Violence flares as peace talks are postponed

Analysts and NGOs on Monday warned of a wider and more vicious confrontation in Madagascar if no political solution is found soon.

Six people were killed and many others injured over the weekend in a fresh outbreak of violence in the north-western town of Mahajanga. Local news reports said the civil strife erupted after supporters of ex-president Didier Ratsiraka attacked members of ethnic groups they accused of favouring new president Marc Ravalomanana.

The report added that pro-Ratsiraka loyalists looted and torched shops and houses in a district populated by Merinas, the ethnic group that predominates in the highlands, from where Ravalomanana himself originates.

Race and ethnicity are important factors in Malagasy politics. Its mostly very poor population is divided between highland Merina people of Malay origin and coastal peoples mostly of black African origin.

"This is not the first time that the violence has taken on an ethnic dimension. Anti-Merina sentiment in the west and east of the country has increased since the election last year, and it will spiral out of control," Midi Madagasikara, a pro-Ravalomanana newspaper reported on Monday.

Earlier this year, a number of NGOs raised concern about the increasing ethnic nature of the violence in the country after several people were injured in the eastern city of Tamatave.

"The ugliness you see now is a direct result of the belligerence of both leaders. Neither of them has shown a sincere commitment to peace. I am afraid however that the recent violence may have nothing to do with the leaders, and is instead the work of elements in both camps who are out of control," Madeleine Ramaholimihaso, who headed the consortium of civil society organisations that supervised the December presidential poll, told IRIN.

The recent violence came amid preparations for a second round of talks between the two bitter rivals in Dakar, Senegal this week. However, hopes of reconciliation faded on Friday as newly-appointed Prime Minister Jacques Sylla said his government "would not, for the time being, include Ratsiraka sympathisers".

Last month, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade brokered a reconciliation deal between Ravalomanana and Ratsiraka designed to settle the presidential battle. Both candidates had agreed to a recount. But they have since differed in their interpretation of the accord.

Although successful in bringing both men back to the negotiating table, international diplomacy has yet to secure lasting reconciliation in the five-month long leadership crisis.

A Senegalese diplomat based in Antananarivo said that the call for renewed talks were increasingly becoming unpopular in the capital, Antananarivo, where Ravalomanana commands most of his support.

"A large segment of the population feels that Marc Ravalomanana is president and that no more political talks should take place," he said.

The diplomat added that there is a growing sentiment that Madagascar "should be left alone to solve it's own problems".

Ravalomanana sent a delegation to the Dakar talks at the end of last week. But he told Agence France Presse that he had decided against "making a personal appearance because, as the legally acknowledged president of the country, he did not need to negotiate his legitimacy on foreign soil".

Meanwhile, UN aid agencies in Antananarivo said on Monday that freak storms have been battering the east coast of the country for the past four days which, if they continue, will "exacerbate an already bad situation".

"The shortage of fuel remains cause for concern. Hospitals, clinics and power plants have been given priority," the UN Development Programme said on Monday.