INL SA

Minister of Defence Lindiwe Sisulu is expected to travel to Madagascar with Zambian and Tanzanian ministers to try to revive peace talks.

Peter Fabricius

A South African cabinet minister, probably Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, will lead a delegation, which also includes Zambian and Tanzanian ministers, to Madagascar this week to try to revive the moribund peace process on the island state.

These three countries make up the troika of the politics, defence and security organ of the SADC which South Africa has just taken the chair of.

South Africa has decided, apparently, to use its position to fix the Madagascar problem. The SADC suspended the country two years ago after the current leader, Andry Rajoelina, seized power from elected President Marc Ravalomanana in a military coup.

The SADC appointed former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano to mediate negotiations among the Malagasy to return the country to constitutional democracy.

He first tried to do that through broadly inclusive negotiations among all the main political parties.

Transition

But when Rajoelina rejected those, Chissano agreed to a “road map” out of the crisis which heavily favoured Rajoelina, leaving him in charge of the country during a transition – thus enabling him to manipulate the results of an election in which he could run.

His main rival Ravalomanana, meanwhile, would not be allowed to return from exile in South Africa until after the elections, and then only if the newly elected government deemed the political and security environment right for his return.

Ravalomanana’s political movement, and the two others which had been participating in Chissano’s original negotiations, rejected the road map, as did large parts of civil society. But eight other parties endorsed the road map, though these were widely regarded as artificial fronts for Rajoelina.

At an SADC summit in Sandton in June, regional leaders also rejected the road map, apparently to save Chissano’s face.

Yet they made it clear – or so it seemed to the South African government – that Rajoelina would have to allow Ravalomanana back to Madagascar immediately and unconditionally, to participate in the proposed elections.

But SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salomao – a compatriot of Chissano – seemed to have other ideas. He wrote a letter to Malagasy and SADC leaders interpreting the Sandton decision as meaning Ravalomanana could only return to Madagascar when conditions were right.

That interpretation has helped Rajoelina to continue to insist that Ravalomanana may not return.

Meanwhile the island is apparently rumbling again as the stalemate continues, with rumours of new coups.

Clearly the island is politically adrift and the SADC wants to put it back on to a firm course towards proper elections. But the SADC’s precise mission this week is unclear. Ravalomanana’s people hear that the SADC delegation wants to assess the security situation. They fear this implies the ministers will be pursuing the original Chissano road map’s intention that Ravalomanana may only return to Madagascar when security conditions are right.

But they also hear that the SADC ministers want to set up a permanent SADC presence in Madagascar to try to keep the talks under tighter control.

Either way, this looks like an SADC attempt to assert itself in Madagascar, against other interests on the island.

Ravalomanana’s people and others believe France is encouraging Rajoelina to keep Ravalomanana offshore.

They hope the disenchantment with France because of its military interventions in Ivory Coast and Libya – perceived in Pretoria and many other African governments to have been excessively aggressive – may have finally prompted the SADC to put Rajoelina – and France – in their place.

Yet, on the island, observers warn that if the SADC insists Rajoelina should allow Ravalomanana back, he might turn his back on the SADC and throw in his lot with the Indian Ocean Commission, made up also of Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles and, significantly, France.

Does the SADC have enough to keep Rajoelina and Madagascar tethered to the mainland?

Perhaps this is the real question now.