spotlight madagascar

AFP reports today on an explosion that happened outside the home of Madagascar’s justice minister late last night in Antananarivo. This is the third report of home-made bomb explosions in less than a week – no one has been injured.

The objective is to spread fear, but we mustn’t play their game and begin to panic. We are taking measures and are remaining calm,” said [Colonel Richard Ravalomanana].

In other news, Razia Said is pretty great. If you’re in NYC, go see this show tonight:

New Album ZEBU NATION Release Party
Celebrating Earth Day
Thu Apr 22 2010, 9:00 pm
S.O.B.’s
New York, NY

for more information:
www.sobs.com/node/112

A couple of days ago, AFP reported that dismissed army general Rakotonandrasana, while contemplating his unpopular idea of heading up a military administration, was ‘inspired by the coup in Niger and encouraged by foreign powers’. (Did he not remember that Madagascar JUST HAD A COUP last year?!) The foreign powers are not specified. Prime Minister Camille Vital, who replaced him as general, was opposed to the proposed junta. Other officers say that they do not want power over Madagascar, a big reason for that being that there’s no money left to run the country or pay anyone’s salaries.

“We’re going to draw up a roadmap with precise directives, sharing out the different positions and we will impose that on the politicians,” [an] officer said.

I wonder what will be on this new roadmap that everyone’s talking about. I’m by no means an expert on this, but I have a few ideas for stops along the way:

• Building and Improving Basic Infrastructure (Roads, Schools, Sanitation, Transportation, etc.)
• Public Services (Including, of course, Healthcare, Education, and Environment)
• Investment in Private Industry (Entrepreneurship, Tourism, Technology, Innovation)
• Job Creation
• Addressing Corruption and Kickbacks
• Accountability, Transparency and Good Governance
• Basic Human Rights

I’m not entirely sure how they can accomplish all of these things, especially without a little help at the beginning, which they can’t get without working on the last three items first.

This is a road in Madagascar.

So, great news today (she says, dripping with sarcasm). Andry Rajoelina, ‘strongman’, doesn’t WANT to participate in talks to fix Madagascar’s political decrapitation. AFP today:

Madagascar’s strongman Andry Rajoelina rejected Thursday an African Union invitation for talks in Addis Ababa next week to end a standoff among the country’s four main political factions.

Rajoelina will “not go to the Ethiopian capital,” a statement from the presidency said.

Photo from TopNews.in

I don’t wanna go!

From Al Jazeera English:

Anti-government protesters in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, say foreign companies are exploiting the country’s natural resources at the expense of the people.

Some locals say their way of life is under threat from multinational mining company Rio Tinto, which has a 60-year lease to dig up 6,000 hectares of Madagascar’s forests.

Al Jazeera’s Jane Dutton reports.

BBC News reports: “Madagascar’s defence minister has resigned after being confronted by a group of soldiers in his office and Rajoelina is in the French Embassy”.  Also, there’s another article on from BBC today about the 72-hour crisis-solving deadline given by the army general to the two rivals.  The UN and the AU haven’t been able to fix things up to now, so it’ll be interesting to see what the next couple of days bring.  The army also claims to be in charge of the country, and looting has continued for 2 days in the capital.

AFP has more to say about the looming of military rule.  The following may put a damper on my post-graduate school plans:

Updating an earlier travel warning, the State Department also recommended US citizens to defer “all but essential travel to Madagascar because of escalating civil unrest”.

My travel is essential.  I’ll still go.

AFP Analysts were hard at work yesterday, trying to figure out what the root causes of the crisis in Madagascar might be. Citing poverty, shrinking freedoms, the prospect of the Daewoo land deal going through, and the loss of democracy, they take it back to 1972. Doesn’t it go farther back? Perhaps these coups have all continued to take place, not because they are ‘institutionalized’, as one analyst notes, but because they are ingrained and encouraged by the colonial, and then neocolonial power (yes, I’m asserting that France still has a considerable amount of sway in the government–and lately the United States and others as well) and the greed of the fortunate few who continue to rise, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. It is also the huge influx of aid organizations, and the loans of the World Bank and IMF and EU (think about where the money for public works is going–schools and roads or interest payments?).

If you read many of the articles below, you’ll see a trend. Madagascar’s credit rating is going down. Multinational corporations are reconsidering the climate, they may be thinking that the country is unsafe for their “investments”. Again, we see the country reduced to natural resources and commodities; the monetary value of these things is inherently nil. Until the superpowers decide they need them.

Here are some updates for this morning:

Reuters UK

Reuters UK FACTBOX

Country credit rating down on Bloomberg

The president, speaking shortly after the mayor’s rally Saturday, said: “I remain the president of this country.

“We managed the crisis in Madagascar.”

International Herald Tribune

A note on that last one. There were political rallies in the capital, as well as Tamatave and Ft. Dauphin today. My best friend, who lives in Ambatofinandrahana, has sent me text messages about how frightened she is, how people are hoarding food and oil and prices are shooting up. It doesn’t seem like the crisis has been averted, and now the African Union is threatening to put down the opposition because it’s unconstitutional? I’m not saying I’m rooting for either side, but can’t we look at the things that have been done to the people of Madagascar over the past 2 administrations and find a heck of a lot that’s unconstitutional? That being said, I don’t think anyone sees a solution yet.

Some of it is more of the same, recycled articles from Reuters and AP in foreign papers, etc. But AFP had some updates about 10 hours ago on the meeting of the African Union-the Prime Minister of Madagascar is attending that:

Other conflicts also demanded the summit’s attention. With Madagascar’s political crisis worsening by the day, the head of the AU Commission Jean Ping warned on the eve of the summit that “any unconstitutional change of power will be condemned.”

Hours after Ping spoke, opposition leader Andry Rajoelina proclaimed himself in charge of the island’s affairs, in a shock move escalating his battle against the president’s regime.

Madagascar is supposed to host the next AU summit in July, and sent its Prime Minister Charles Rabemananjara to the current meet in Addis Ababa.

It seems as though there’s a shortage of cooking oil and rice, and most of the supplies that Malagasy people use in their daily lives. Rumor has it that the President has a stockpile somewhere. It’s getting weirder.