Malagasy leader re-affirms membership to continental aviation body
Posted by African Press International on July 30, 2008
Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana confirmed here Tuesday that his country would remain in the Dakar-based Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), said the final communiqu of his one-day visit to Gabon.
President Ravalomanana announced the decision after meeting Tuesday morning with his Gabonese counterpart Omar Bongo Ondimba.
Leaders of ASECNA member countries appointed their Gabonese counterpart Bongo Ondimba, the longest serving African head of state, to mediate with the leaders of Madagascar and Senegal (Abdoulaye Wade) in order to bring them back into the organisation.
Both leaders announced that they would quit the institution, which manages the airspaces of 17 African countries supported by France.
Following heated discussions at the 48th session of the ASECNA ministerial committee held 12 July in Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), Madagascar rescinded its decision to quit the organisation, while Senegal said it would proceed with the move.
At the end of the ministerial session, Senegal was given two months to make a final decision.
Faced with the situation, member countries requested that the headquarters be moved if Senegal sticks to its guns.
The Malagasy leaders visit to Libreville comes a few days after he refused to receive the credentials of French ambassador Gildas Le Lidec, who has been posted in Antananarivo for six months.
French newspaper Le Monde reported that “it is unclear what prompted the ambassadors departure, with some arguing that President Marc Ravalomanana seems to dislike Le Lidec often being positioned in crisis-affected countries.”
Le Lidec was based in Kinshasa, the DR Congos capital, in October 2000 when Laurent-Desire Kabila was assassinated, and in Cote dIvoire from 2002 to 2005 during the rebellion against President Laurent Gbagbo, sources recalled.
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API/APA
