OUAGADOUGOU — Calm returned to
Burkina Faso’s capital on
Monday after the country’s military leader fled to neighboring Togo following
the second coup in less than nine months.
اضافة اعلان
The streets of
Ouagadougou were quiet after a two-day standoff between junta chief Lt. Col.
Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and a newly emerged rival for power, 34-year-old
Capt. Ibrahim Traore.
After a jittery
weekend that also saw violent protests at the French embassy and culture
center, Damiba agreed on Sunday to step down.
Diplomats said
Damiba had gone to the Togolese capital Lome, and this was confirmed on Monday
by the Togolese government, which said it had accepted him in order to support
“peace in the sub-region”.
The
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) issued a statement late Sunday
welcoming “a peaceful settlement of ... differences” and announced it would
dispatch a delegation to Ouagadougou the following day.
But sources at
the Burkina foreign ministry and president’s office said the mission had been
postponed until Tuesday, while an ECOWAS diplomat said the delay was because of
“logistical reasons”.
Burkina is
struggling with a seven-year-old radical Islamist militant campaign that has
claimed thousands of lives, forced nearly 2 million people to flee their homes
and left more than a third of the country outside government control.
Anger within the
beleaguered armed forces prompted Damiba’s coup against the elected president,
Roch Marc Christian Kabore, on January 24.
Appointing
himself transitional president, Damiba vowed to make security the country’s top
priority but after a brief lull the attacks revived, claiming hundreds of
lives.
Traore
dramatically emerged on Friday at the head of a faction of disgruntled junior
officers, which proclaimed that Damiba had been deposed — also for failing to
roll back the insurgency.
Transition pledge
Damiba set “seven conditions” for stepping down, according to religious
and community leaders who mediated in his standoff with Traore.
These included
safety guarantees for him and his allies in the military, and that a pledge he
had given to ECOWAS for a return to civilian rule within two years be
respected.
Speaking on the
French radio station RFI on Monday, Traore vowed to uphold the July 2024
timeline for restoring civilian rule.
This could even
happen “before that date” if conditions were right, Traore said.
He said that he
would simply carry out “day-to-day business” until a new civilian or military
transitional president was appointed.
The appointment
would be made by a national forum gathering political and social
representatives, the pro-Traore faction in the military said on Sunday.
Traore told RFI
that this meeting would take place “well before the end of the year.”
Analysts said
that his position, if carried out, would be acceptable to ECOWAS.
ECOWAS was
created to shore up democracy in one of the world’s most volatile regions, yet
has suffered five coups in three of its 15 members since August 2020.
Damiba’s ouster
was proclaimed on Friday just hours after a protest rally that also demanded
the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and closer military
cooperation with
Russia. Some of the demonstrators waved Russian flags.
Russian
paramilitaries are supporting fragile regimes in Mali and Central African
Republic, sidelining France, those countries’ traditional backer. The Russians
have also been tarred with accusations of massacres and other abuses.
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