The issue of restitution of the Eparses Isles

Harimanana Raniriarinosy, the acting chairman of the SECES, produced the largest part of the talks during the conference, and pointed at the fact that, although the very name “Eparses Isles” derives from the French terminology, its very meaning induces their reunification with Madagascar. Thereupon he recalled that the Resolution 34/91 issued on December 12th 1979 by the United Nations’ General Assembly motions the French government to tackle to processultimately deemed to lead to the restitution of those islands previously captured from Madagascar. The Eparses Isles normally represent 146700 square miles of exclusive economic areas, hence the source of France’s particular interest in not relinquishing its grip over these islands scattered in the Mozambican channel. The isles would equally bring a significant volume of marine and submarine resources with them. Mr. speeker conceded however that the concerned islands’ legal status have been meeting evolution ever since. During the COI’ Summit held in Saint-Denis in 1999, a joint management of the some of the Indian Ocean’s and the Channel’s islands by France, Madagascar and Mauritius was addressed. In the run of this summit, the joint management of Tromelin island, located 279 miles east of the Great Isle, by France and Mauritius was addressed and materialized in the year 2000. The present Malagasy political leaders have not ruled out such a potential joint venture with France concerning the Eparses Isles yet. President Hery Rajaonarimampianina and his Prime Ministre Kolo Roger have raised such a possibility already. But again, Harimanana Raniriarinosy reminded that anything like “joint management” happens to be completely alien to international legal standards. “It rather ought to be defined, whom these islands basically belong to” he emphasized. The conference revealed that the four islands Glorieuses, Juan do Nova, Europa and Bassa da India all used to be part of Madagascar before and during the colonial era. The country was granted independence on April 1st 1960, but a French decree issued a couple of months earlier summarily retained these islands as French property. On January 3rd 2005, another decree emphasized the extension of the jurisdiction of the prefect of “Terres Australes et Antarctiques Francaises” (TAAF –  French Southern and Antarctic Dominions) to these islands. On February 21st 2007, the French parliament issued the law 2007-224 which turned the Eparses Islands into a French Oversea Territory part of the TAAF. The conference considered each and every single of these actions as not binding French governments’ unilateral efforts undisputedly going against the Resolution 31/91 issued on December 12th 1979 by the United Nations Organization’s General Assembly.