NewsBlaze : The Ultimate French Blocus on Madagascar

The Madagascar coup government is continuing to underestimate the diplomacy issue of the actual crisis in Madagascar. Many international partners heave terminated their partnership with Madagascar and this is causing a very hard impact on everyday life for the poorest population of the Island.

Several weeks has been spent to find solutions by the International Contact Group at the Carlton hotel with the head of the four major party leaders but nothing tangible came of this negotiation.

Due to the important role played by France in initiating this coup action, the French Ambassador Jean Marc Chataîgner was the only diplomat invited by the ICG at Carlton to advise his viewpoints on the issues. France has become a party to the negotiation which is very strange for an independent country like Madagascar.

Madagascar was a French colony from 1896 to 1960 and French interests remain very important in Madagascar. To illustrate this, 4 banks of the 7 existing in Madagascar are French. While considering that Madagascar is classified as very poor country, these banks make several millions of Euro in profits every year.

As the Malagasy economy is collapsing, and while thousands of people are jobless because of the closure of companies, and while other thousands of people are starving, due to the drought in the South of the country, the fifth party in the negotiations is blocking the return of the democratically elected President of Madagascar into his own country. They are taking their time playing on the destiny of this Independent country in the Indian Ocean with its 18 million people.

As Marc Ravalomanana was about to change the century-old French domination in the country, by turning to the CommonWealth countries, France is now playing its last card by lobbying its partners to prevent the legal president from coming home. In March 2008, English became the third official language of the country and this change is not accepted by the Francophonie community.

The Malagasy people are said to be the poorest in the region but they are sitting on a very valuable land. Madagascar Oil has announced that 15 billion barrels of oil are to be exploited in Madagascar, not to mention the Ilmenites, nickel and saphires that the country contains.

In addition to the failing economy, Malagasy political leaders, in concert with the French government, have created another crisis. The Malagasy poor have daily income less than eighty cents per day. Now, after the break of the MCC/MCA cooperation, the AGOA agreement might be suspended. Many thousands of people will soon be jobless.

This situation makes as much sense as the Malagasy Ambassador to France interfering in a negotiation between the UMP and the Socialist Party at the Elysée?

Time is against the Malagasy people as a food shortage is coming, inflation is climbing day by day, hospitals are short of medicines, the government employees' salary will be cut next month... but military wages are being raised before independence day on 26th June.


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source: http://newsblaze.com/story/20090614104221zzzz.nb/topstory.html