A grenade exploded overnight in a shop owned by a group linked to Madagascar’s President Marc Ravalomanana in the central town of Fianarantsoa, the Indian Ocean island state’s public safety minister said on Thursday.
”A grenade was thrown at around half past midnight into the Magro shop in Fianarantsoa,” said Public Safety Minister Lucien Razakanirina.
”Thankfully, no one was injured. The security guards had just left the shop to do their rounds when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The blast took place hours after a grenade exploded in the courtyard of the Antananarivo home of former president Albert Zafy, once close to Ravalomanana but who now leads an opposition party in Madagascar.
Zafy, who ruled the island nation off Africa’s southeastern coast from 1993 to 1996, said the grenade exploded at about 4.25am, causing damage to property but no injuries.
”It was a defensive grenade, therefore very powerful,” he said.
”Security guards immediately toured the property but they saw no one. The grenade must have been thrown over the wall of the villa.”
Razakanirina suspected the blast in Fianarantsoa was linked to the fact that all phone connections in the town were down for part of the night.
”There is a suspicious coincidence between the explosion and the lack of a phone network, either fixed or mobile, during the night,” he said.
”As a result, the police were unable to communicate with security at the shop and when police arrived on the scene, the guards shot at them, thinking they were assailants,” he said.
One policeman was injured in the melee, but not seriously, he added.
”Our inquiries are moving ahead swiftly and we have clues which should allow us very soon to arrest a lot of people,” Razakanirina said.
”There is a group of people who want to disrupt life in this country and lead others to believe that there is tension and problems, but all is well,” said Razakanirina, refusing to link the blast in Fianarantsoa to the one at Zafy’s home.
The Magro chain of wholesale shops belongs to Ravalomanana’s Tiko group.
Zafy, who was close to Ravalomanana when he came to power in 2002 after a protracted battle with his predecessor, Didier Ratsiraka, over which of the two men had won a presidential election in December 2001, now chairs the opposition National Reconciliation Committee (CNR).
”When you think of all the threats we have been subjected to since last year, it’s not that surprising” that the attack should have occurred, said Zafy.
”The regime persecutes us every day. They accuse the CNR of this and that, so I think they are not entirely clean,” he said.
”I don’t want to accuse anyone but we have our suspicions,” he added, calling a press conference on the issue for later on Thursday.
Antananarivo police Commissioner Albert Rakotondravao refused to link the blast at Zafy’s house to grenade explosions that rocked three cities around the island during last month’s Independence Day celebrations.
Thirty-three people were injured in late June when grenades were thrown into crowds celebrating the 44th anniversary of Madagascar’s independence from France in the towns of Toliara in the southwest, Mahajanga on the west coast and central Fianarantsoa.
While Security Minister Lucien Razakanirina said the independence day blasts were ”unconnected acts”, his ministry’s director of technical operations, Tantely Razafimanantsoa, said: ”These were not isolated acts, it is [a campaign of] destabilisation.” — Sapa-AFP