![]() ![]() The new and young coup leaders, led by Traoré, believe Damiba, their first coup leader, has been operationally indecisive and moving away from their original plans to securitise the country. The new putsch stems from a fundamental disagreement and an internal crisis among the first coup leaders about the military strategy to deal with the insecurity in the country. The unfolding events exhibit the deep signs of internal military officers’ discontent and foreign meddling.įor many experts, it was predictable. What is happening in Burkina Faso this weekend, while portraying the characters of a classical African military coup, should not surprise anyone. Old and new defence treaties between Burkina Faso and France remain colonised like with many former French colonies in West and Central Africa today. They still control large parts of the economy and the politics of the country whose functioning administrative system and the official business language, French, is still colonial in style. The UN estimates that because of this instability, more than one million inhabitants are internally displaced persons. Moreover, recent spates of bloody terrorist attacks by Islamist and militia groups, and growing insecurity have plagued the country since the mid-2010s. It seems, coup d’états have become a commodity and a misguided military staple that hardly addresses the challenges it faces, as with many African nations. From natural to man made calamities, the country has experienced numerous coups, almost a dozen, including the two most recent ones in January 2022 and last Friday. By the United Nations standards, it is a “least developed country with a GDP of $16.226 billion with 63 percent of its population practising Islam, 22 percent Christianity” and the remainder, animism.Ĭolonised by France in 1896, and formerly known as Upper Volta, Burkina Faso has suffered from a long history of instability since its independence in the 1960s. The context that governs the situation in Burkina Faso is critical if we want to understand the deeper meaning and implications of what’s happening.īurkina Faso, a landlocked West African country with an area of 274,200 km², bordering Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d’Ivoire to the southwest with a population of a little over 20 million. Shots rang out before dawn on Friday around Burkina Faso’s presidential palace and headquarters of the military junta, which itself seized power in a coup last January. Picture: Olympia De Maisont/AFP – Burkina Faso and a Russian flag are seen as young men demonstrate while Burkina Faso soldiers deploy in Ouagadougou on September 30, 2022. This double coup d’état emulates what happened in neighbouring Mali a year ago, where the military now presides over a troubled country faced with political, economic strife, mounting terrorism and insecurity. In less than a year after he ousted former elected president Roche Kabore, lieutenant colonel Paul-Henry Damiba was also deposed unceremoniously by his military underlings this past Friday.įollowing gunfire, confusion, uncertainty, and chaos in the capital Ouagadougou and intense negotiations, the new military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, and his commandos seized national key points, closed the country’s borders and announced on national television that a new regime was in charge. ![]() Burkina Faso is yet again rocked by a military coup.
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