mixed news holders be wary

By Simon Gongo

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- About 3,000 people demonstrated in Burkina Faso?s capital, Ouagadougou, against the rising cost of living and to call for President Blaise Compaore to resign, said opposition leader Benewende Stanislas Sankara.

?We want to show the aspirations of our people for change,? Sankara said in a phone interview today from the city. ?We need reforms to enable the people to benefit from the country?s riches.?

Mobile text-messaging services were disabled in the city today to maintain stability, Security Minister Jerome Bougouma told reporters today. He didn?t say how many people took part in the demonstration.

"Several people have used SMS to spread alarmist messages which cause panic among the population??, Bougouma said.

Burkina Faso, Africa?s biggest cotton producer, has been in turmoil since February, when five people were killed during demonstrations against the police following the death of a student in their custody. Ten people were injured after soldiers in Ouagadougou protested a court decision sentencing officers to prison.

A mutiny by the presidential guard on April 14 pushed Compaore to dismiss his government. On April 27, riot police became the latest group to protest, firing their guns into the air at their barracks in the east of the capital.

Six people died in the army and police mutinies, Health Minister Adama Traore told reporters today in Ouagadougou. Among the dead was an 11-year-old student who was shot while attending school, Traore said.

Prices rose in the West African nation after the four- month political crisis in neighboring Ivory Coast interrupted the flow of imports. Burkina Faso doesn?t report a monthly inflation rate.



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Burkina opposition demand president step down
Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:39pm GMT
By Mathieu Bongkoungou
OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Burkina Faso opposition parties on Saturday demanded long-serving President Blaise Compaore step down, blaming him for provoking a wave of violence in the West African nation.

Soldiers have ransacked shops and fired weapons during months of demonstrations over poor living conditions.

Civilians have also taken to the streets in the usually placid country over rising food and fuel prices.

"Our country is in crisis, a deep crisis and we think that Blaise Compaore is the cause of this crisis," the leader of the opposition Socialist Front Forces, Norbert Tiendrebeogo, told a meeting of 34 opposition parties in the capital Ouagadougou.

"That is why we are saying he is the problem and the solution is his departure," Tiendrebeogo said.

The parties put out a joint statement calling on Compaore to quit.

Compaore, a former army captain, seized power in the cotton and gold producer nation in a 1987 coup.
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