Peace talks between Madagascar’s elected President Marc Ravalomanana and political rival Didier Ratsiraka in the Senegalese capital Dakar broke up on Sunday without agreement.
However two of the brokers of the negotiations, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Gabonese counterpart Omar Bongo, said a plan for ending the political crisis on the Indian Ocean island had been drawn up after two days of discussions.
The protagonists in the crisis stemming from contested results of a December presidential election did not sign any document because their “positions on certain points were still far apart,” Wade said.
But Bongo refused to consider the discussions a failure. “For us, this meeting was a success,” Bongo told reporters, noting that the United States had been trying for years to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He said the plan — which calls for fresh parliamentary elections to be held by the end of the year or at the latest by May 2003 — would be put to a special committee of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) charged with the prevention and management of conflicts.
“These elections will enable the Malagasy people, through a popular consultation, to designate a new majority and a new legitimacy whose consequences would have to be faced,” the plan said.
Under the plan, Ravalomanana would appoint a transitional prime minister who would represent the country until the elections. A “supreme transition council” and an independent national electoral commission would be set up.
Bongo said a meeting of the OAU committee would be called as soon as possible, before an OAU summit scheduled to be held in South Africa next month.
Wade said there was no “instant” solution to a crisis such as the one that has rocked Madagascar. “We Africans have made a lot of progress, we have adopted a position, we are asking the OAU to adopt it,” he went on.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, current head of the OAU, had said on June 5 that he would call a special summit of the pan-African body if the negotiations on Madagascar failed.
The talks were dubbed “Dakar II” after a first round which ended on April 18 with the signing of a short-lived reconciliation agreement between Ratsiraka and Ravalomanana.
The two men have divided the large island off the east African coast into rival camps since a hotly disputed presidential election in December. Almost all the armed forces have gone over to Ravalomanana, but pro-Ratsiraka governors control most provinces.
The Dakar talks took place as soldiers loyal to Ravalomanana — who was sworn in last month on the basis of a recount of the election results under the previous reconciliation accord — were locked in a standoff in northern Madagascar with elite forces backing Ratsiraka.
Ratsiraka, a former Marxist military ruler, has refused to accept defeat at the polls and quit power.
Their dispute escalated into its most serious military clash last week, when around 15 people, including four civilians, were killed in battles for the town of Sambava, in the north of the island.
Ravalomanana’s troops captured the town in a vanilla-producing province, where harvesting is to begin next month, but the island’s economy has been crippled by an embargo Ratsiraka has imposed on Madagascar’s highland capital Antanananarivo.
Military leaders loyal to Ravalomanana have threatened to lift this blockade by force. – AFP