Burkina Faso's president has been overthrown by a squad of soldiers in the third military coup in west Africa in the last eight months.
On national television on Monday evening, a soldier flanked by a dozen armed troops said that they had imprisoned President Roch Kaboré, suspended the constitution, dissolved the government and national assembly, and locked the country's borders. Heavy shooting was reported near the presidential mansion and at a number of military installations in the landlocked west African country the day before the declaration.
According to the military, Kaboré is unable to manage the country in the face of obstacles such as a terrorist insurgency that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions. Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated gangs have taken over large portions of Burkina Faso in just a few years.
"The country is crumbling under the huge stress that Islamist militants have been putting on it for numerous years," said Michael Shurkin, an ex-CIA intelligence analyst and head of global programs at 14 North Strategies, a Dakar-based consultancy. "Neither its administration nor its security forces are capable of meeting the country's massive issues, and the public appears to be looking for alternative answers."
Kaboré had already requested that the men lay down their weapons. In a statement, his party declared he had escaped an assassination attempt and that a mutiny had rapidly turned into a coup. He remarked on Twitter, "Our nation is going through terrible times." "At this precise time, we must defend our democratic victories..." We must address our disagreements via communication and listening."
The turmoil follows Kaboré's administration's prohibition on large-scale anti-government rallies, which were sparked by the country's spiraling instability. The government denied a coup, enforced an 8pm-5am curfew, and banned mobile internet connection, which is used by the majority of Burkinabes, while demonstrators set fire to the ruling party's offices on Sunday.
After elections failed in Sudan, Chad, and Guinea, coup leaders seized control. Many people are tired of the bloodshed that has erupted in the region since jihadists took control of the country's north from the Sahara desert.
No country has fallen as quickly or as brutally as Burkina Faso, which was long seen as a model of regional stability. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, the number of internally displaced individuals in Norway has increased 18-fold in three years, reaching 1.6 million as of last week.
Over the last two years, the violence has increasingly focused on the country's hundreds of artisanal gold mines, where jihadis, looking for lucrative sources of finance, have carried out killings, imposed levies on miners, and gained complete control of the mines.
0 Comments