xfce-mcs-manager fails to build

[Harold Crouch]

The hard drive on one of my computers was wiped two days ago and
Debian Etch installed.  Yesterday, I downloaded the 4.4.1 graphical
installer from www.xfce.org/download/, launched the installer as
root, satisfied *every* dependency that it flagged, selected
"extensive optimizations" as the only desired feature, and sat back
to enjoy the show.  Then I got the following...

------------------------------------------------------------------
make[2]: Leaving directory `/tmp/selfgz2183224102/xfce-mcs-manager/doc'
Making all in po
make[2]: Entering directory `/tmp/selfgz2183224102/xfce-mcs-manager/po'
file=`echo ar | sed 's,.*/,,'`.gmo \
	  && rm -f $file &&  -o $file ar.po
/bin/sh: line 1: -o: command not found
make[2]: *** [ar.gmo] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/tmp/selfgz2183224102/xfce-mcs-manager/po'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/selfgz2183224102/xfce-mcs-manager'
make: *** [all] Error 2
!! Failed to build xfce-mcs-manager, see the errors above
!! for details on the problem.
------------------------------------------------------------------

I googled for "failed to build xfce-mcs-manager" and got not a
single hit.  Googling for "'xfce-mcs-manager,' Debian, error"
returned thousands of hits, none of them especially helpful.

Suggestions please!

- Harold