Clashes Over Food Prices Trouble Political Leaders
Date: 02-Apr-08
Country: AFRICA
Surging food prices due to global supply concerns and heady world futures markets have posed a particular risk to poor economies, especially in Africa, where food makes up a disproportionately large part of household spending and imports.
Here are some details of recent price rise unrest:
* BURKINA FASO:
-- Burkina Faso announced a reduction in customs duties on basic foodstuffs in February after several towns were hit by protests in which over 300 were arrested although most were discharged by the courts.
-- Unions marched earlier this month demanding further cuts in taxes and prices, as well as public sector wage increases, and also threatened a general strike on April 8-9.
* CAMEROON:
-- President Paul Biya raised state salaries by 15 percent and suspended custom duties on basic foodstuffs like fish, rice and cooking oil to ease discontent over high prices after days of rioting.
-- In late February, taxi drivers went on strike to protest at fuel price hikes; the stoppage degenerated into rioting in several towns against the high cost of living and Biya's intention to extend his 25 years in power.
-- The government put the death toll from the clashes at 24, although human rights activists put it at over 100 and said most of the victims were shot dead by police in the commercial capital Douala. The government said 1,671 people were also arrested.
* MAURITANIA:
-- Violent protests against food price increases in Mauritania spread last November to the capital Nouakchott, where police tried to disperse about 1,000 demonstrators. The unrest was triggered by sharp rises in the prices of grains and other basic foodstuffs.
* MOZAMBIQUE:
-- Mozambique agreed to cut the price of diesel fuel for private minibus taxis in February to end a wave of protests over high fuel prices and the rising cost of living.
-- The protests killed six people and injured more than 100 after police clashed with crowds of demonstrators who looted shops, destroyed vehicles and burned electricity poles.
-- Commuters were angered by high fuel costs and a decision, later scrapped, to raise transport fares by 50 percent. The price of petrol has climbed 46 percent and diesel by nearly 90 percent.
* SENEGAL:
-- In late March, Senegalese police raided a private television station after it repeatedly transmitted images of police beating demonstrators during an illegal protest over high food prices.
-- President Abdoulaye Wade cut the number of ministers in his government by more than a quarter last December in a belt-tightening show of solidarity with citizens hit by rising fuel and food prices.
-- Wade had previously pledged to trim his cabinet to "lessen the suffering" of the country's poor, who have seen the price of basic foods like rice and bread rise sharply.
-- Riots swept the normally tranquil capital Dakar in Nov. 2007, with stone-throwing protesters complaining about widespread unemployment and rising prices at a time when the government is building luxury hotels and four-lane highways.
* ARGENTINA:
-- Earlier this month Argentine farmers blocked highways with tractors in an anti-government protest that paralysed the country's main grain market.
-- The country's four leading farming associations called the strike after the government introduced a new system of sliding-scale export taxes on grains and oilseeds, which significantly raised levies on soy and sunseed products.
* PERU:
-- Peruvian farmers upset over a free trade deal with the United States blocked rail services to the famous Inca ruins at Machu Picchu and closed key highways in February.
-- Frustrated by rising fertilizer costs, farmers wanted debt relief and said the free trade deal would flood local markets with imports of subsidized US agricultural goods.
* INDONESIA:
-- Soaring soybean prices have cut into the e