A two-day general strike Jan. 28-29 shut down commerce and produced violent clashes between protesters and police, leaving five people dead. These incidents followed similar disturbances in November when six people were killed. The strikes received the support of unions, political parties and other groups from around the country and were staged to protest the governmentÂ’s deal with the IMF to try to pull the country out of an economic crisis created by a major bank failure last year. More strikes are likely and if they follow the pattern of the last two, they will become violent.
