Some 122 states have ratified the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, among them 34 African countries. However, two cases against current African leaders have focused attention on growing criticism that the court has an apparently exclusive focus on Africa. In one case, in March 2011, the ICC charged Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta for instigating election violence in 2007. The court dropped the charges in December 2014 when the prosecutor and judges accused the Kenyan government of failing to cooperate with it in good faith. In the other case the court issued an arrest…
Annelie Rozeboom
Madagascar’s troubled waters Overfishing and destructive methods are threatening the island nation’s coastline The fishermen in Sarodrano, a coastal village in south-west Madagascar, complain about their steadily declining catches. “On a good day, I used to catch 15kg of fish,” says Melau Feaucre Johanison, a 39-year-old fisherman. “But if it is too stormy, we don’t catch anything. There are some months when there is no fish at all.” Two widows, Josiany Celestinym, 60, and Vance Leonce, 41, are gleaners. They forage the shallow reefs at low tide looking for octopus, oysters and sea cucumbers. They also complain that the oysters…
Madagascar’s education: less than zero by Annelie Rozeboom Madagascar once boasted one of the finest school systems in French-speaking Africa. In the late 1990s, its students scored among the highest marks in maths and French standardised tests compared to the continent’s other Francophone countries. When results began to dip in 2003 after a 30-year decline in investment, the government launched a massive school improvement programme. But the 2009 coup halted these reforms. Since then, the country’s education and economy have been nose-diving. Former President Marc Ravalomanana noticed the falling school scores in 2003 and launched nationwide education reforms. His campaign…
Children at risk in Madagascar With Madagascar’s political crisis over, children may finally get more protection Harivola Rasoananahary, 13, sits on a bunk bed in a shelter in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, and stares at her feet. She is small for her age and shy. “My sister, who lives in Antananarivo and sells things on the street, brought me with her,” she says. “She promised my mother I would be able to study in the city,” she says. Once in the capital, however, her sister and brother-in-law forced her to do domestic work for them. Her brother-in-law also started to abuse…
Madagascar’s game of thrones For decades the neutral image of Madagascar’s army was a well-cultivated mirage The day after Marc Ravalomanana, former president of Madagascar, returned from five years of exile, the army broke down the door to his house in the capital, arrested him and whisked him to an army base in the island’s extreme north. The incident last October was a blunt reminder that the army is still deeply enmeshed in Madagascan politics. “The fact that the army can just sweep in, break down the door and arrest someone, shows how powerful they still are,” said historian Stephen…
Madagascar’s economy has experienced mixed fortunes since the country’s independence from France in 1960. Times of growth and modest prosperity coincided with liberal economic policies, but they were regularly interspersed with periods of stagnation and decline during socialist experiments and political instability. Currently the country is experiencing difficult times again, writes Annelie Rozeboom. Marie Angele Rafaravavy, a 50-year-old mother of four, used to earn about $2 a day selling embroidery in one of Madagascar’s tourist markets. She also sold tablecloths and clothes decorated with colourful Malagasy dancers to an association that supplied shops and export companies, adding about another dollar…
Madagascar’s sacred fields Forgotten land reforms in Madagascar have picked up new steam Mamy Safidison, 25 years old, and his brother Handry Njarasoa, 26, may not share the same last name—common for siblings in Madagascar—but they do share a piece of land in the village of Merimandroso in the northern highlands of this island nation. They never doubted their ownership of this plot because their grandfather had carved the Safidison family name on a rock in the family cemetery, indicating that the tomb and one hectare of surrounding rice fields belonged to their clan. But when the descendants of a…
Madagascar: radio in the eye of the storm by Annelie Rozeboom Madagascar’s journalists have never worked in an impartial climate. But the island, the world’s fourth largest and exposed to tropical cyclones, experienced a political tornado in March 2009 when the military staged a coup, toppled the democratically elected Marc Ravalomanana and replaced him with a disk jockey, Andry Rajoelina. Mr Rajoelina’s rule heralded the complete collapse of an already frail democratic system. Checks and balances disappeared when he dismissed the parliament. Judicial independence deteriorated. He silenced many critical voices in the press, radio and television. The communication ministry has…
