Friday , 29 March 2024
enfrit
The snapshot creates the stir after being published in a Malagasy capital city newspaper. It displays a foreign military, white skinned, standing alongside the forces summoned High Authority of Transition in Ivato to deal with Ravalomanana supportive demonstrators gathered in order to welcome the former president supposed to be back on Saturday, January 21st.

Foreign military support in favor of the HAT´s armed forces

This scoop did obviously not go down unnoticed and causes much controversy. In 2009, Marc Ravalomanana was heavily criticized for having hired foreign instructors in support of the police forces dealing with Rajoelinas demonstrators in the square of May 13th, just before the putsch in March. Since Ravalomanana´s fall back, the growing presence of French military “advisors” within the Malagasy army has been increasingly bothering many people. Their role has never been clearly defined… even more since some Malagasy officers revealed the presence of a French former officer, a retired general, on one of the rooftops surrounding the presidential palace of Ambohitsorohitra during the shootout of February 7th, 2009. What was then this French military presence? The presidential guard and Marc Ravalomanana were later on blamed for having arguably fired on the crowd. The Ravalomanana supportive group keeps holding on: lethal shots originated from different places but from the presidential guard in order to cause the highest possible number of casualties.