The
Malagasy Uprising (or the Madagascar Revolt) was a rebellion against the colonial rule of
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
by nationalists on the island of
MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
in 1947 and 1948. It was crushed by the French government, then headed by Socialist
Paul RamadierPaul Ramadier was a prominent French politician of the Third and Fourth Republics. Mayor of Decazeville starting in 1919, he served as the first Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic in 1947. On 10 July 1940, he voted against the granting of the full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who...
. 80,000 to 90,000 people were killed, according to certain sources. More recently, however, historians have suggested the much lower figure of 30,000 to 40,000.
The MDRM uprising
The
Mouvement Democratique de la Renovation Malagache (MDRM), whose objective was independence for Madagascar, formed in 1946 in response to the island becoming a French overseas territory. On March 29, 1947, Malagasy nationalist "tribesmen" revolted in the eastern part of the island. The rebels gained control of one third of the island.
The colonial authorities reacted violently to the rebellion, in particular during the first six weeks, engaging in several occasions in war crimes . On 6 May 1947, in
MoramangaMoramanga is a city in Madagascar.Between the capital city Antananarivo and the east coast. The name Mora-manga literally means “cheap mangoes”. The city of Moramanga has an important place in the history of Madagascar. It was in Moramanga, on the night of the 29th of March 1947 that the Malagasy...
, soldiers machine-gunned MDMR officials detained in wagons, killing between 124 to 160, mostly unarmed MDRM activists. In
MananjaryMananjary is the name of:*Mananjary, Fianarantsoa, fivondronana in the province of Fianarantsoa*Mananjary River, in southern Madagascar...
, hundreds of Malagasy were killed, among them 18 women and a group of prisoners thrown from planes. Other massacres of 35 to 50 people occurred in
FarafanganaFarafangana is a city on the south-east coast of Madagascar approximately 400 kilometres south of the capital Antananarivo.Farafangana is the capital of the Atsimo-Atsinanana region....
,
ManakaraManakara is a city in Madagascar.It is the capital of the Vatovavy-Fitovinany region, in the province of Fianarantsoa.The city is located at the east coast and has a small port. It is the endpoint of the FCE railway that connects the city of Fianarantsoa with the sea...
, and Mahanoro.
Five North African regiments arrived in Madagascar at the end of July 1947, enabling the French to take the initiative. However, French army strength remained modest: 16,000 soldiers at the beginning of 1948. This increased to as much as 30,000 later that year. The French strategy followed the "oil spot" method of General
Joseph GallieniJoseph Simon Gallieni was a French soldier, most active as a military commander and administrator in the French colonies and finished his career during the First World War. He was made Marshal of France posthumously in 1921...
, the first governor of the island (1896-1905). The only novelty was the use of several old
Junkers Ju 52The Junkers Ju 52 was a German transport aircraft manufactured from 1932 to 1945. It saw both civilian and military service during the 1930s and 1940s. In a civilian role, it flew with over 12 air carriers including Swissair and Lufthansa as an airliner and freight hauler...
s as bombers, which demoralized the rebel forces and their supporters. The last rebel stronghold, named
Tsiazombazaha ("That which is inaccessible to Europeans"), fell in November 1948.
Trials and executions
From July to October 1948, the French organized in Tananarive a large, public trial of the uprising, charging 77 officials of the MDRM — whom, for the most part, had nothing to do in the revolt . Ravoahangy, a charismatic leader who had not engaged himself in the uprising, was sentenced to
deathCapital punishment in France existed officially from the Middle Ages until it was abolished in 1981. The last executions took place in 1977, by guillotine, which had been the only legal execution method since the French Revolution. This was the last execution in the then European Community...
, with Raseta and four other insurgents . In July 1949, these convictions were commuted to life sentences .
In fact, the leaders responsible for the uprising have never been conclusively identified. Although the MDRM leadership consistently maintained its innocence, the party was outlawed by the French colonial rulers.
Beside this important "trial of the parliamentarian"s" military courts relayed by civilian courts condemned 5,765 Malagasys (865 by military courts and 4,891 by civilians ). 44 death penalties were handed out by the military courts, but finally only 8 of them executed, while 16 of the 129 death penalties pronounced by the civilian courts were enacted . Through amnesties and remissions, all prisoners — except the leaders — were freed in 1957 .
Casualties
In 1948-1949, the French authorities alleged that 8,000 to 10,000 persons had been killed. In reality, this claim resulted from military estimates. The French Army calculated that 80,000 Malagasy escaped to their control in the insurgent zone. Therefore, in December 1948, the high commissioner
Pierre de ChevignéPierre de Chevigné was a French politician, who was the Minister of Defence for the French 5th Republic between May 14 and June 1, 1958....
boasted in the radio that not a single square centimetre of the island escaped to the French military control, leading to the assertion that the 80,000 missing people were all dead . Chevigné blamed this high number on the Malagasy leaders of the insurrection .
Historian Jean Fremigacci, however, has recently contested this estimate, highlighting the difficulties of historical research on the matter (due to dispersion of
archiveAn archive is a collection of historical records, and the location in which the collection is kept. Archives contain records which have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime....
s, etc.) The disappearance of 80,000 people (2% of the population) would have been felt on the demographic curve, but
population growthPopulation growth is the change in population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population using "per unit time" for measurement...
began again and even accelerated from 1946 to 1949 . The demographist
Alfred SauvyAlfred Sauvy was a demographer, anthropologist and historian of the French economy. Sauvy coined the term Third World in reference to the underdeveloped countries in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur on August 14, 1952...
spoke of an "innovative percussion" (
percussion novatrice) concerning this event: the colonial administration then engaged important means, in 1948-1949, in the struggle against
malariaMalaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by a eukaryotic protist of the genus Plasmodium. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria, killing between one and...
.
In 1951, the Minister of Oversea Territories
François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the Socialist Party . First elected during the May 1981 presidential election, he became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of...
advanced before the National Assembly the number of 15,000 deaths . Historian Fremigacci now evaluates the casualties to 30,000 to 40,000 deaths, among which 10,000 were accountable to violent death, and the other to diseases and
malnutritionMalnutrition is the insufficient, excessive or imbalanced consumption of nutrients.A number of different nutrition disorders may arise, depending on which nutrients are under or overabundant in the diet....
striking the population residing in insurgents' zones . According to him, "there have been
war crime.War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns...
s in Madagascar in 1947 but no will of extermination. ."
A trauma
The Uprising and its repression have caused still present traumas in the Malagasy population. On one hand, many Malagasy fought between themselves . On the other hand, the leaders who proclaimed Madagascar's independence in 1960 were issued from the Padesm, a political party favoured by the colonial administration after the crushing of the revolt .
During an official visit to Madagascar on 21 July 2005, French President
Jacques ChiracJacques René Chirac served as the President of France from 17 May 1995 until 16 May 2007. As President he also served as an ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d'honneur. Chirac was the second-longest serving President of France , behind François Mitterrand...
qualified as "unacceptable" the repression of the Malagasy uprising.
Further reading
- Philip M. Allen and Maureen Covell: Historical Dictionary of Madagascar, 2. ed. Lanham, Md. [etc.] : Scarecrow Press, 2005
- Jennifer Cole: Forget colonialism? : sacrifice and the art of memory in Madagascar, Berkeley [etc.] : Univ. of California Press, 2001
- Jean Eugène Duval: La révolte des sagaies – Madagascar 1947,Paris: Harmattan, 2002, 364p.
- Jacques Tronchon : L' insurrection malgache de 1947 : essai d'interprétation historique, Fianarantsoa : Éd. Ambozontany Fianarantsoa [etc.], 1986
External links