Delegates are urged by UN chief Antonio Guterres to be constructive.

As the new UN special envoy on Western Sahara, former German President Horst Koehler’s hoping to revive talks between the Saharawi representatives and their Moroccan occupiers that broke down six years ago.

Morocco, which invaded the former Spanish colony in 1975,  has reneged on its promise to hold a  self-determination referendum in Western Sahara.

The United Nations has had a mission MINURSO in the territory since 1991 preparing for that referendum.

Last year the kingdom joined the African Union which calls Western Sahara the continent’s last colonial dispute.

Neighbours Algeria and Mauritania are attending the Geneva  talks as observers.

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Parliament in Moroni has thrown his bid to bypass the legislature and validate his candidature with a presidential decree.

After surviving more than two dozen coups, it’s not surprising that Comores developed  an arcane system of government  strictly limiting presidential terms and rotating the office between the three main islands of the archipelago.

President Azali Assoumani believed he overturned these with a referendum win four months ago.

But parliament is having none of it. 

21 of the 33 Comoran MPs defeated a bid by Assoumani to bypass the legislature ahead of the election next year.

Unless he can devise another scheme, he will not be eligible to contest that poll and stay in office until 2025.

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He was speaking after talks at the Union Buildings with with the Saharawi President Brahim Ghali.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says beating apartheid showed Africa that  no system, however oppressive, can deny the desire of a people to be free.

He’s certain the Western Sahara will be free because the liberation of Africa will not be complete without the liberation of that country.

“There can be no mistake about the determination of the Saharawi people to gain their own self determination and independence,” he says

Ramaphosa says the Saharawis’ continued support of their leadership’s  persistent  demand that Morocco keep its promise to hold a referendum and their suffering in refugee camps is  proof  of this  

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He’ll talk about matters of mutual interest with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

President Brahim Ghali comes to South Africa from a State visit to Namibia where President  Hage Geingob, like his South African counterpart Cyril Rampahosa,  strongly supports the Western Sahara’s right to self determination and independence.

They regard the 43-year Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara as one of the last colonial vestiges in Africa.

Both use Morocco’s admission to African Union to press Rabat to end that occupation and exploitation of Saharawi resources and to keep its promise to have a referendum in the Western Sahara giving the people an opportunity to determine their own future.

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They’ve quarantined  the animals, specially bought from Tanzania.

As Jean-Jacques Cornish reports, there may be more to it.

French Ambassador to Bujumbura Laurent Delahousse is nonplussed about the Burundi authorities’ reaction to his gift of ten donkeys.

He calls them the land cruisers of the animal kingdom and insists they will be useful transporters for the NGO dealing with small farmers.

Diplomats say the misgivings are not really about the long-eared beasts of burden but rather about France’s unequivocal criticism of the handling of this month’s referendum giving President Pierre Nkurunziza, already serving a controversial third term, the power to stay at the helm until 2030.

They say there was similar help from Belgium to another BurundianNGO that has not attracted any criticism. 

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