Madagascar is Seldom in the News

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Situated 400 kilometres off the southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, at 587,713 square kilometres, is the world’s fourth-largest island. 

It was first settled by Austronesian people who arrived from Borneo, the large southeast Asian island, about 2,000 years ago. The country’s population of 23.8 million includes the more than two million living in the capital, Antananarivo. 

Though there are 18 ethnic groups on Madagascar, Malagasy is spoken throughout the island. French is also an official language.

Malagasy society has long been polarized between the politically and economically advantaged Austronesian highlanders, mainly Betsileo and Merina, and the various peoples, mostly of African origin, along the coasts. 

The Betsileo are Roman Catholics whereas the Merina are Protestants, due to the early 19^th century proselytisation efforts of the London Missionary Society, working under the patronage of Merina King Radama I.

Merina monarchs ruled the island prior to its incorporation into the French Empire, and under French rule they retained their supremacy in education, business, and the professions.

The coastal peoples, known as côtiers, felt deprived of the education, power, and wealth concentrated inland.

In 1895–96, the French annexed the island; the Merina monarchy was abolished in 1897. The island’s population chafed under French rule, and a 1947 uprising killed upwards of 80,000 people.

(One bizarre aside: Following the fall of France in 1940, Nazi Germany briefly considered transporting some four million Jews from Europe to Madagascar.)

The island achieved independence in 1960 as the Malagasy Republic, and Philibert Tsiranana, founder of the Social Democratic Party of Madagascar and the Comoros (PSD), became president. (It reverted to the name Madagascar in 1975.) 

But his pro-French policies ultimately terminated his rule. Following massive protests and strikes, the military ousted him in 1972. After a period of instability, which saw three military men in power, they selected Didier Ratsiraka as head of state in 1975. 

Ratsiraka, who founded his Association for the Rebirth of Madagascar (AREMA), ushered in the isolationist, Marxist-inspired Second Republic, resulting in the rapid collapse of the economy and a sharp decline in living standards. French military and naval forces were expelled from the country and French commercial concerns nationalized.

He also instituted the policy of “Malagachisation,” intended to phase out the use of the French language in public life in favour of Malagasy.             

     

By 1991 Ratsiraka faced growing opposition and, following his government’s attacks on demonstrators, he stepped down. Free multi-party elections were then held, bringing Albert Zafy of the National Union for Democracy and Development (UNDD) to power in a Third Republic in 1993. 

But his tenure was marred by economic decline and allegations of corruption. Also, Zafy’s administration was dominated by Merina, thereby tipping the delicate ethnic balance established under previous regimes. 

This resulted in his impeachment in 1996, and Ratsiraka was voted back into power on a platform of decentralization and economic reforms.

The 2001 presidential election between Ratsiraka and Marc Ravalomanana, the mayor of Antananarivo and candidate of I Love Madagascar (TIM), nearly caused a civil war, as both claimed victory. 

Ratsiraka supporters cut major transport routes from the port city of Toamasina to the capital city, a Ravalomanana stronghold. Ethnic differences also played a role, since Ratsiraka was from the coastal Betsimisaraka tribe, while Ravalomanana was a highland Merina.

After a seven-month standoff, Ravalomanana was declared the winner. Though he won a second term in 2006, by 2009 protests over increasing restrictions on opposition activities resulted in his handing over power to the military. They conferred the presidency on the mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, a member of Young Malagasies Determined (TGV). 

In 2010 a new constitution established a Fourth Republic and elections were held in 2013. The presidency was won by former finance minister Hery Rajaonarimampianina of the New Forces for Madagascar (HVM), who beat 32 other competitors.

The endless political crises have taken a heavy toll on the economy. Madagascar ranks amongst the world’s poorest countries -- 92 per cent of Malagasy live on less than $2 per day. Poverty and the competition for agricultural land have put pressure on the island’s dwindling forests, home to much of its wildlife. Locusts, famine and floods are all disasters recently faced by the country. 

Political instability continues -- lawmakers recently tried to impeach the president. Things will not improve until Madagascar resolves its unstable, and sometimes violent, political system.

