AFRICA/MALAWI- Malawi is increasingly at risk "risk of social explosion within a few months", says a missionary

Lilongwe (Agenzia Fides) - The situation remains tense in Malawi after the national day of protest on July 20, which resulted in violence with the death of twenty people (see Fides 20-22 July 2011).
On August 1, President Bingu wa Mutharika launched an appeal to the people to avoid street demonstrations during the period of Ramadan. But the organizers of the previous protest today announced a new demonstration on August 16, unless the government meets their demands, in particular concerning concrete steps to tackle poverty and fight widespread corruption.
"The President is locked in the presidential palace and continues to take a series of choices that moves him
away from the people", said Fr. Piergiorgio Gamba to Fides, a Monfort missionary who has been working in the country for over 30 years. " People then chose to wait, just like farmers who wait for sowing and harvesting".
"The " revolution " is still an affair of cities and of people who have an education that is able to recognize the signs of times. The real change will be driven by economy which in a few months will no longer have the means to keep silent the discontent caused by the hospitals without medicine and workers without pay, with markets increasingly empty while the prices are doubled", concludes the missionary. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 03/08/2011)