(Adds details, quote, background) By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Central African Republic's Prime Minister Elie Dote and his government resigned on Friday in the midst of a general strike called by unions to demand the payment of months of salary arrears to civil servants. Dote, who had been prime minister since 2005, announced his resignation as the country's parliament was preparing to vote on a censure motion against him. President Francois Bozize was expected to name a new prime minister in the coming days to form a new administration in the landlocked, poor former French colony, which has suffered a spate of coups and mutinies in the past decade. The country's main trade unions launched a general strike on Jan. 2 to demand that the government pay some seven months of arrears in salaries to civil servants and teachers. The stoppage has sparked some demonstrations in the streets of Bangui by students angry about not being able to attend classes. The government says it does not have the funds to pay the salary arrears, and a meeting between Bozize and union leaders on Thursday failed to reach a settlement. Dote's government resigned just weeks before the Central African Republic was due to receive European Union peacekeepers who are to deploy in its northeast corner to protect civilians from violence spilling over from Sudan's Darfur region. Western diplomats in Bangui said the strike posed a problem for Bozize, who seized power in 2003 and won elections two years later, with support from the unions now staging the stoppage. "I think that the next three to five days will be interesting ... if the president names a prime minister who has wide support and respect, and offers something to the unions that is acceptable to them, then this could be just a blip," one diplomat, who asked not to be named, said. But if this did not happen, it could trigger a deeper political crisis, the diplomat added. Central African Republic is already facing a humanitarian emergency in its northwest and northeast, where raids by several armed groups and counter-attacks by government soldiers have driven nearly 300,000 people from their homes since 2006. The European peacekeepers to be deployed in the remote northeast, which was temporarily occupied by one rebel group in late 2006, are part of a larger EU force that has a United Nations mandate to protect civilians in eastern Chad. This EU force is expected to start deploying in February. Bozize signed peace pacts with two rebel groups last year and is promoting an all-inclusive political dialogue aimed at trying to pacify the country. (Reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Sami Aboudi)
Soldiers from the joint United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping force guard a supply convoy leaving El Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region, January 13, 2008. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this ...
