Military Seizes Power in Burkina Faso

Jan. 24, 2022

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The military announced Monday that it had seized power in Burkina Faso, suspending the Constitution and ousting the country’s democratically elected president hours after mutinous soldiers surrounded his home.

President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, 64, had been leading Burkina Faso, a poor, landlocked country in Western Africa, since 2015. But he faced growing criticism from civilians and the military alike over his government’s inability to beat back the Islamist insurgents creating havoc in this nation of 21 million people.

Burkina Faso had remained largely peaceful until 2015. But that year, militant groups launched a violent campaign as part of a broader upheaval in the Sahel, the vast stretch of land just south of the Sahara.

The violence has destabilized large swaths of Burkina Faso, displacing 1.4 million people and causing 2,000 deaths just last year alone. And it led to mounting public frustration with Mr. Kaboré, who, younger people, especially, faulted for the government’s failure to stem the tide of violence.

In the past year, there has been a flurry of coups in  Africa, the greatest concentration in years, with takeovers in Guinea, Sudan, Chad and Mali.

The coup in Burkina Faso was announced on state television late Monday afternoon by a junior army officer who said the army had seized power in response to the “exasperation of the people.” Beside him sat Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, a senior military officer who was introduced to the people of Burkina Faso as their new head of state.

The military said the nation’s land and air borders would be closed, and a nightly curfew imposed until further notice.

There was no mention of Mr. Kaboré’s whereabouts and no indication that he had agreed to step down. “The authorities have been captured without bloodshed and are being kept in a secure place,” the soldier said.

The military’s announcement came after a turbulent day in Burkina Faso.

On Sunday, soldiers seized several military bases and the riot police clashed with civilian protesters. In the evening, shots were heard near the president’s home, lasting into the early hours of Monday, setting off hours of uncertainty amid reports that the military was pressuring the president to resign.

In the afternoon, a tweet had appeared on President Kaboré’s account that asked people to stand fast behind their tottering democracy. “Our country is going through a difficult time,” he wrote, urging mutinying soldiers to lay down their arms.

Public support for the mutiny was driven by a perception that Mr. Kaboré was incapable of beating back the Islamist groups that have been spreading mayhem for so long, said Rinaldo Depagne, an expert on Burkina Faso at the International Crisis Group.

“He’s not absolutely awful and corrupt,” Mr. Depagne said of the deposed leader. “But it’s obvious that people think, rightly or wrongly, that a man in uniform with a big gun is better able to protect them than a democratically elected president.”

Mr. Damiba blamed the president for his own downfall, saying he failed to unite people against the rising tide of Islamist violence.

“The country has been fractured,” he said. “Instead of uniting people, Roch divided them, which allowed the jihadists to attack us. It’s his fault.”

Blame has also fallen squarely on the former colonial power, France, which has deployed troops to the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, in an effort to counter Islamist attacks, although the situation continues to deteriorate.

A helicopter was seen over Ouagadougou on Monday.

The army officer who appears to be in charge now had just been promoted.

Two months ago, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was put in command of one of three military regions in Burkina Faso, a promotion that gave him considerable power.

On Monday, Mr. Damiba sat stony-faced on state television as a young officer next to him announced that the military was seizing power and ousting the president. The statement he read was signed by Colonel Damiba.

Colonel Damiba was trained at the Military School of Paris, and last year published a book titled “West African Armies and Terrorism: Uncertain Responses?” A blurb posted online says that he has “endured the harsh reality” and “experienced the evolution of armed violent extremism.”

He was a member of the elite force that once guarded President Blaise Compaoré, who ruled for 27 years. That force, the Presidential Security Regiment (known as the R.S.P. by its French initials), was one of the pillars of Mr. Compaoré’s regime, but was disbanded after his fall in 2014.

The officer was one of many presidential guard members integrated into the regular army, and his star kept rising until his promotion last November.

According to Paul Koalaga, the director of the Institute for Strategy and International Relations in the country’s capital, Ouagadougou, Colonel Damiba’s loyalties may still lie with the former president, Mr. Compaoré, and his allies.

Among those allies is Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, who in 2015 led a failed coup against a transitional government. Gen. Diendéré is currently on trial in connection with the death of Thomas Sankara, Mr. Compaoré’s predecessor.

“Whoever was in the R.S.P. must have connections with the old regime, but also with Gilbert Diendéré,” Mr. Koalaga said.

For some citizens, any change, even a coup, was welcome.

