A-Infos (en) France, OCL: Mayotte: An abjection (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Since the 2000s, Mayotte has been the destination of people from Great 
Lakes Africa (including many Rwandans and Burundians) as well as 
Somalis[1], Nigeriens, etc. Among them, several hundred refugees (in a 
regular situation) or asylum seekers (being "processed") have for 
several months been deprived of any emergency accommodation (whose 
structures are saturated), when they have not were quite simply 
"decased" as part of Wuambushu (france24.com, July 6, 2023). 
Beneficiaries of a voucher of... 30 euros per month per adult (as well 
as a coupon of 10 euros per child), some initially camp in front of the 
premises of Solidarité Mayotte, the only association responsible for 
support for asylum seekers, whose officials "prefer not to speak on 
camera for fear of reprisals"... (TV5 Monde, July 14, 2023). Most end up 
establishing a makeshift camp within the grounds of the Cavani stadium, 
in the town of Mamoudzou. While Operation Wuambushu continues to 
disappoint their old hatred of the "Comorian", the Mahorese political 
class and the pro-Wuambushu collectives find in this camp of African 
migrants an alternative support for their pogromist policy[2], whose 
noisy xenophobia signals the extent to which French Mayotte maintains 
this procolonial denial of Africanness which founds it, and haunts it - 
not without connection with the repression of a servile history and the 
Afro-ancestry of a significant part of the population that comes from it 
throughout the archipelago - Makuwas from Mozambique, Bantus deported 
from Zanzibar, etc.

To this end, the entire phantasmagorical range of racist stereotypes is 
mobilized ad nauseam about these "absolute foreigners" (cf. Daniel Gros, 
blogs.mediapart.fr , January 28, 2024). Jumble: "Another race of 
Africans arrived[...]they are not people who laugh[sic]" (Said 
Mouhoudhoiri, Kwezi TV , January 22, 2024); "We don't want to let 
ourselves be invaded by people we don't know... We don't know their 
health history, perhaps they bring diseases" (Safina Soula, Mayotte la 
1ère , January 19, 2024); "We no longer want this foreign population 
which is massively invading our island" (A resident of Cavani, Mayotte 
1ère , January 15, 2024); "The Somalis... the language they use is not 
at all compatible with Mahorese... a face that scares... We must not lie 
to ourselves, there are terrorists there, there are rapists, there are 
there's everything" (Madi Hamada, linfokwezi.fr , January 10, 2024); 
"[To enter the camp]we were forced to wear masks as the odors are 
nauseating because the people defecate on the ground" (Ambdilwahedou 
Soumaila, mayor of Mamoudzou, linfokwezi.fr, January 8 , 2024 ); "I'm 
not going to go with the pigs who live there, we Mahorais are proud..." 
(cf. Daniel Gros, blogs.mediapart.fr , January 21, 2024).

In addition to the recurrent destruction of their shelters by the 
municipal police, African refugees and asylum seekers are regularly 
confronted with intimidation, harassment and blockade operations 
perpetrated around the stadium, sometimes by agents on duty from the 
city. of Mamoudzou, when it is not a question of threatening intrusions 
within the camp, target of several calls for "mobilization" from the 
mayor of Mamoudzou. If the " Wuambushu Moms  "[sic]of the collectives 
hardly impress the African migrants when they enter the camp to ritually 
sprinkle the ground with water judged by magic to convince them to leave 
the place, their power to nuisance is much more criminal when they 
encourage the sabotage of a water supply ramp in order to deprive the 
camp (and even the entire neighborhood!) of it. On January 14, 2024, 17 
migrants were injured by residents of Cavani with sticks and iron bars. 
The few stone throws in response to the aggression they suffered caused 
the young Africans to be gassed by the police, a prelude to the 
nocturnal deployment of "popular" attacks inside the camp, Molotov 
cocktails to boot... On January 21, nearly 400 people gathered near the 
encampment with a view to attacking it, when a French flag displayed by 
the migrants increased the anger of the demonstrators who shouted 
"provocation", while a fight broke out. explodes at the entrance to the 
camp...

Furthermore, the collectives are erecting roadblocks in retaliation 
("until the migrants are expelled", AFP / January 22, 2024) just as they 
have been blocking most administrations for several weeks, notably the 
foreigners service of Prefecture. They thus summon the French State to 
proceed with the dismantling of the camp - the appeal filed before the 
administrative court by the Departmental Council, owner of the site, in 
order to evict the migrants, having been rejected on December 26, 2023. 
In this executive, MP Estelle Youssouffa tweeted on December 27: "The 
population will end up taking #justice into their own hands...". 
Following him, Safina Soula declared on behalf of her collective on 
January 19, 2024 in Mayotte la 1ère: "The elected officials are not able 
to go further, the population must take over".

In fact, a genocidal specter in the form of political blackmail still 
hovers over Mahorese discourse .

