Riots underline persistent poverty
2010-09-03 10:36
Maputo – Hundreds of commuters briskly walk the streets of Mafalala, an impoverished neighbourhood on the outskirts of the Mozambican capital, trying to get to work before police and protesters clash again.
Domestic worker Mercela Manuel, 34, talks with a friend as they cross the road together, glancing furtively about.
The street has been cleared of the burnt tyres that protesters used to block the road on Wednesday, but remnants of the charred debris remain on the sidewalk.
Protesters staged a second day of strikes and demonstrations on Thursday over food price increases in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world.
The violence has so far left seven people dead and 288 wounded, the government says.
But Manuel says she still has to go to work so she can feed her three children.
"The cost of life is expensive. Very expensive. It’s difficult to live," she says.
Husband sends extra money
Her wage of $54 already makes it difficult to afford the $12 she pays for the family’s bread each month.
Manuel's husband sends extra money from his job at a mine in South Africa, she says: but it is not enough.
Clashes between police and protesters broke out on Wednesday and Thursday, as crowds in impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Maputo took to the streets.
They were protesting a 17% increase in the price of bread, as well as fuel, water and electricity rises.
Protesters looted 23 shops and damaged 12 buses, completely destroying one, government spokesperson Alberto Nkutumula told journalists after an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Despite posting impressive economic growth figures since the end of a 16-year civil war in 1992 Mozambique still has a per capita income of just $794 a year.
Yet there is little the government can do about inflation: prices in the import-dependent country have risen on the back of a South African rand whose value has appreciated 43% against the Mozambican metical since this time last year.
Crisis for the government
The protests represent a crisis for the government of President Armando Guebuza.
Guebuza was swept into a second term with a 75% victory in elections last year, as his Frelimo party increased its overall majority.
But they have been unable to stop the currency's slide or the steep rise in prices.
And a household survey due later this year is expected to show that poverty has not been reduced, Marcelo Mosse, head of the Centre for Public Integrity, told AFP.
"The survey still has not been published because authorities are supposedly massaging the figures," he said.
"Most Mozambicans know that external factors influence the price increases, but they do not see a change in the government's behaviour of spending patterns," he said.
"What we need now is a political gesture from government to reduce expenditures."
- SAPA