MADAGASCAR: STALLED DIALOGUE (CON'T)

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANTANANARIVO 000113


E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/20/2014
TAGS: MA PGOV PREL PINR
SUBJECT: MADAGASCAR: STALLED DIALOGUE (CON'T)

Classified By: Ambassador Niels Marquardt for reasons 1.4 d and e


1. (C) Summary: A dangerous game of cat-and-mouse over
launching dialogue between President and Mayor continues
here, with each side professing its willingness to meet
immediately -- and yet no meeting taking place. SADC
"Troika" ministers were here today to see both sides, and the
President also received the FFKM Church Council; he told both
sides he was "ready today" to meet the Mayor -- as long as
the Mayor suspended all demonstrations while dialogue took
place. Just as occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Mayor
got the message too late, after he had already told his
loyalists on the public square to move toward ministries for
another sit-in -- or worse. Poor communications among the
main Malagasy actors -- President, Mayor, and Church -- are
preventing real-time agreement on constructive next steps --
while providing convenient fig leaves behind which both side
can hide as it constantly recalculates its relative position.
Nonetheless, real-world pressures are mounting on both sides
to talk: demonstrations slated to start in the provinces may
be beyond the control of either protagonist, and the
military's stated willingness to "fulfill its duties" is
another factor pushing them together. End Summary.


2. (C) Ravalomanana asked me on Tuesday morning to "get the
Mayor to agree to dialogue and to suspend demonstrations
while we talk." I relayed the message to the Mayor on
Wednesday morning, when he explained that he had been busy on
Tuesday running his demonstrations and thus could not answer
or return calls. The Mayor agreed to immediate dialogue with
the President and to "send my people home" from the public
square. When I sought to relay this message back to the
President, it was his turn to be unreachable, not just to me
but also to his key ministers. He left Tana unexpectedly on
Wednesday morning for an overnight trip to Antsirabe with the
recently-appointed Army Chief, and returned this morning.
(Presumably his mission was to get closer to him and other
top brass and prevent, or at least delay, the military's
stated willingness to intervene.) While the President may
have decided rationally that the Antsirabe mission had
priority yesterday, it appeared to me that he had
re-calculated (yet again) and decided that dialogue was not
timely yesterday. The Mayor, on the other hand, seemed to
have reached the opposite conclusion.


3. (C) Foreign Minister Ranjeva told me this morning after
meeting the President and relaying my message that the
President was indeed open to dialogue, as long as
demonstrations would be suspended. However, the President
did not offer a precise time for the dialogue, which was what
the Mayor was looking for when I relayed the message back to
him. Another game of cat-and-mouse telephone-tag ensued,
this time involving both the visiting SADC "Troika" and the
FFKM Church Council, both of which had meetings this morning
with the President and reportedly passed to him the Mayor's
willingness both to meet and to suspend demonstrations as
soon as he had a firm appointment. As I write this, there
may/may be a firm appointment in the works, but the FFKM --
who would be the likely organizer of the event -- is guarding
its information tightly. Over 10,000 demonstrators, who
evidently were not asked by the Mayor to go home, are
currently (1600) engaged in an uneasy physical stand-off with
the military at various ministries in the Anosy area of town.


4. (C) Meanwhile, pressures for dialogue mount, in a useful
(but dangerous) way. Six cotier opposition leaders called on
me this morning to say that demonstrations will start today
in Tamatave and spread to other provincial cities like
Tulear. While they said they support TGV (for now),they
repeated that the "problems are national" and cannot be
solved by a bilateral dialogue between the two Merina
leaders. Indeed, TGV told me yesterday that one of the
factors pushing him to dialogue now was his perception that
provincial disturbances would be entirely beyond his ability
to control -- and are imminent. He also mentioned the recent
military statements as a second reason to act now.


5. (C) Looking at what comes next, it is unlikely that the
failure to meet so far is exclusively or mainly due to poor
communications. This is a factor as the Malagasy refuse to
speak directly with one another and insist on inefficient
message-passing through third parties which means that
critical opportunities have been missed repeatedly. However,
a more critical factor is that each side is constantly
re-evaluating its position vis-a-vis the other, and these
changing calculations continually alter their position on the
wisdom or necessity of dialogue. TGV seems genuine in his
(current) desire for talks. The President continues to have
many reasons to think he can outlast TGV, but the daily
confrontation in the streets brings huge risk of renewed
bloodshed. His time spent yesterday bonding with his new
CHOD may or may not have convinced him that he needs to act
more quickly. In any case, what has been missing is a clear
demonstration of presidential leadership: an unambiguous
signal not just of a general willingness to meet, but a
concrete, public offer of a specific time and place for it to
happen. We will push in the next 24 hours for that missing
element.


MARQUARDT