'Time running out ' for peaceful solution - ngo's

Non-governmental organisations on Tuesday warned that time was running out for opposition candidate Marc Ravalomanana and President Didier Ratsiraka to "iron out their differences". The latest casualties of the leadership crisis are a 16-year-old girl and a 31-year-old woman who were shot dead on Tuesday by armed troops. Associated Press (AP) reported that soldiers loyal to Ratsiraka randomly opened fire from three trucks at the southern exit from the town of Fiannarantsoa, 300 km south of the capital, Antananarivo. The recent wave of violence comes amid expected talks this week between Ratsiraka and Ravalomanana in Dakar, Senegal. Both are attending the New Partnership for Africa's Development talks in the city. The meeting is the latest attempt by diplomats to resolve the three-month long crisis. "Hopefully, the Dakar meeting will be more successful than previous diplomatic attempts (to resolve the crisis). People are dying every day and the violence will increase if both men remain as strong-willed as they have been," said Madeleine Ramaholimihaso, who headed a consortium of civil society organisations that supervised the country's disputed presidential poll. Both men, who were invited by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, are expected to meet for the first time since Ravalomanana declared himself president on 22 February. He believes he won the 16 December presidential poll, claiming it was rigged to favour Ratsiraka. The official results declared no candidate had won enough votes to be declared an outright winner, a court-ordered run-off poll has been rejected by Ravalomanana. Previous attempts by western and African mediators to bring the pair to the table have failed. Also on Tuesday, AP reported that a strategic bridge situated 70 km south of Antananarivo was damaged by a dynamite. The report said the opposition blamed the attack on pro-government supporters. Several hundred Ravalomanana supporters in the town of Antsirabe, which lies about 90 km south of the bridge, marched to the police headquarters on Tuesday demanding they track down the suspects, the report said. Civil rights groups have estimated that 32 people have died since the beginning of the dispute, during which hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters seized control of Antananarivo and installed alternate ministers appointed by Ravalomanana in government offices.