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The series of coups continues in West Africa with the overthrow of Lieutenant-Colonel Sandaogo Damiba by Captain Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso. The same causes produce the same effects ?
Probably yes. A new coup in the coup in Burkina Faso. That of last January which brought down the regime of Roch Marc Kaboré, elected civilian president, was almost expected because of the level of extreme disillusionment with the inability of power at the time to curb the advance of armed terrorist groups . Each murderous attack might be one attack too many and give the opportunity to a group of officers to take action knowing that hardly anyone would fiercely defend the Kaboré government. Eight months for Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, an impression of not knowing what to do, particularly in terms of security, and serious and incomprehensible political errors such as this invitation to Ouagadougou by former President Blaise Compaoré, condemned by the Burkinabe justice. This gesture alone confirmed either the lack of ideas on the part of Colonel Damiba, or a desire for symbolic and political restoration of the Compaoré regime. Or both, and perhaps also the beginning of the attachment to the privileges of power. Unlike Colonel Damiba, Captain Traoré did not overthrow a president with democratic legitimacy. It was an easier passage to the act, the one he filed was not strictly more legitimate than him. This is indeed one of the dangers of coups d’etat: they open the way to endless rectifications.
Burkina Faso is a country on the brink of collapse with multiple layers of fragility that require immediate and thoughtful responses, you say.
Yes, the security crisis with 40%, 60% or perhaps more of the territory which is de facto controlled by armed groups. Safe roads are rare once you leave the perimeter of the large cities of Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. It is also a country whose political class is very divided, divisions which are also found within an army which has a long tradition of politicization and exercise of the reality of power. The political and military fault line also has a generational dimension with young officers closer in their aspirations to change to the young civilians who brought down the Compaoré regime in 2014 than the older and more senior officers in political sympathies and integrity. questionable. Divisions within multi-ethnic Burkinabe society too. Social cohesion is extremely fragile following years of terrorist violence, violence by self-defense groups, abuses committed by the armed forces and settling of accounts between communities, crimes that go largely unpunished. Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s first challenge is to at least stop the degradation of all signals…
You also warn of tensions between countries in the region and the polarization of public opinion.
The coup d’état in Burkina Faso has somewhat made us forget the week of invectives and insults between high political authorities of countries in the region, very far from the values of respect and moderation that we like to put forward in East Africa. ‘West. This further damages the image of those who hold the highest political office with young people who already insult profusely on social networks. We must take stock of the disastrous effect of simplistic, incendiary messages, which leave no room for nuance and the search for truth on legitimately frustrated young urbanites in the countries of the region. At a time when the need for unity and remobilization around the imperative of security and the alleviation of the daily suffering of civilian populations is most evident, our societies are becoming more polarized and our Heads of State or Government cheerfully insult. And no one seems to be able to remind everyone that the deaths by violence and hunger, the millions of displaced people left behind in the Sahel are and will be our own problems, and not those of France and Russia.
