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YAOUNDE-"Is it not said 'A hungry man is an angry man'?" commented Simon Nkwenti, head of a teachers' union in Cameroon, after riots that killed dozens of people in the central African country.It is a proverb world leaders might do well to bear in mind as their impoverished populations struggle with food costs driven ever higher by record oil prices, weather and speculators trading in local market places and on global futures exchanges.Anger over high food and fuel costs has spawned a rash of violent unrest across the globe in the past six months.From the deserts of Mauritania to steamy Mozambique on Africa's Indian Ocean coast, people have taken to the streets. There have been "tortilla riots" in Mexico, villagers have clashed with police in eastern India and hundreds of Muslims have marched for lower food prices in Indonesia.Governments have introduced price controls and export caps or cut custom duties to appease the people who vote for them, but on streets across Africa, those voters want them to do more.Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable: most people survive on less than $2 a day in countries prone to droughts and floods where agricultural processes are still often rudimentary.For African households, even a small rise in the price of food can be devastating when meals are a family's main expense."People have been driven to destruction because they no longer know what to do or who to talk to," said Ousmane Sanou, a trader in Patte d'Oie, one of the areas worst hit by February riots in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou."They understand it's the only way to get the government to change things. Prices must come down-otherwise we're heading for a catastrophe."Over 300 people were arrested in some of the worst violence for years in normally calm, landlocked Burkina, prompting the government to suspend custom duties on staple food imports for three months-measures some other countries have also taken.But unions have threatened to call a general strike in April unless prices fall further.Anger over rising prices also fuelled violence in Mauritania late last year. And at least six people were killed when taxi drivers in Mozambique rioted over fuel prices in February.In Senegal, police raided a private television station last Sunday after it repeatedly transmitted images of police beating demonstrators with electrified batons and firing tear gas during an illegal protest over high food prices in the capital Dakar.The poor country on Africa's west coast witnessed the worst rioting in more than a decade last year, as hundreds of youths smashed windows and burned tires in anger at high prices and government efforts to clear away street traders.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
