Captain Sidsore Kader Ouedraogo (centre), spokesman for the junta, announced on television that the military has taken power in Burkina Faso. AFP
Supporters of Burkina Faso’s new junta rallied on January 25 as the UN, France and the poor Sahel country’s neighbours condemned its latest coup.
Army officers in the notoriously volatile West African state detained President Roch Marc Christian Kabore on January 24 amid deepening anger over his handling of a jihadist insurgency.
The former French colony is now in the hands of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (MPSR), the name of a junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
Several hundred people gathered in Nation Square in the heart of the capital Ouagadougou, waving flags and sounding vuvuzela horns in a loud show of support for the junta, while hawkers nearby sold posters of the new strongman.
“We called for President Kabore’s departure several times, but he didn’t listen to us. The army heard us and understood,” said Lassane Ouedrago, an activist in a grassroots group.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s not a coup,” said Julienne Traore, a 30-year-old teacher. “It’s the liberation of a country, which was being governed by people who were incompetent.”
Some demonstrators carried Malian and Russian flags – a reference to neighbouring Mali’s military junta, which in 2020 also took power on the back of protests over the response to jihadist bloodshed, and has recently forged security ties with Moscow.
Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, thought to be close to President Vladimir Putin and suspected of having ties with the Wagner mercenary group active in Mali, said the coup was a sign of a “new era of decolonisation” in Africa.
The junta late on January 24 suspended Burkina’s constitution, dissolved the government and parliament and closed the country’s borders.
The MPSR will re-establish “constitutional order” within a “reasonable time,” the junta said in a statement, adding that a nighttime curfew would be enforced.
On January 25, the junta announced the resumption of air traffic while reopening land borders for vehicles carrying humanitarian, military and essential goods.
Despite the political upheaval, life in Ouagadougou seemed to continue as normal.
The city’s main market, shops and petrol stations were open, and there was no particular military presence in the centre, an AFP journalist saw.
West Africa has been rattled by three military coups in less than 18 months, beginning with Mali in August 2020, then Guinea in September 2021.
It is the latest bout of political turmoil to strike Burkina Faso, which has had little stability since gaining independence from France in 1960.
UN chief Antonio Guterres lashed coups as “unacceptable”, saying “democratic societies are a value that must be preserved”.
“The role of the military must be to defend their countries and their peoples, not to attack their governments and to fight for power,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the coup and called for the immediate release of the ousted president.
France has committed thousands of troops to shoring up former colonies Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali – three of the world’s poorest countries – in the face of a brutal jihadist offensive.
