{"id":7227,"date":"2012-01-20T20:57:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/ousted-madagascar-leader-plans-return-on-saturday\/"},"modified":"2012-01-20T20:57:08","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:57:08","slug":"ousted-madagascar-leader-plans-return-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ousted-madagascar-leader-plans-return-on-saturday\/","title":{"rendered":"Ousted Madagascar leader plans return on Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Ravalomanana vows to return despite arrest threat<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Crisis has stunted economy of major metals producer<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Jan 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Ousted Madagascar<br \/>\nleader Marc Ravalomanana said he would return home on Saturday<br \/>\nafter nearly three years in exile and still considered himself<br \/>\nthe rightful president of the Indian Ocean island.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a news conference in Johannesburg on Friday,<br \/>\nRavalomanana said he did not fear calls for his arrest that<br \/>\nprevented a similar plan to return almost a year ago.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have not committed any of the crimes of which I am<br \/>\naccused by the illegal regime,&#8221; he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Exiled in South Africa since he was toppled in a military<br \/>\ncoup in 2009, Ravalomanana was sentenced in absentia to life in<br \/>\nprison for the killings of demonstrators by elite troops in the<br \/>\nrunup to his removal.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Madagascar&#8217;s current leader, Andry Rajoelina, has said the<br \/>\nreturn of the former president risked stoking tensions and a<br \/>\nsenior cabinet minister said in September that Ravalomanana<br \/>\nwould be arrested on arrival.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That has not deterred Ravalomanana. &#8220;Any attempt to arrest<br \/>\nme will be unlawful,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Madagascar was plunged into crisis in 2009 when Rajoelina,<br \/>\nwith the support of dissident soldiers, took power after weeks<br \/>\nof often violent protests, prompting Ravalomanana to flee to<br \/>\nSouth Africa.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The coup plunged Madagascar into a crisis with several<br \/>\nWestern nations freezing aid and the African Union imposing<br \/>\nsanctions on the president, diplomatically isolating the world&#8217;s<br \/>\nfourth largest island.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The uncertainty has stunted the economy, a major source of<br \/>\nnickel and cobalt and world&#8217;s biggest vanilla producer, but<br \/>\npoliticians have agreed a road map aiming for elections later<br \/>\nthis year and will allow Rajoelina to stay in power until then.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Lisa Laventure; Writing by Jon Herskovitz;<br \/>\nEditing by Ben Harding)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Ravalomanana vows to return despite arrest threat * Crisis has stunted economy of major metals producer JOHANNESBURG Jan 20 (Reuters) &#8211; Ousted Madagascar leader Marc Ravalomanana said he would return home on Saturday after nearly three years in exile and still considered himself the rightful president of the Indian Ocean island. Speaking at a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-7227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}