Local and foreign politics play out at the forum | Liz Ford

High-school hunger-strikers, Ivory Coast and Egypt stir debate and action among delegates A hunger strike by highschool graduates outside the library at Cheikh Anta Diop University greeted World Social Forum delegates on the final day of the event in Senegal. Around two dozen students, who lay on the ground under blankets, are understood to be angry about not getting places at the university. Judging by the signs stuck to nearby posts, the strike was clearly timed to send a message to a forum gathered to discuss ways to create a fairer world. One read: “Why [a] place for foreigners and not for children of the country?” Another said: “Our place is not on the street but in the lecture halls.” By lunchtime the Red Cross had arrived to check the health of the young people. One protester was taken away in an ambulance. Holding the forum at the university has been a bone of contention to some students, who have been removed from classrooms and the library to make way for delegates and the press. It seems classes were going to be cancelled to allow for the forum to go ahead, and to allow students to attend, but the plan was changed. Amy Faye, 22, a third-year economics student, said she didn’t mind the conference taking place, but would have liked time off to attend. “We’ve had to attend class. There’s been no time to attend the forum. It would have been good for us to discover things.” Faye didn’t give her full backing to the hunger strikers, suggesting instead that the whole student body could have been mobilised to take action. Another student said on Thursday that overcrowding is a major problem at the university, with packed halls of residence and classrooms. The cost of university is also believed to be causing simmering tension. A group opposed to military intervention in Ivory Coast set up tents and circulated a petition this morning calling on the international community – including the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Monetary Union – to end the threat of sanctions following the outcome of last November’s presidential election. In a manifesto distributed on Friday, the group, calling itself the Civil Society Group Against Aggression, says there is “no legally defensible basis for the positions taken and for the threats of sanctions brandished against the government of Ivory Coast by the self-proclaimed ‘international community’ since the beginning of the crisis”. The group challenges the international community to “produce a single legal justification that is not an offence against international law or the dignity of Africa” for its actions in the wake of the disputed results. The group says the international community had no right to announce a provisional result by the independent electoral commission as definitive. It says a peaceful solution needs to be found, and advocates negotiations between Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Outtara or a fresh election. The group is holding a press conference later today. Meanwhile, following Thursday’s rumours about the resignation of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, a march from the forum to the Egyptian embassy took place on Friday afternoon. It is clear from talking to people at the forum that there is a strong belief that what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt could happen in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. At a press conference on Thursday, a local organiser of the forum, Demba Moussa Dembele, said if people “moved and did something”, change could come. Elsewhere around the university campus, groups have been putting together their final presentations to the assembly of assemblies – the final meeting of the forum to showcase what the week-long discussions have achieved and to announce any plans of action. The final assembly begins at 4pm. World Social Forum Ivory Coast Egypt Liz Ford guardian.co.uk

Posted by on February 11, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry