General strike for higher pay shuts down country

Normal business ground to a halt in Benin on Tuesday as the country's main trade unions began a three-day general strike to demand higher pay for government employees, better pensions and lower university fees. Only senior managers turned up for work at government offices, schools, banks and most businesses were closed in the economic capital Cotonou, health centres were short staffed and the city's normally busy streets were empty of traffic. The national news agency reported a similar situation throughout the small West African country. Music replaced normal programming on government-run radio and television stations, which repeatedly played the song "Le pays va mal" (The country is doing badly) by the Ivorian singer Tiken Jah Facoly. The strike was called by four of Benin's five trade union organisations to support civil service pay demands ranging from 20 to 30 percent following a breakdown in negotiations with the government on 1 October. The fifth trade union group which did not join the strike was due to stage a protest demonstration in Cotonou on Tuesday. Guillaume Attigbe, a leader of the Confederation of Autonomous Unions (CSA) accused the government of President Mathieu Kerekou of treating the workers' demands "lightly and with disdain." But Labour Minister Arouna Aboubacar said the government was still open to negotiations and was doing everything possible to defuse the current atmosphere of confrontation in the country.