Madagascar - Political ViolenceMadagascar - Political Violence

Although Madagascar has a history of coups and political instability, it does not have a significant history of political violence. There have been occasional demonstrations and strikes in the urban areas over the past few years, but most of these were monitored and resolved without incident. The last incidents of politically motivated violence of some scale occurred during the 2009 coup d’état, when security forces opened fire on demonstrators. A number of installations belonging to TIKO, the agribusiness group owned by the then President Marc Ravalomanana, were destroyed in actions during and immediately following the coup. Since then, there have been some isolated incidents of violence but no widespread civil unrest.

In December 2014, employees of a sugar factory in the western city of Morondava clashed with security forces and subsequently looted and burned down the facility after a month-long strike resulting from a labor dispute with the factory's Chinese managers. Local media reported up to seven deaths and approximately $80 million in damages from the incident. The same month also saw the looting and burning of the local branch office of the state-owned electric and water utility in Tamatave, the country's principal port city on the east coast. Local media reported one death and seven seriously injured as the result of clashes between security forces and the demonstrators, who were allegedly dissatisfied with load shedding and poor service delivery from the utility.

Meanwhile, cattle-rustling has become an increasing problem in the rural south of the country over the past few years. Armed bandits have become increasingly organized and brazen, launching raids resulting in the thefts of thousands of heads of cattle while inflicting wanton violence, leaving hundreds of civilians and security forces dead. The situation has prompted the deployment of successive security force operations that have resulted in limited success. The last of these operations concluded in December 2015, and a new special anti-cattle-rustling unit has since been created. The problem has persisted, and the new unit has already been engaged in armed clashes with bands of cattle-rustlers. The unrest, however, does not appear to be motivated by anything other than plunder, and is likely to remain localized to the rural southern regions of the country.