Eritreans Flee Repressive Country by Thousands

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Eritrea, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a decades-long insurgency led by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), has become one of the most repressive countries on earth.

Situated on the Horn of Africa, with an area of 117,600 square kilometres, its 6.3 million people include nine recognized ethnic groups, the largest being the Tigrinya, at 55 per cent, and the Tigre at 30 per cent.

Christianity arrived in the fourth century and today Eastern Rite Coptic Orthodox Christians make up almost 60 per cent of the population. The remainder are mainly Sunni Muslims. The highland region is mostly Christian while Muslims predominate in the east and west lowlands.

Although the struggle against Ethiopia was initially led by the Muslim-dominated Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), it was eventually supplanted by the predominantly Christian EPLF.

Eritrea fought a border war against its former rulers between1998 and 2000; the two countries suffered tens of thousands of casualties. According to a ruling by an international commission in The Hague, Eritrea broke international law and triggered the war by invading Ethiopia.

Since that conflict, the nation has become a highly militarized, one party state with severe restrictions over the press, speech, and even movement. Its human rights record has come under criticism, due to the government’s oppression of its own people, who suffer from malnourishment and economic destitution. 

On June 8, a 500 page United Nations report accused Eritrea’s government of extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture, indefinitely prolonged national service, and forced labour. It also indicated that sexual harassment, rape and sexual servitude by state officials are widespread.

Eritrea is dominated by President Isaias Afwerki, a Tigrinyan who is leader of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, successor to the EPLF. He has ruled the east African country since its independence.

The report charged him with operating a system of “ruthless repression” and “pervasive state control” on “a scope and scale seldom witnessed elsewhere.”

Amnesty International believes that at least 10,000 political prisoners have been imprisoned by the government. Reporters Without Borders has ranked Eritrea last in their Press Freedom Index, below even North Korea.

The country’s legislature has not met in a decade, and there is no published national budget. A constitution was ratified in 1997 but has never been implemented.

Given this reality, Eritreans are second only to Syrians in risking the dangerous crossings of the Mediterranean in search of a better life. Thousands flee their country every month; 22 per cent of the people arriving by boat to Europe are Eritreans. 

Last November, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that the number of Eritreans seeking asylum in Europe had nearly tripled over the first 10 months of the year, rising from 13,000 over the same period in 2013 to nearly 37,000 in 2014.

It won’t stop until conditions improve dramatically back home.Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Angola's Revolution is Long Behind It

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Angola may be the world’s richest failed state. This large southwestern African state of 19 million people has had a disastrous history.

The Portuguese arrived in 1575 and remained in power for four centuries. The capital, Luanda, was established in 1587, and the slave trade became the basis of the economy. More than a million people were shipped across the Atlantic to Portugal’s colony of Brazil.

Even after the abolition of slavery in 1875, Angola’s plantations worked on a system of forced labour.

In the 1950s and 1960s three rival guerrilla groups were formed to fight for Angolan independence.

The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was founded in 1956. In the following year the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) was set up. And in 1966 the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was established.

When a leftwing coup in Lisbon overthrew Portugal’s autocratic regime in 1974, the new government declared its intention to grant its colonies freedom without delay.

Angola thus found itself a sovereign state in 1975, unprepared for independence. For the next twenty-seven years, as the rival movements fought for control of the country, the country fell into one of the most destructive civil wars in modern history.

The UNITA rebels, backed by the United States and South Africa, were led by Jonas Savimbi. The Marxist MPLA was led by Agostinho Neto, who later became the country’s first President, and had support from the Soviet Union. Holden Roberto ran the FNLA, the weakest of the three, with some Chinese backing.

All three used ethnicity to rally support. The UNITA and FNLA were largely rural, with UNITA deriving its strength from the majority Ovimbundu and Chokwe ethnic groups in central and southern Angola, while the FNLA was rooted among the Bakongo people in the north.

The MPLA’s base included the Ambundu ethnic group and the educated lusophone multiracial Mestiqos of the capital city. They managed to hold Luanda, thanks to Cuban President Fidel Castro, who sent large contingents of Cuban troops to Angola on its behalf.

