Unions launch 48-hour strike

Burkina Faso’s state companies and two main banks were closed on Tuesday, day one of a 48-hour general strike, but most public offices were open, sources in Ouagadougou told IRIN. The strike was organised by the country’s seven labour federations and six autonomous unions, in a show of unity which, according to the media, the labour sector had not seen since 1975. “It’s a warning strike,” Lingani Soumaila, administrative secretary at the Confederation nationale des Travailleurs burkinabes CNTB), told IRIN. “The idea is to draw the authorities’ attention to a number of things.” The strikers’ main demands include wage increases and the scrapping of proposed public service reforms which, the unions say, would result in some public servants becoming contract workers and weaken employees’ right to strike. Another demand is for unpunished crimes to be investigated, including the murders of David Ouedraogo - late driver of a brother of the country’s president - and Norbert Zongo, an independent journalist killed while investigating Ouedraogo’s death. Three presidential guards were detained in connection with Ouedraogo’s murder, but the strikers charge that the main intellectual authors of the murders have not been indicted. The strike is the latest in a string of protests that have followed the death of Zongo, whose burnt body was found, along with three others, in his car on 13 December. Only some public servants stayed home and, generally, government offices remained open, Soumaila said. On the other hand, the Banque internationale du Burkina and the Banque internationale pour le Commerce, l’Industrie et l’Artisanat remained shut. The strike was a 100-percent success in state corporations, Soumaila said, “because they are affected by the privatisations underway at these companies”. He added that the strikers’ demands also include an end to the privatisations.