ABSTRACT
Four volcanically raised chunks of ocean bed, Grand Comoro, Moheli, Anjouan, and Mayotte lie like giant stepping stones across the northern opening of the channel between northernmost Mozambique and the top of Madagascar. Varying in topography, soils, and population density, the Comoros have nonetheless shared more than a century of common obscurity. Livestock and fisheries production remains rudimentary in Comoros and even the plantation crops are inefficiently cultivated, subject to climatic vagaries and price pressures from abroad. Watching anxiously during the late 1960s as enterprising immigrants arrived in Mayotte from relatively unproductive, over-populated Anjouan and Grand Comoro, the Mahorais People's Movement became spokesman for its island's particular interests, distinct from those of the archipelago. Pluralism was suddenly recognized in Comorean self-determination, and the avenue was juridically opened to detach Mayotte. Public works projects, agricultural cooperatives, and other new institutions have been designed to bring Comoros into the contemporary developing world.
