Choke points. A strategic term used to demote places where shipping traffic can be pinched off. The Mozambique channel is one. War in this area would affect a considerable amount of shipping on the Cape route and add to the cost of transport, but would also deny the use of the deep water port of Nacala to interested navies.
In 2002 the World Bank warned that the exploitation of minerals, oil, and gas in the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique risks alienating and dispossessing the population. Amidst international silence, politicians enriched themselves while the population was stripped of their lands and livelihoods and then called on international military support when the population eventually turned to Islamist supporters. The deaths of foreign contractors and destruction of foreign investment prompted French-supported Rwandese army deployment, as well as intervention by the regional SADC grouping, at a vastly higher cost than a political integration and agricultural development project would have incurred.

North of the river border in Tanzania, a similar scenario is developing. Norwegian oil interests are exploring and shrugging off concerns about the dispossession of the population as the concern of the Tanzanian Government.

 

And now the Comoros enter the picture. These mythical Islands of the Moon, described in Sinbad the sailor's fables, are once again lurching towards autocracy and instability. A court recently sentenced a retired President to life imprisonment for treason, a crime for which no definition existed in Comores legislation. 

Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, a businessman and Islamic scholar, during his term as elected President, proposed selling Comorian passports to people in the Arabian Gulf who are without documentation, the so-called Bidoon. This would be similar to offers by Malta, Portugal, and many other countries and would build on the Comores tradition of offering its flag as 'flag of convenience' as Panama does. 

However, Sambi's successor and the arch enemy of his predecessor seized on this firstly to incarcerate the 60-year-old businessman, then to charge him. The court had to define the charge since treason was not described in Comorian law. The prosecutor claimed that the former president had embezzled $1.8bn under the fraudulent scheme – more than the gross domestic product of the impoverished nation.
French Lawyer Jean- Gilles Halimi, who defended Sambi, pointed out that no evidence of accounts, deposits or any payments were laid before the court. Nonetheless, Sambi was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Apart from the legal implications, the present President, Azali Assoumani, not long ago amended the constitution to enable him to remain in power until at least 2029. This places him in the frame of predecessors who clung to power until overthrown by rebels. Islamist forces, building on the martyrdom of a respected Islamic scholar, may find a breeding ground for sympathy, an offshore base of support for destabilization of the Swahili coast. 

Disclosure: Members of my extended family had dealings with Sambi a decade and more ago, supplying raw materials to his business.