Madonna faces more protests in Malawi

Thu Nov 5 2009 16:40:15

Madonna's plans for a multi-million dollar girls academy in Malawi has faced protests by villagers.

The singer's charity, Raising Malawi, leased the land from the Malawi Government for the planned construction but now around 140 villagers are demanding more money.

The protesters could risk being arrested with District Commissioner for Lilongwe Charles Kalemba telling village chiefs : "If we cannot agree on this and if you cannot understand that this is government land, then I will have no choice but tell police to arrest you people for blocking development work on the site."

Mr Kalemba met with other senior government officials and Raising Malawi but all parties failed to reach an agreement in talks with representatives of the villagers in a bid to resolve the dispute.

The village chief, Chinkhota believes his people are getting a raw deal saying: "We are protesting because we feel government and Raising Malawi have not been fair, earlier agreements about how much they were supposed to pay us have been scrapped and now we are being told the land does not belong to us."

Madonna, who has adopted two children from the country, launched the construction of the school last month and pledged to build similar facilities in other countries if the project succeeds.

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