From this point of view, Estelle Youssouffa declared a few months ago 
about "Comorians" deemed illegal: "We must exterminate all these vermin" 
( CNews , April 24, 2023), thus competing with Salime Mdéré, 1st 
vice-president of the Departmental Council [3]: "... these delinquents, 
these thugs, these terrorists... at some point, we may have to kill some 
of them, I weigh my words carefully. Perhaps we should kill some" ( 
Mayotte la 1ère , April 24, 2023). Recently, a Congolese from the Cavani 
camp reported the particularly hostile comments of an employee of the 
Mamoudzou town hall responsible for distributing water bottles: "We are 
fed up with the Africans now and it will soon be civil war. It will be 
like with the Rwandans, with the Somalis, there, with machetes, with 
knives, and with all that it will be civil war" (cf. Daniel Gros, 
blogs.mediapart.fr , January 21, 2024).

As early as the 1970s, Adrien Giraud, former senator from Mayotte 
(2004-2011), did not hesitate to brandish the threat of a "genocide" of 
the Mahorais by the "Comorians", if the French state did not listen to 
the demand of the Mahorais Popular Movement in favor of the separation 
of Mayotte from the three other islands of the Comorian archipelago at 
the dawn of independence... A few years ago, an anti-Comorian gathering 
could display the sign following: "Silence here we / prepare / quietly / 
Ruwanda bis / in Mayotte!!»; icy ambivalence of the slogan, which claims 
to augur a Comorian genocide of the Mahorais (!) when it gestures much 
more towards the tendentially murderous aggression of the Comorians 
themselves, thus prepared as the effect in return of self-defense 
against perverse logic. A logic, tirelessly relayed by local media, 
echoed by journalist Zaïdou Bamana (son of former MPM leader Younoussa 
Bamana) regarding the demonstration of January 21, 2024 at the Cavani 
stadium: "We know that There are machetes in this camp, Molotov 
cocktails are prepared there... There could be a bloodbath, fortunately 
there was rain yesterday"; "It is enough that there are shababs, Somalis 
who are hardened to civil war, it is enough that there are genocidaires, 
and there are some... ( Mayotte the 1st ). Like the departmental 
delegate RN Saidali Boina Hamissi evoking "these barbarians who attack 
us, molest us, kill us every day[sic]" ( linfokwezi.fr , January 25), MP 
Estelle Youssouffa communicates on the regime of " terror" to which 
African migrants, strong in their "impunity", would subject the 
"population" that they "traumatize", the local residents that they "rob" 
- not to mention their excrement that they would leave a little " 
everywhere"... - with the intention of making acceptable in anticipation the
"raids" that the "people" will end up launching against the encampment, 
in order to "destroy everything", under the guise of "self-defense" ( 
Sud Radio , January 24, 2024) .

On January 23, the Prefecture of Mayotte announced the imminent 
dismantling of the camp, accompanied by some usual rhetorical 
precautions: "The prefect also repositioned the framework of his action 
with regard to the decision of the TA of Mayotte of December 26, 2023 
and the legislative obligations governing the administrative treatment 
of asylum seekers and refugees" (Prefecture press release).

From the 25th, the "unpacking" begins. But the collectives, recently 
merged under the populist name Forces Vives de Mayotte [4], are not yet 
satisfied, who are continuing blockades and roadblocks throughout the 
island (obstruction of care, threats, searches of vehicles, unofficial 
subcontracting of "hooded young people"...) until "African migrants are 
brought directly to the airport and not to another village" ( 
linfokwezi.fr , January 25). These Forces Vives reaffirm in a press 
release their "opposition to migrant camps on the territory of 
Mayotte[as well as to]any transfer of migrants from one place to another 
within Mayotte", which is also called for by Saidali Boina Hamissi ( 
RN): "The Mahorais do not want these immigrants[who]must not stay on our 
territory" ( linfokwezi.fr , January 25). To the point that for the 
Association of Women Leaders of Mayotte , affirm that one of its members 
rents a house to African migrants - according to the rumor of the 
networks, which the outraged Association is working to deny with the 
latest energy in a press release full of virtue dated January 26 ( 
linfokwezi.fr ) - would amount to "insult" and "slander", aiming 
moreover to "sully[sic]the reputation of honest citizens who fight 
without relax to defend the interests of the Mahorais population"... 
Like, no doubt, these "Mahorais" employers who are taking advantage of 
the opportunity not to pay the agreed salary to the African migrants 
they have been exploiting for weeks (Daniel Gros, blogs.mediapart.fr , 
February 4).

And in fact, a hunt is organized thanks to blocking operations which are 
becoming widespread in protest against "insecurity" and "immigration"... 
Example: a vehicle of the ACFAV ( Association for the Condition of Women 
& Victim Assistance ) transporting an African migrant and her two 
children to a place of temporary residence is intercepted at the Coconi 
dam. Unable to set it on fire, the crowd deflates or tears off its tires 
(testimony in Daniel Gros, blogs.mediapart.fr ). Endowed with a certain 
sense of media communication, the Forces Vives dissociate themselves in 
the wake of undoubtedly competing roadblocks, attributed to 
"delinquents", even to "persons... mandated[sic]to cause harm"... (press 
release of 1 FEBRUARY).

