Hungry Crowds Spell Trouble For World Leaders

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.

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