75 years ago, on March 29, 1947, around 10 p.m., Malagasy insurgents attacked the French military barracks of Moramanga in the center of the country. Their goal, to take up arms and spread the revolt everywhere on the island to drive the colonizers out of Madagascar. This bloody insurrection will be harshly repressed for more than a year and will only really end when the main insurgent leaders are captured in September 1948.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tetaud
On the occasion of the anniversary of the insurrection of March 29, 1947, RFI returns to the premises, fallen into oblivion, of this insurrection, with one of the greatest specialists of this period of the colonial history of Madagascar.
During the Second World War, when Madagascar, a French colony, was forced to participate in ” the war effort By sending 15,000 Malagasy skirmishers to fight in Europe, two secret societies, the Jina and the Panama, were formed on the Big Island. Both have one and the same goal.
“Their objective is to demand the independence of Madagascar through armed struggle.informs Jeannot Rasoloarison, professor in the history department of the University of Antananarivo. In 1946, the militants of these two secret societies joined the ranks of the MDRM party, the Movement of the Democratic Party of Malagasy Renovation which wanted the independence of Madagascar. Within this party, there are 2 opposing tendencies: one for the peaceful struggle, the other for the armed struggle.. »
Between 30 and 40,000 dead
This armed struggle is only supported by a minority of the party’s 500,000 members. However, this small fringe will resonate with small farmers on the East Coast, victims of abuse and injustice during and after the war.
” Why the East Coast? It is because there are small settlers who have made the Malagasy peasants suffer through free labor, which has been called requisition and corvées. And the peasants want to get rid of these small settlers. The large settlers were those who had large agricultural areas. The large settlers employed a hired workforce. Whereas the small settlers exploited the peasants and it is this exploitation that the peasants did not accept. And that’s what they challenged through this armed struggle. »
It is thanks to this taking up of arms by the small peasants that this insurrection against colonial domination was able to see the light of day. Historians estimate between 30 and 40,000 the number of deaths caused by the repression. Independence will only be obtained 13 years later.