“We were just sick of him,” said Adjara Dera, in Ouagadougou on Monday evening. “Our friends have been dying, our policemen have been dying. It just wasn’t working.”

With the fate of his presidency in doubt, Burkina Faso’s leader took to Twitter on Monday to urge his people to stand fast behind democracy, but as it became clear that the military was taking control, public outrage appeared in short supply.

Hours before the coup was formally announced, it appeared to be a foregone conclusion — and some residents of the capital, unhappy with the daily turmoil of life under President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, welcomed it openly.

Some took to the streets to demand his ouster, clashing with the riot police. As soldiers stood guard outside the state-owned broadcaster, young men on motorbikes streamed past, honking their horns and cheering.

And at a nearby market, one cellphone dealer, Kudougou Damiba, threw himself to his knees.

“We are saved!” he declared. “Roch is gone.”

Young people, in particular, had lost faith in the president as unceasing attacks by Islamist militants killed thousands and displaced more than a million of their fellow citizens.

The military leader who now appears to be in control pointed to that after the coup was announced on Monday.

“The country has been fractured,” Mr. Damiba said. “Instead of uniting people, Roch divided them, which allowed the jihadists to attack us. It’s his fault.”

But not everyone was convinced that things would be better now.

Among the customers at the cellphone market was Anatole Compaoré, an unemployed 31-year-old.

Mr. Compaoré took part in a wave of recent street protests against Mr. Kaboré, but even so he was skeptical that a new bout of military rule would solve his country’s problems.

When Blaise Compaoré, Burkina Faso’s leader of 27 years, was overthrown in 2014, he recalled, “they said everything would change.”

“But nothing changed,” he said. “And I’m not sure it will be any different this time.”

On the eve of a coup, gunfire, rumors and waiting.

The police used tear gas to disperse crowds in Ouagadougou on Sunday.

On Sunday, in the hours after gunfire was heard at military bases in the capital and in two other cities in Burkina Faso, a question hung in the air: Was this a coup?

No, the government insisted. Some soldiers had mutinied, but the situation was entirely under control.

Those assurances soon proved hollow.

More gunfire erupted around the president’s residence in the capital before dawn Monday, and soldiers spilled from their military bases and seized control of the state broadcaster.

Businesses shuttered in the capital, Ouagadougou, as residents anticipated the inevitable announcement on television by men in uniforms who will most likely declare themselves as the new rulers.

The first sign of trouble came before dawn on Sunday. A burst of sustained gunfire was heard from a military camp in the center of the capital that houses a prison whose inmates include soldiers involved in a 2015 coup attempt.

It was not long before the mutineers began to make their demands known.

Speaking to reporters outside the camp, one officer offered a list of demands that included the replacement of the country’s army and intelligence chiefs. He also demanded greater resources for Burkina Faso’s military campaign against Islamist militants and improved medical care for soldiers wounded in that fight.

The trouble soon spread to other bases. Even after the shooting stopped and the government of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré issued assurances that it was still in charge, rebel soldiers remained in control of several bases.

Appearing on state television, the country’s defense minister, Aime Barthelemy Simpore, said that the unrest was confined to “a few barracks” and that the government had reached out to the mutinying soldiers to learn their demands.

But it was not just the soldiers.

Ordinary citizens soon joined in, demanding the ouster of Mr. Kaboré. They were met with tear gas fired by the riot police, and mobile internet services were shut down.

The mutiny came a few months after Mr. Kaboré changed the military leadership in what analysts saw as an attempt to quell opposition in the armed forces. Earlier this month, the government arrested a dozen soldiers on suspicion of conspiring against the government.

A spate of coups in Africa has undone many democratic gains.

Opponents of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré of Burkina Faso set afire his party headquarters in Ouagadougou on Sunday.

Over the past year, Africa has experienced a surge in military takeovers and a marked backslide in democracy, with coups in at least four countries.

Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan — soldiers have seized power in all of them.

And in recent months, Burkina Faso was already looking like it might be next, with the country’s government destabilized by a wave of Islamist violence that has intensified over the past years in the Sahel, the semi-arid region stretching from Senegal to Chad on the southern flank of the Sahara.

Experts say the four successful military coups in Africa in the span of one year are the most in more than 40 years. And in some cases, citizens frustrated by government incompetence and corruption, and desperate for change, have urged soldiers to dismantle their own democracies.