But the demise of the Communist bloc forced the MPLA to give up its adherence to Marxism-Leninism in 1991. Elections held in 1992 saw the MPLA beat UNITA, but Savimbi refused to accept the result and the civil war resumed. The hostilities ended only in 2002, when assassins killed Savimbi.

Up to 1.5 million lives were lost, and another four million people displaced, during the more than a quarter century of fighting.

Though a Marxist, Neto had understood that his regime wouldn’t survive without the money coming in from the petroleum companies that had discovered oil prior to independence.

This policy continued under José Eduardo dos Santos, who became the head of the MPLA in 1979, after Neto died. He has been president ever since.

The country now produces 1.8 million barrels of oil a day. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, the French company Total, and BP all have significant operations in Angola.

Oil revenues, which account for more than ninety per cent of Angola’s foreign exchange earnings, have brought unimaginable wealth to its political elite – the presidential cronies, generals, and their families.

The president has been accused of ignoring the economic and social needs of Angola and focusing his efforts on amassing wealth for his family. Isabel dos Santos, his daughter, is said to be worth more than three billion dollars.

Diamonds are another source of wealth. In May journalist Rafael Marques de Morais accused seven generals of being linked to murder, torture and land grabs in Angola’s lucrative diamond fields.

Yet Angola remains one of the world’s least-developed nations. Half of Angolans live on less than two dollars a day, infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world, and the average life expectancy, at 52, is among the lowest. The roads are so poor that farms often burn crops, because they cannot get them to market before they rot.

Because of widespread malnutrition, more than one-quarter of Angolan children are physically stunted. Rural sanitation facilities are rare and malaria accounts for more than a quarter of all childhood deaths. Yet with falling world oil prices, the government has proposed a one-third cut in the health budget this year.

Much of Angola’s oil wealth lies in Cabinda province, which is separated from the rest of Angola by a narrow strip of territory belonging to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But a decades-long separatist conflict simmers in the enclave.

Should the world price of oil continue to decline, Angola’s kleptocrats might find themselves in trouble, though they have probably stashed away most of their wealth abroad. It certainly hasn’t trickled down to the masses.

Is Finland in Danger from Russia?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian 

Last month, neutral Finland told one million reservists that they might be called up for military service. The country is concerned about Russian activity in the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia.  

For the past year, Russian aircraft have entered Finnish airspace, and a suspected Russian submarine was detected in its coastal waters near Helsinki in April. 

In turn the five Nordic countries – Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland -- issued a statement on cooperating on defence and cited the Russian “challenge” as their reason.

Finland shares a 1,340 kilometre border with Russia -- the longest of any European nation apart from Ukraine -- and its relations with its giant neighbour have never been happy. 

The country was part of the Russian Empire after tsar Alexander I wrested it from Sweden in a war in 1808-1809. That ended when Finland declared its independence in December 1917, following the Bolshevik takeover of Russia.

In August 1939, Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, which included a secret protocol relegating Finland to the Soviet sphere of interest. When Finland refused to allow the Soviet Union to build military bases on its territory, in order to safeguard Leningrad, the latter invaded on Nov. 30, 1939. 

The “Winter War” surprised the Soviets, as the Finns fought valiantly for months. Among the weapons they used against tanks was the so-called Molotov cocktail, which consists of a glass bottle semi-filled with flammable liquid, usually gasoline. The name was coined as an insulting reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.

But the war ended with Stalin obtaining 12 per cent of Finland’s total area. In a peace treaty signed on March 13, 1940, the Soviets acquired the Karelian Isthmus as well as a swath of land north of Lake Ladoga, providing a buffer for Leningrad. They also obtained four islands in the Gulf of Finland and part of the Salla region in northern Finland. 

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Finland joined in, to regain its lost territory. The “Continuation War” saw the Finnish army, under Marshal Baron Gustaf Mannerheim, advance to the outskirts of Leningrad by December 1941.

But in June 1944 the Soviets opened a powerful offensive against Finnish positions. The second war ended in an armistice in September 1944. In addition to the areas already lost, Finland also ceded Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean. This was confirmed by the peace treaty signed between Finland and the USSR in 1947.

