Revolt at World's End

What happens when student mobs riot for university reform? These days, the cops are usually called in, heads are broken, and the riot leaders are jailed. There was a somewhat different ending last week to a student uprising in the Malagasy Republic--the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar and its dependencies. The youthful rebels not only got the promise of reform, but also brought down the government.

Crisis has been brewing for a long time on Madagascar, a never-never land that is known to its citizens as "the island at the end of the world." Wages were low, prices were rising, and food was in short supply--so short that the government's planning minister, Barthelemy Johasy, complained that it was "scandalous and aberrant" to see "long queues of people waiting to buy rice in a rice-producing country."

Even so, the placid, good-humored Malagasy people, an assortment of Malay-Polynesians and Africans, hardly complained until a year ago. Then, a violent revolt in the south against the regime of President Philibert Tsiranana left 800 dead. Tsiranana, an ailing autocrat who had ruled his country since its independence from France in 1960, responded by jailing 500 troublemakers. He also blamed it all on the U.S. embassy and expelled the American ambassador as well as five members of the embassy staff.

For good measure, Tsiranana also imprisoned his own vice president, Andre Resampa, who was becoming uncomfortably powerful. Earlier this year, Tsiranana was re-elected unopposed to a third term. In Tulear province, where the rebellion had taken place, the official ballot counters solemnly reported that not a single citizen had voted against him.

Last week trouble broke out again.

Mobs of university students, complaining that their academic program was still too French-oriented, surged through the streets of Tananarive, the capital. Tsiranana jailed 350 student leaders, but the rioting only grew worse. While policemen cheered them on, workers and civil servants burned down the plant of a pro-government newspaper and set fire to the city hall.

A shaken Tsiranana agreed to release the students (except for five who "died" in prison) and promised university reform. Then he placed Tananarive under military control. When the demonstrations persisted, he surrendered his powers to the army chief of staff, General Gabriel Ramanantsoa. But he did not resign, apparently hoping to retain his title and his palace.

Ramanantsoa, 62, a graduate of St.-Cyr, the French military academy, was obviously a popular choice. Before a cheering crowd in Tananarive, he promised to improve the lives of the country's peasants. "Among us military men," he declared, "the tradition is that you take care of the privates before you worry about the officers." The new government also announced that it was considering a national referendum to decide whether Tsiranana should be allowed to remain as President.

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