Authorities arrest leaders of price hike protests

Authorities in Niger have arrested three leaders of a group that has been protesting about a tax on basic foods stuffs on the grounds that they were plotting against the state, a government spokesman said on Friday. Spokesman Ben Omar told IRIN that the three men were picked up after going on private radio and television channels and urging Muslin and Christian leaders to hold prayers on Friday and over the Easter weekend to save the country from misery “This was a veiled call to rebellion,” Omar said by telephone from the capital, Niamey. “The government will not accept chaos.” A “coalition against costly living” involving about 30 groups have staged two major protests in the last two weeks in Niger --a strike that brought activity in the capital shuddering to halt on Tuesday and a march which brought up to 20,000 people onto the streets the previous week. The coalition is demanding the government withdraw a law introduced in January's budget which slapped 19 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) on everyday items such as flour, milk and sugar, as well as on water and electricity. Niger ranks second from bottom on the UN Human Development Index and more than 60 percent of the landlocked nation’s 11 million people live on less than a dollar a day. The government spokesman said authorities thought that appealing "to religious sentiment is extremely sensitive” and that the protesters “have crossed a red line.” Nouhou Arzika, who heads the coalition, was detained for “plotting against state security”, along with two colleagues, Morou Amadou and Moustapha Kadi. Omar said their call for collective prayers came after officials had agreed to begin talks with the coalition, which includes trade unions as well as human rights and consumer groups. The government has refused the coalition’s demand to withdraw the January bill, saying the hikes are needed to fill government coffers and reduce deficits. ”The new VAT is in line with guidelines issued by the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA),” Omar said. "We cannot come back on the law but we have told the coalition we are ready to talk about proposals to help the people." The protests over food hikes come only three months after President Mamadou Tandja, a 66-year-old retired army colonel, won re-election for a second five-year term in a vote foreign observers described as fair and democratic. He took office amid warnings of a looming food shortage due to a dire combination in 2004 of hungry locusts and patchy rainfall. Officials from the Agriculture Ministry have said that Niger would have to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cereals in 2005 to make up for shortfalls in the 2004 harvest and the government estimates more than three million people are at risk. Last December the Niger government began subsidising grain prices in the southwestern Tillabery region bordering Mali and Burkina Faso, one of the areas hardest hit by last year’s poor harvest. On Tuesday, the World Food Programme (WFP) appealed for US $10 million to help 800,000 people in Mali and Niger. It said Niger faced a food deficit of nearly a quarter of a million tonnes this year.