Not without resonance with the Congress of notables in Tsoundzou in 1958 
or the Sada Pact of 1967, events which sealed the procolonial commitment 
of the Mahorese elites in favor of departmentalization, the Congress of 
Tsingoni that the Forces vives , elected and even trade unionists 
[5]organize February 4 in the presence of a thousand people, breaking 
with the prefecture. The collective, which calls for the appointment of 
a mediator by the government, articulates its speech around three 
demands, under the cover of an equalization of legal practices with 
those of France: the end of insecurity, the end of title of 
territorialized stay and the return of African migrants to their country 
of origin or to France. At the end of this Congress , a total blockage 
of the island is expected: associations providing assistance to 
foreigners, town halls, boarding pontoons, beaches, etc. Fantasized in 
particular by Badirou Abdou, spokesperson for the Forces vives , as a 
"siege" of Mamoudzou, the demonstration of February 6 was distinguished 
above all by an assault - ultimately aborted - on the Judicial Court on 
the grounds that... "justice is not going enough quickly with the 
delinquents", as explained by Ben Issa Ousseini, president of the 
Departmental Council ( Mayotte the 1st , February 6). Furthermore, the 
emotional plague of which African migrants have been the target for 
weeks is exacerbated by the provocative broadcast of images, undoubtedly 
diverted from their source, showing a boat of Congolese and Somalis who 
are allegedly disembarking on the beach of Mtsamoudou at the same time 
as the gendarmes gassed the crowd around the court (ibid.). The premises 
of Solidarité Mayotte , considered "the worst enemy of Mayotte" by a 
demonstrator, were also the subject of an attempted intrusion and then 
padlocking before makeshift mattresses belonging to African refugees 
were burned in the street ( Mayotte la 1ère ).

Inexorably, the island remains prey to paralysis: all-out dams, the 
specter of a general shortage (including that of water, already in 
progress), curfew (notably in Bandrélé), repeated obstacles to action 
health as well as schooling, etc. As for employers, they would lose 
money (workforce and goods do not circulate quickly enough, etc.); 
enough to panic Carla Baltus, president of Medef in Mayotte, who speaks 
of dams as "chaos on top of chaos" ( Mayotte la 1ère , February 7).

If the Forces Vives seem to dissociate themselves from the elected 
officials of Mayotte whose "true intentions" they question (press 
release of February 6), they are above all trying to establish 
themselves as the one and only legitimate representation of the "social 
movement" in progress to the point of issue an (umpteenth) ultimatum to 
the State: the accelerated dismantling of the African migrant camp 
followed by their expulsion within two weeks, or else...

While waiting for the worst,

Gamal Oya,
February 7, 2024

to read in Courant Alternatif Mayotte, towards a genocidal drift? 
(October 2023) MAYOTTE / COMOROS ARCHIPELAGO: Genealogy of a policy of 
the worst (June 2023)

On the site use the keyword "Mayotte"

Notes
[1] In the tormented imagination of Mahorese MP Estelle Youssouffa, "80 
to 100 Somalis per week" would arrive in Mayotte ( Sud Radio , January 
24, 2024).

[2] Thus, the spokesperson for a collective of residents near the Cavani 
stadium launches a call to form a real militia of "4,000 Mahorese, 
Mahorais, Comorian and Anjouanese people, because this is a fight for 
everyone. world, don't lie, we are all in this city, we are all in this 
country...". If the statement may surprise with its opportunistic appeal 
to the "Comorians and Anjouanese", yesterday still doomed to 
vindictiveness within the framework of Operation Wuambushu , it recalls 
how the nationals of the three other islands of the archipelago are at 
the same time the hostages of a speech and the adjustment variable of a 
policy, put at the service of French Mayotte (Madi Hamada, linfokwezi.fr 
, January 10, 2024)

[3] Salime Mdéré ran for LREM in the 2021 departmental elections in the 
canton of Bouéni. Tried in criminal court in Reunion on February 1, 2024 
for "incitement to hatred based on origin" and "provocation to the 
commission of attacks on life", he faces three months suspended prison 
sentence as well as three years of imprisonment. ineligibility, 
accompanied by a fine of 5,000 euros. Verdict March 7

[4] It is therefore in the context of the dismantling of this African 
migrant camp in Cavani-stade (Mamoudzou) that a political recomposition 
of the collectives takes place: on January 25, Les Forces Vives de 
Mayotte announced itself as the unification of the Collective of 
Citizens of Mayotte 2018, the Collective of Residents of Cavani , Codim 
, the Committee of the South, the North and Petite Terre , etc. 
Politicians and other citizen rackets work...

[5] Already, Ousseni Balahachi, departmental secretary of the CFDT of 
Mayotte, called for "to come massively to the Cavani stadium on Sunday 
January 21, 24 from sunrise, to dislodge the immigrants who came to take 
up residence illegally" ( linfokwezi .fr , January 18, 2024); a 
singularly populist conception of the "social movement" which has 
nothing to envy of the Assault Sections of sinister memory. Without a 
doubt, the Security Task Force created in December 2023 by the 
Departmental Council of Mayotte will not lack militias

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