But the Finns were lucky: they had managed to escape occupation by the Soviets and Mannerheim avoided trial as a war criminal.

During the Cold War, Finland was officially neutral, but remained under the influence of its larger neighbour during the long tenure of Urho Kekkonen as its leader between 1950 and 1982, a policy known as “Finlandization.” Even today, though members of the European Union, the Finns remain outside the NATO alliance.

Nepal is Famous for its Soldiers

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer 

The two major earthquakes that recently devastated Nepal brought massive destruction to the country. Some of it was centred around Gorkha, some 75 kilometres northwest of the capital, Kathmandu.

A former monarchy, the Gorkha region became the nucleus of what is now Nepal. Prithvi Narayan Shah unified the rival kingdoms of the area into a single cohesive nation in 1769, and his successors ruled Nepal until 2008. Under the Gorkha dynasty, Hinduism became the state religion of Nepal.

Gorkha gave its name to one of the most famous of British army formations, the Gurkhas; this year marks two centuries of their service to the British Crown. 

Their history goes back to a war between the British East India Company and the Gorkhas. Robert Clive’s decisive victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 firmly established British supremacy in eastern India. 

As the British expanded north from their base in Bengal, they faced repeated raids from the Gorkha kingdom. As a result, the Company declared war in 1814, but was surprised by the martial qualities displayed by their adversaries.

After two long and bloody campaigns, in which the British suffered heavy casualties, a peace treaty was signed at Sugauli in 1815. Under its terms Gurkhas were permitted to volunteer for service in the East India Company’s army and, after Britain took direct control of India in 1857, the British Indian Army. 

The British referred to all those who enlisted as Gurkhas regardless of their ethnic heritage or geographical origin in Nepal. Their ranks have been dominated by four ethnic groups, the Gurungs and Magars from central Nepal, and the Rais and Limbus from the east.

Some of the villages occupied by the Gurungs, the clan which provides the backbone of the Gurkha regiments, were almost destroyed in the first earthquake in April.

After 1857, Gurkha regiments saw service in Burma, Afghanistan, the North-East and North-West Frontiers of India, Cyprus, Malaya, China, and in various theatres of the First and Second World Wars.

During the 1914-1918 conflict more than 200,000 Gurkhas served with the British, while in 1939-1945 a total of 250,000 fought for Britain. Some 43,000 lost their lives.

As the distinguished American foreign correspondent John Gunther wrote in his 1939 book Inside Asia, they were “among the best troops in the Indian army.”

Following Indian independence in 1947, under a tripartite agreement between Britain, India and Nepal, the Gurkha regiments were split between Britain and India. Six Gurkha regiments joined the post-independence Indian Army, while four joined the British Army. 

There are also Gurkhas in the Malaysian army and the Singapore Police Force, both bodies formed from ex-British Army Gurkhas.

Since 1947, Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas, who today number 3,640 soldiers, have been deployed in the Falklands, Kosovo, and in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They also took part in UN peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Sierra Leone in 2000. 

Last year they were again sent to Sierra Leone to help contain Ebola.

On April 30, four contingents from the Brigade of Gurkhas gathered in London to remember those who sacrificed their lives for Britain over the past two centuries.

The soldiers marched from the Wellington Barracks past Buckingham Palace and along the Mall before arriving at the Gurkha memorial statue in Whitehall.

Russian Arms Sales in the Middle East

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Russia recently announced the lifting of its 2010 ban on the sale to Iran of five S-300 PMU-1anti-aircraft missile systems. Iran had ordered them in 2007, but Russia halted the sale under international pressure.

Israel fears Iran could supply the missile defense systems to Syria or Hezbollah, diluting Israel’s ability to defend itself.

In the past, the Soviet Union was a major arms supplier to the “anti-imperialist” Arab nations, especially Egypt and Syria, from the mid-1950s onward.

Beginning in 1955, the Egyptian armed forces depended heavily on the Soviet Union, which provided Egypt with grants and loans to pay for equipment, training, and the services of large numbers of military advisers. In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union began furnishing up-to-date MiG-21 fighter aircraft and T-54 tanks.

