Monja Jaona

Madagascar for the Malagasy (MONIMA) National liberation and anti-colonial movements

1910–1994 ○ Natural death

Southern nationalist who joined the revolutionary front, then walked out over fraudulent elections

Denouncing the rigged vote, he declared "the Malagasy people had not elected Ratsiraka for the next seven years."

A Malagasy nationalist politician from the Antandroy people of the south. After organizing the secret Jiny society and surviving imprisonment for his role in the 1947 uprising, he founded MONIMA in 1958 to champion Madagascar's poor southern peasants against Tsiranana's pro-French regime, leading the 1971-72 rotaka protests that drove him from power. Joining Ratsiraka's revolutionary front, he later denounced the 1977 elections as fraudulent and withdrew, becoming the Second Republic's foremost opposition leader.

Activities and affiliations

1958–1994

Madagascar for the Malagasy (MONIMA)Main
Political and party leadership

Career Timeline

1943organized the secret society Jiny
1946–1950imprisoned by the colonial administration for Jiny affiliation
1958founded MONIMA (Madagascar for the Malagasy)
1959–1961mayor of Toliara
1971–1972led the rotaka protests that drove President Tsiranana from power
1976–1977joined the FNDR (December 1976), then denounced the 1977 elections as fraudulent and withdrew in June
1982ran against Ratsiraka, denounced fraud, placed under house arrest
1989–1992leading figure in the protests that forced Ratsiraka's resignation and multiparty elections

Related historical events

1972–1975Madagascar’s military transition and socialist Second RepublicMONIMA leader and regime opponentHe joined the FNDR in December 1976 without applying, then denounced the 1977 local elections as fraudulent and pulled MONIMA out of the front in June 1977.

Arbitrary detention, 1980-83, and the UN Human Rights Committee complaint

Jaona was detained in December 1980 and released on 9 March 1981. He stood in the presidential election of 7 November 1982 against the incumbent, Didier Ratsiraka, lost, and publicly denounced the result as fraudulent, calling for new elections. On 15 December 1982 he was arrested again and, contrary to the official announcement of house arrest, taken to the military camp of Kelivondrake, 600 km south of Tananarive, and held without being told the grounds for his arrest, for an unlimited period and with no possibility of being brought before a judge. He staged two hunger strikes, from 10 to 14 January and from 15 to 23 January 1983, and in July 1983 he was transferred to a hospital at Mahitzy, where he needed a cataract operation and where even his wife was refused authorisation to visit him. His lawyer, Maitre Eric Hammel, submitted a communication to the UN Human Rights Committee on 30 December 1982 alleging breaches of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee declared the case admissible on 6 April 1984 and, at its meeting of 1 April 1985, upheld the complaints concerning articles 9 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 18 (paragraph 1) and 19 (paragraph 1). The Malagasy government contested admissibility on the ground that domestic remedies had not been exhausted, but supplied neither the court orders the Committee requested nor any substantive reply to the allegations. Jaona was released on 15 August 1983 and elected to the National People's Assembly for a Tananarive constituency on 28 August 1983. His counsel treated the detention not as an isolated episode but as a recurring administrative police measure, imposed by decree of the Minister of the Interior for an unlimited period without indictment, investigation or judicial inquiry; the release of March 1981 had lasted only 21 months before the next arrest. Jaona ran again in the 1989 presidential election, taking about 4 percent, and was wounded by police during a confrontation at Fiadanana in March 1992.