, Biau said that the GOF had approached the UAE, Qatar, Senegal, Haiti, and Morocco. None had responded formally yet, and Biau acknowledged there were problems with Haiti and Morocco. In Haiti's case, he noted that Haiti was usually viewed as a source rather than a recipient of those seeking political asylum and that the international community's presence in Haiti might make it difficult to PARIS 00000899 002 OF 002 place someone like Bacar there. In Morocco's case, Biau said that Morocco was perhaps reluctant because it did not want to jeopardize support the Comoros might provide in the dispute over the Western Sahara. ¶7. (C) Biau furnished a two-page summary of the Bacar case and OFPRA's ruling that he had prepared for internal MFA use. We will scan and e-mail it to the Department and Embassy Antananarivo. NO IMMEDIATE CHANGE IN LEGAL STATUS OF MAYOTTE -------------- - ¶8. (C) As the meeting with Biau concluded, we asked about the April 18 request by the General Council of Mayotte that Mayotte formally become an overseas French Department. Mayotte, still claimed by the Union of the Comoros as a part of the Union, presently enjoys the unique status of "collectivite departementale de Mayotte," which makes it legally similar to but still distinct from an overseas Department. Biau said that the people of Mayotte wanted full overseas Departmental status in order to benefit from various enconomic and financial support it would receive not only from the GOF but also from the EU. He indicated that gaining the status of overseas Department would be a big step and would not result simply from a request by the Mayotte General Council. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm PEKALA