Military officers have ousted the president of Burkina Faso, a group of soldiers announced Monday on state television, after steering a 36-hour uprising that toppled the third West African head of state in eight months
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They have suspended
the constitution, dissolved the government and closed the borders, Ouedraogo
said, without spilling any blood. They are holding President Roch Marc Kaboré
and other politicians in a safe place, he added, that “respects their dignity.”
The words of
Burkina Faso’s apparent new rulers contradicted Kaboré's party, which had asserted
an hour earlier that the leader had survived an assassination attempt.
Confusion abounded
about the fate of Kaboré, who took office in 2015 and faced Islamist
insurgencies that only grew during his tenure, leading to thousands of deaths
and leaving more than a million people homeless. As regional leaders called for
his release, Kaboré — or someone running his official Twitter account — wrote a plea to his captors: “I invite those who have
taken up arms to lay them down in the higher interests of the nation.”
Kaboré's private
residence lay in ruin, the People’s Movement for Progress said in a statement,
and soldiers had taken over the national television station. “Our democracy is
in peril,” the party said without clarifying Kaboré's whereabouts or condition.
Authorities initially
denied that Kaboré was taken into
military custody, asserting that all was calm even as gunfire rang out Sunday.
Then the mutineers reached the presidential palace and Kaboré was physically
removed from office, said a Western official who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The 15-nation
Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, condemned the “attempted
coup d’etat” in a statement Monday afternoon, urging the military to keep
Kaboré from harm.
A Burkinabe
counterterrorism officer said Monday that the president “is in good hands.”
Soldiers were fed up with what they saw as a lack of support from the top, said
the officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not
authorized to talk to the media.
“We need a strong
man with clear ideas,” he said.
The overthrow came
after hundreds of protesters marched in the streets of the capital,
Ouagadougou, demanding Kaboré’s resignation. Militants linked to the Islamic
State and al-Qaeda have upended life in the nation of 21 million over the past
seven years, rendering much of the countryside ungovernable and driving at
least 1.4 million people from their homes.
More than 2,000
Burkinabes have died in the violence.
“The whole
territory must be secured,” the Burkinabe officer said. “All the displaced
people must be able to return home.”
Insurgencies that
took root in the region a decade ago sparked Burkina Faso’s insecurity.
After the collapse of the Libyan government in 2011 sent mercenaries who worked for Moammar Gaddafi back to
their native Mali, some of those ethnic Tuareg rebels forged a shaky alliance
with Islamist militants seeking a foothold in the country’s north.
Although French and
regional forces initially beat them back, the militants scattered and drilled
into Burkina Faso, setting off a conflict that has turned much of the nation
known for sprawling croplands and a celebrated African film festival into a
battlefield.
In recent years,
park rangers in Burkina Faso have described losing protected land for elephants and lions to
extremists exploiting forest cover for their hideouts. Refugees from Mali who
sought shelter in Burkina Faso, meanwhile, say they have had to pack up and run repeatedly as the threat drew closer
to Ouagadougou.
The power grab in
Burkina Faso comes after special forces toppled the president of Guinea in September and military
officers ousted the head of neighboring Mali in May for the second
time since August 2020.
“The longer the
conflict lasts, the more states become fragile,” said Serigne Bamba Gaye, a
security analyst in Senegal, which has flagged extremist activity near its
border with Mali. “From setback to setback, morale is at rock bottom.”
As video captured
shots ringing out in the capital Sunday, protesters trashed the headquarters of
Kaboré’s ruling party. Another photo showed bullet holes in an SUV
belonging to the presidency.
Authorities
implemented a curfew and ordered schools to close. Phone lines and Internet
access stopped working, leaving millions in a communications blackout.
Hours before his
detention, Kaboré drew backlash after he tweeted about soccer.
“I express to you the pride of the whole
nation,” he wrote to Burkina Faso’s team, which bested Gabon on Sunday in the
Africa Cup of Nations, advancing to the quarterfinals in the continent’s
largest soccer tournament. “We are all behind you.”
On Monday morning,
demonstrators on motorbikes rolled through Ouagadougou, honking their horns and singing
the country’s national anthem.
This marks the
eighth coup d’etat in Burkina Faso since it asserted independence from France
in 1960 — the most of any African nation.
ECOWAS imposed its
harshest sanctions yet on Mali this month after the country’s military leaders
said they would not hold an election to restore civilian rule until 2026,
citing security concerns.
Source: WashingtonPost
Published by: Mokaya Khatai
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