been taken and results achieved in reducing the rate of infant mortality and and whether measures had been taken to protecting maternal and child health: investigate the loss of life and alleged extrajudicial executions resulting from military activities, in particular during operations in April 1988, to bring those responsible to justice and to prevent any recurrence of such incidents. Further information was also requested regarding the situation of persons who had been sentenced to death. 540. In his reply, referring to the events in 1988, the representative of the State party said that the army had been called upon by the civil authorities to participate in those operations and that there had been no summary The army had been reluctant to participate in the operations, executions. which had resulted in battlesbetween cattle thieves and security forces and which had caused the death of about a dozen police officers since 1915. the army had also, in certain cases, been called upon to separate Furthermore, groups from rival vjilages that had been fighting one another. Every effort had been msde tti identify persons responsible for the exCes6e6, and several hundred leaders of decentralised communities who had incurred collective responsibility for such excesses had been brought to trial and given severe prison sentences. There had also been several cases where the Government had been obliged to imprison an entire village the inhabitants of which had acknowledged their responsibility. 541. Since 195G, no death sentence had been there was a continuing debate regarding the Although general measures were being taken mortality and to protect maternal and child due to lack of resources. carried out in Madagascar, and abolition of the death penalty. to reduce the rate of infant health, no progress had been made 542. With regard to that issue, members of the Committee wished to know whether there had been any complaints of torture and/or cruel or inhuman treatment against public officials and, if so, whether those guilty of such offences had been punished: to what extent the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were complied with and whether they were made known and accessible to prisoners; what measures were being taken to address the problem of prison overcrowdingr whether consideration was being given by Madagascar to acceding to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, whether prison overcrowding had ever resulted in the death of prisoners: what remedies were available in cases of torture: and whether the Government had carried out any educational campaigns against torture. 543. In his reply, the representative of the State party emphasised that his Government had received no complaints of torture or cruel or inhuman treatment against public officials and that a hierarchical surveillance structure had been established in prisons with regard to prison guards. Legal action against torture came within the framework of general legal procedures and there was no specific legislation in that respect. No specific educational measures were being taken to make the population more aware of such problems, except for those included in the training of penitentiary and other relevant personnel. Madagascar was, however, facing a serious problem of prison overcrowding since virtually no prisons had been built since independence, -133-