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From: elombah daniel <elsdaniel@yahoo.com>
Date: 28 February 2011 02:16
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| BREAKING NEWS!!! The Arab Revolution, Next stop OMAN!
To: NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com, naijaintellects@googlegroups.com, NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com, nigeria360@yahoogroups.com, TalkNigeria@yahoogroups.com
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From: elombah daniel <elsdaniel@yahoo.com>
Date: 28 February 2011 02:16
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| BREAKING NEWS!!! The Arab Revolution, Next stop OMAN!
To: NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com, naijaintellects@googlegroups.com, NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com, nigeria360@yahoogroups.com, TalkNigeria@yahoogroups.com
Oman, the normally quiet sultanate along the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, joined the wave of two-month-old political protests shaking the Arab world on Sunday, as hundreds of demonstrators clashed with the riot police in the northeast port city of Sohar.
Shortly after the violence, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who has led oil-rich Oman for the past 40 years, gave orders to create 50,000 jobs, ONA reported. He also ordered that the equivalent of $386 a month be given every job seeker.
The protest started peacefully but turned violent after the police fired rubber bullets at protesters and demonstrators burned several government buildings, including a police station, and cars, according to witnesses and news reports.
The Reuters news agency, quoting witnesses in Sohar, said that 2,000 people had gathered in a square demanding political reforms, more jobs and better pay. Police officers tried to disperse them, first using tear gas and batons and then rubber bullets.
A picture posted online showed what appeared to be the body of a man lying on the side of the street as two armored vehicles passed him. A video posted on YouTube showed smoke billowing from at least one building in Sohar and protesters stoning a police car and burning tires on the side of the street.
A witness in Sohar reached by telephone said that army troops had moved in and that helicopters were flying over the city but added that the situation was calm and that all protesters seemed to have gone home.
"It is not clear what will happen," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "But people are angry and it could get violent again."
Governments in several gulf countries have announced reforms and financial assistance in recent days in an attempt to curb public anger. Calls for huge demonstrations on March 4 went out on social networking sites, calling on people to take to the streets in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Jordan, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.
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Anti-government demonstrations, which have spread across Northern Africa, seem to have moved across the rest of the continent to Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe and Mauritania.
MEANWHILE...CAMEROON
Cameroon's nation-wide anti-government protests started modestly Saturday, with calls for President Paul Biya to step down. But protesters in Douala and Yaoundé were outnumbered by police.
Since the food price riots in 2008, 23 February has been the day in the year discontent Cameroonians take to the streets; mostly being quickly dispersed by the police.
This year was to be different, according to the hopes and aspirations of the organisers of the protests. This year, they had announced during the last few weeks, 23 February would be the start of Cameroon's Egypt-like revolt.
Reports from Cameroon yesterday - both by the protesters and the media - however indicate that the anticipated anti-government riot rather has been a bleak repetition of the minor 23 February protests during the last years.
The reason may have been that Cameroonian authorities were on a high alert over possible riots, with Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary yesterday telling the local press that organisers of the protests wanted "to destroy this nation."
Consequently, Cameroon's two major cities yesterday were filled up with riot police. In Douala, the country's largest city located at the coast, large groups of uniformed police and soldiers lined up at central squares, roads and in the central Akwa neighbourhood. Vehicles entering the city were stopped and checked by police.
In the capital Yaoundé, armed police and gendarmes in somewhat smaller groups controlled major access roads, government buildings and the central Independence Square. The troops were monitoring any unforeseen gathering of people that could form the nucleus of a protest, immediately asking groups of people to spread.
Protesters found a difficult environment. From around noon, there were increasing reports of minor protest groups in Douala and Yaoundé, which however quickly were dispersed by police, before being able to organise any large crowd.
A gathering of protesters in Douala's Akwa neighbourhood was dispersed.
Outside these two cities, there have been no reports of protests. No people seemed to be protesting in the traditionally oppositional English language western parts of Cameroon. In the Muslim north, reports from the major University of Ngaoundéré said everything was calm and normal.
During the afternoon, several arrests were reported in Douala, including of Charles Talom, cameraman of the local broadcaster 'VoxAfrica', and "seven opposition figures," according to protesters. Later this evening, 'AFP' correspondent Reinnier Kazé was arrested in central Douala. There were increased reports of police brutality.
Kah Walla, a little known candidate for the 2011 Cameroonian presidential elections, claimed to have been beaten and detained for some hours by the police. Mr Walla had been one of the few Cameroon-based opposition figures to call for anti-government protests.
Most of the calls for Cameroonians to stage an "Egypt-like" revolution indeed had come from the Diaspora, with even independent media in Cameroon giving the protest calls little attention and main opposition figures remaining silent. Many Cameroonians therefore felt the initiative was not from within the country and disconnected from local realities.
Analysts however agree that Cameroon is rife for riot after almost three decades of poor governance by President Biya. Corruption is at one of Africa's highest levels and the recent economic growth has not reached Cameroonians at large.
But with the impulses for the 23 February protests mainly coming from exiled Cameroonians, few seemed to want to follow up on the initiative. However, as the presidential elections are nearing, the country's main opposition may get in a position to mobilise far greater groups.
Daniel Elombah
Publisher: www. Elombah.com
(A Nigerian Perspective on World Affairs)
"We must speak up today or silently accept the woes that will trail our silence and inactions. The time has come for us to revive the lost spirit of Aluta, the time for us to rise and challenge the status quo, the time has come for us to remind our elders that forty years ago they said that we are the leaders of tomorrow and forty years after, they are still using that same cliché, we must tell them that, that tomorrow has arrived and that tomorrow is today" - Com. Ini Ememobong, National President of Nigeria Students
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