The overall amount of Soviet military aid to Egypt between the Sinai War of 1956 and the 1967 Six-Day War has been estimated at $1.5 billion.

By the early 1970s, the number of Soviet personnel in Egypt had risen to nearly 20,000. They participated in operational decisions and served at the battalion and sometimes even company levels.

However, following the death of Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1970, Anwar Sadat, his successor, expelled Soviet advisers two years later.

The years following the 1973 Yom Kippur War saw Cairo lessen its dependence on East bloc arms and today most of its supplies come from the United States and other western countries.

Syria, however, under both Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, continued to rely heavily on Soviet, and now Russian, military weapons. After the June 1967 War, Soviet military aid to Syria grew substantially and the Soviets established a sizable military presence there.

The Congressional Research Service noted in 2008 that Soviet military sales to Syria in the 1970s and 1980s were so extensive that they accounted for 90 per cent of all military arms exports from the Soviet Union, making the Soviet Union the main supplier of arms for Syria.

Russia remained Syria’s main arms supplier after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Moscow absolved Syria of $9.8 billion of its $13.4 billion debt in exchange for making Tartus a permanent Russian naval base in the Mediterranean.

Between 2000 and 2010, when Syria was subject to a European Union arms embargo, Russia and other states shipped at least $2.2 billion worth of arms and munitions to Damascus. Currently, 10 per cent of Russian global arms shipments head to Syria, and contracts are worth about $1.5 billion.

Syria in the past few years has obtained modern anti-tank and anti-air missile systems, including MiG fighter jets, tactical missile systems, and submarines.

Will Iran and Russia now develop a similar relationship? Recent sanctions against Russia may have driven the two countries closer together and the S-300 deal may be an effective way for Moscow to retaliate against the West.

Burundi Survives Yet Another Coup Attempt

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Although not as well-known as Rwanda, which suffered a genocide in 1994, Burundi, the country to its south, is almost its mirror image.

This small east African state of 10.5 million people has also seen endless violence between its Hutu majority (85 per cent) and Tutsi minority (14 per cent) since independence from Belgium in 1962.

Indeed, Cyprien Ntaryamira, its then president, was on the same airplane as his Rwandan counterpart, Juvénal Habyarimana, which was shot down on April 6, 1994 – the event that triggered the genocide in Rwanda.

In fact, the country’s first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by theTutsi-led military a year earlier, plunging the country into a brutal civil war that lasted 12 years, with a death toll of 300,000.

Of the eight people who have served as Burundi’s head of state, five have been either murdered or deposed in a coup.

In August of 2000, an interim peace agreement for Burundi was signed in Arusha, Tanzania, brokered by international leaders, including Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela. 

But not all of the warring parties agreed to the deal, which required power-sharing in government between the Hutu and Tutsi and their equal representation in the nation’s army. It took eight more years until the last rebel groups laid down their arms.

Burundi adopted a new constitution in 2005 in which both Hutus and Tutsis were guaranteed representation in government. It also established presidential term limits.

In August 2005 Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu rebel leader, was selected as president by parliamentarians  after his National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy, one of the former Hutu rebel groups, won parliamentary elections a few weeks earlier.

He was re-elected by popular vote in June 2010, but the election was boycotted by the opposition, which complained of fraud. Since then, opposition leaders have cited increasing attacks on their parties and the media.

This year, Nkurunziza announced he would seek re-election in the vote scheduled for June 26, though the constitution limits presidents to two terms. Demonstrators took to the streets to oppose his plans to run for a third term, but his supporters claim that his first term does not count toward the limit because he was not directly elected by voters in 2005. Government officials have made accusations that the demonstrations were in “Tutsi-dominated areas.”

On May13, a group of army officers attempted to overthrow the government while Nkurunziza was in Tanzania for talks with regional leaders. The coup failed, and many of its leaders, including Major-General Godefroid Niyombare, were arrested.

Niyombare, also an ex-Hutu rebel, was fired in February after he expressed objections to Nkurunziza seeking a third term. 

Armed soldiers continue to patrol the capital, Bujumbura, confronting hundreds of angry protesters calling on Nkurunziza to rescind his decision.