ANTANANARIVO — Envoys from three Madagascan rival political movements were marooned Wednesday in Mozambique when air authorities in Madagascar denied them a plane home, an aviation source said.
"We're still in Maputo, we're waiting for a solution to try to return to Madagascar," Ange Andrianarisoa, an aide to former president Didier Ratsiraka, told AFP in Antananarivo by telephone.
Andrianarisoa said that the Mozambican government, which is trying to help bring about an end to a political stalemate in Madagascar, "has taken us in hand and has put us in a hotel."
On Tuesday in Maputo, the three Madagascan movements agreed on the sharing out of posts in a transitional government, and left some key portfolios for the fourth faction, headed by strongman Andry Rajoelina, who was not in Maputo.
But Rajoelina reacted furiously to this arrangement on Tuesday and issued a statement in Antananarivo accusing his rivals of "high treason," because they allegedly "desire to remove Andry Rajoelina from the helm of the country."
His rivals had been due to fly back to Madagascar on a specially chartered Air Madagascar plane on Tuesday night, but this flight was not authorised by the civil aviation authority, a source in the authority told AFP.
"The Madagascan aviation authority "sent a note to ban all air exchanges with Mozambique," added the source, who asked not to be named.
Ousted president Marc Ravalomanana and former presidents Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy had ended five days of talks in the Mozambican capital with an agreement on how to divide ministries in a new government meant to lead the Indian Ocean island out of crisis.
Though they left portfolios for Rajoelina, who seized power with the backing of the army last March, the latter rejected the accord, apparently because it demoted him to the same level as other faction leaders in the proposed transitional administration.
Among those stuck in Maputo were consensus prime minister Eugene Mangalaza and the two co-presidents of the presidential council set up under a previous agreement in Addis Ababa in November.
Ratsiraka and Ravalomanana, who both live in exile, left the Mozambican capital after the negotiations, which were mediated by Mozambican former president Joaquim Chissano.
Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gfgv8NBbiZfjuw7YO2KCtYayMmHg
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