The coups that marked African politics in the 1970s and 1980s had been beginning to look like largely a thing of the past. Since 2015, there have been at least 30 peaceful transitions of power in sub-Saharan African countries, even if many leaders have found other ways to stay in office, bending the rules to ensure they don’t have to give up power.

Perhaps the most notable leadership change recently was the one in Sudan, where a coup last fall halted a democratic transition that followed the 2019 ouster of the country’s longtime autocratic ruler, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok briefly returned to power in November — but then resigned early this month. That left Sudan with no civilian government to help steer a country that is only just emerging from a dictatorship that lasted three decades.

In Guinea, the head of the country’s special forces led a coup in September against President Alpha Condé, who had changed the Constitution to stay in power beyond the two-term limit.

In Mali, military leaders ousted civilian leaders in May, just nine months after the previous president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was forced out in a military coup. Mr. Keita died earlier this month.

And in Chad, a 38-year-old general, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, has been ruling the country since last April, when his father, Idriss Déby, died as he was commanding his troops against rebel soldiers.

U.N. and African leaders condemned the coup.

International leaders on Monday quickly condemned the military coup in Burkina Faso, with the head of the United Nations expressing concerns about the circumstances of the West African nation’s deposed president.

In a statement, Secretary-General António Guterres called on leaders of the coup to “lay down their arms and to ensure the protection of the physical integrity of the president and the institutions of Burkina Faso.”

Mr. Guterres said he was “particularly worried about the whereabouts and safety of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, as well as the worsening security situation.”

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Mr. Guterres, said 1,147 United Nations personnel were in Burkina Faso, including 270 international staff members. “Everyone is safe and sound,” he said at a news briefing at U.N. headquarters.

Mr. Dujarric made note of the “epidemic of coups” in Africa in recent times, referring to upheavals in Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan.

Leading African political figures also deplored the Burkina Faso coup.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, president of the African Union Commission, said in a statement that he was “following with deep concern the very serious situation in Burkina Faso” and called on the army and security forces to “strictly adhere to their republican vocation, namely the defense of the country’s internal and external security.”

The regional organization known as ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, said that the coup “cannot be tolerated,” and called for the soldiers to return to their barracks.

But the military junta in neighboring Mali has survived despite many such statements from the organization, which is increasingly seen as weak and an advocate for the interests of incumbents, including many who have sought to cling to power.

Members of the Koglweogo, a self-defense group, are primarily known for fighting crime but have been sucked into conflict with jihadists as violent attacks from Islamist groups skyrocket in Burkina Faso.

Once one of the most stable nations in West Africa, Burkina Faso has been trapped in spiraling violence since jihadist groups claimed their first attacks, in 2015.

Since then, the landlocked country of 21 million people has faced hundreds of attacks, some carried out by jihadist groups and others by local rebels.

In June, armed assailants killed more than 100 people in an attack on a village in northern Burkina Faso, burning houses and leaving many more injured in one of the deadliest assaults the West African nation had seen in years.

Looming over the country since 1987 has been the assassination of Thomas Sankara, who was the country’s president and a revolutionary leader renowned across Africa.

In October, one of the most highly anticipated trials ever to take place on the continent opened in the capital, Ouagadougou, aiming to establish who killed Mr. Sankara.

Among the 14 men accused of plotting his death is a man once known as his close friend, Blaise Compaoré, who went on to succeed Mr. Sankara as president — and then stayed in power for 27 years. Mr. Compaoré is being tried in absentia; attempts by the government of Burkina Faso to extradite him from Ivory Coast, where he lives in exile, have been unsuccessful.

Mr. Sankara was 37 when he was killed, and already revered in many African countries for speaking out against the vestiges of colonialism and the impact of Western financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“The revolution’s main objective,” Mr. Sankara said not long after taking power, “is to destroy imperialist domination and exploitation.”

He renamed the country from Upper Volta, as France called it, to Burkina Faso, which means “the land of upright people” in Moore, the language of the country’s largest ethnic group. Mr. Sankara only stayed in power for four years.

After a year of political turmoil, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was elected president in 2015, then re-elected in 2020. He had a statue erected of Mr. Sankara, and a mausoleum, cinema and media library are also being built in his honor.

But under Mr. Kaboré, life became increasingly desperate for millions in Burkina Faso. Violence caused by bandits, vigilantes and terrorists who claim to be affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State — and military abuses — has left thousands dead and more than a million displaced. And a country that prided itself on tolerance and cooperation has become increasingly polarized politically.

— The New York Times