Madagascar Security Forces: Re-evaluating in Light of Another Ivato Mutiny

I recently read an interesting article on Madagascar's worsening Dahalo situation, which discussed the frequent battles between organized and heavily-armed cattle thieves and Madagascar's security forces. (Check out the article here). One of the interesting points made in the article dealt with the illegal activities associated with military members. This includes the small arms trade, illegal rosewood harvesting, and the aforementioned Dahalo groups. This article came out last week, and has since proven quite prescient with quotes like this:

ICG's Pigou says: "The military remain kingmakers - although the nature of their relationship with some politicians is symbiotic. Any settlement must somehow co-opt them, or find a way of ensuring they do not interfere. While they may not be able to provide a political solution or alternative by themselves, without their blessing one imagines that any political 'solution' would be on a shaky foundation.

As you may have heard, rogue military personnel stormed a base at the Ivato airport in Antananarivo this weekend, with the mutiny apparently put down by loyal forces. You can read (my favorite English-language Madagascar reporter) Alain Ilo niaina's article here.

Details about motives are slow to emerge, but this is at least the third major military mutiny since I started following Malagasy politics in 2008. The first was the Ravalomanana/Rajoelina crisis in 2009, culminating in rebellious officers backing the latter's coup, and the second was a similar Ivato mutiny in late 2010, which also had murky causes.

When looking at potential motives and causes of this repeated instability of the security forces, it is useful to refer to a source used by the Dahalo article above: The Small Arms Survey 2011: Ethos of Exploitation:
Insecurity and Predation in Madagascar. The Dahalo article quotes this report as follows:

"The gendarmerie is characterized by an inflated proportion of high-ranking officers, a meddling in domestic politics, and entrepreneurial enrichment - as is the army... [The gendarmerie] are ultimately an ineffective service on the island's vast territory," the SAS report said.

You can view a summary of the report for free here. It includes useful insight, such as:

Fifty years after Madagascar’s independence, the armed forces and the police have become part of the island’s security liabilities. In March 2009, President Marc Ravalomanana was not overthrown by a violent military coup, nor by a popular movement, as Andry Rajoelina’s current transitional government, the HAT, often claims. Ravalomanana had lost control of the state’s security apparatus, and it was the mutiny of non-commissioned officers that played a crucial role in the unconstitutional transfer of power to Rajoelina.

...the main rationale for a career in the military or gendarmerie is the pursuit of personal gain...
...Today, Madagascar’s security sector is characterized by severely underpaid and ill-equipped regular forces, far too many high ranking officers, and a mushrooming of special intervention units with questionable mandates...
...Collusion between elements of the country’s security sector and both foreign and domestic business interests has sharply intensified since the political crisis of early 2009......The state administration has... also turned a blind eye to the operations of highly aggressive indigenous private security companies that hunt down rural bandits...

This Ivato mutiny may have an affect on the planned negotiations between Ravalomanana and Rajoelina, which are supposed to happen before a SADC deadline for the crisis' resolution on July 31 (some Twitter commentators are already claiming it is some sort of conspiracy to prevent the meeting from happening). But these deadlines have been set before, and they have passed, and then been set again... Meanwhile, this conclusion from the SAS report sums up the urgency Madagascar faces:

Meanwhile, the majority of bilateral and multilateral development programmes remain suspended. Such work, it is said, requires a legitimate national partner. Just as in 2002, when the country was on the brink of civil war, the international community has adopted a wait-and-see strategy, sitting out the crisis and hoping for the return of an elected government so that its development cooperation can recommence.
Every additional day of Madagascar’s political impasse plays into the hands of criminal networks that continue to consolidate their position on the island. Until the crisis is resolved and the dysfunctional security sector is tackled head-on, economic predation, ecological degradation, armed violence, and severe poverty will continue to be the key characteristics of the world’s fourthlargest island.