ANTANANARIVO: A Madagascar army contingent near the capital on Saturday called on soldiers and security units to \u201cjoin forces\u201d and \u201crefuse orders to shoot\u201d at protesters, while several thousand marched in the capital.
\nThe United Nations on Friday called on the Madagascar authorities to avoid unnecessary force against protesters, after several were injured in clashes with police the day before.
\n\u201cLet us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters,\u201d soldiers of a large military base in Soanierana district, on the outskirts of Antananarivo, said in a video released Saturday morning.
\nThey called on soldiers in other camps to \u201crefuse orders to shoot your friends.\u201d
\n\u201cClose the gates and await our instructions,\u201d they said. \u201cDo not obey orders from your superiors. Point your weapons at those who order you to fire on your comrades-in-arms, because they will not take care of our families if we die.\u201d
\nIt was unclear how many soldiers had joined the call on Saturday.
\nIn 2009, the military base in Soanierana led a mutiny in a popular uprising that brought the current president, Andry Rajoelina, to power.
\nThe newly appointed minister of the armed forces called on troops to \u201cremain calm\u201d in a press conference Saturday.
\n\u201cWe call on our brothers who disagree with us to prioritize dialogue,\u201d Minister General Deramasinjaka Manantsoa Rakotoarivelo said.
\n\u201cThe Malagasy army remains a mediator and constitutes the nation\u2019s last line of defense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANTANANARIVO: A Madagascar army contingent near the capital on Saturday called on soldiers and security units to \u201cjoin forces\u201d and \u201crefuse orders to shoot\u201d at protesters, while several thousand marched in the capital. The United Nations on Friday called on the Madagascar authorities to avoid unnecessary force against protesters, after several were injured in clashes …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88023,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88010\/revisions\/88023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}