Coup d’état in Burkina Faso: Suspended Country of Cedao

After the power of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the West African Community intends to mark its disapproval.

Le Monde with AFP

The Burkina Faso, where Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba took power on Monday, was suspended on Friday, January 28 of the West African States (Cédéao) at the end of a virtual summit of This organization that has not decided other sanctions for the moment.

The virtual summit, which lasted about three hours, has also decided on the shipment Saturday to Ouagadougou of a mission of the heads of staff of the Armies of the Cédeao, which will be followed Monday of a mission ministerial.

The Cédéao, which requested the release of the reverse president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, placed in supervised residence, as well as other arrested officials, will hold a new summit on 3 February in Accra, present this time the leaders of State of the region. The participants will study the minutes of these missions to decide whether or not to impose other sanctions, as he did for Mali and Guinea, where soldiers also took power.

“Zero tolerance”

“Every time you have a coup, it’s a democratic decline for the country and the region” and “the reply of Cédéao has always been very firm and very coherent, it’s zero tolerance “, said Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, President of the Cédéao Commission, in an interview at the France-Press Agency.

“It is also an international requirement,” said Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, believing that “the period of strokes of the 1970s is over”. According to the principles of Cédéao, “the army must be republican and apolitical”.

He recalled that his organization was “always willing to accompany” the countries where putschists took power, “to go into a process of return to the constitutional order”.

“Doutes. legitimate “on the coup état

Thursday night, in his first speech since his takeover, Monday, the new strong man of Burkina, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, told the national television that his country had “more than ever needed of its partners “.

saying to understand the “legitimate doubts” aroused by the coup, he assured that Burkina “will continue [IT] to respect international commitments, particularly with respect to respect for human rights,” By stating that the independence of justice would also be “assured”.

Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba also hired “back to a normal constitutional life”, “when the conditions are met”, without specifying as a calendar.

Spiral of violence

In the wake of Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso is caught in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist armed groups, affiliated with Al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, which have made more than 2,000 dead and constrained at least 1.5 million people to flee their homes.

In particular, the population reproached the reverse president, Roch March Christian Kaboré, not having managed to stem safe degradation since 2015, particularly in the north and east of the country.
Since taking power, Mr. Damiba has consulted the reversed ministers as well as the unions. Several organizations seem to be inclined to work with him. “We have an interest in what this army succeeds in stabilizing the country,” says the Association Save Burkina Faso, which ardently demanded Mr. Kaboré’s resignation.

Several opposition parties to Mr. Kaboré, the most important, Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) Near Blaise Compaoré – formerly chased by the street in 2014 after twenty-seven years of power – also marked “their availability to appreciate the vision that will be submitted to them” by the junta.

Roland Bayala, Spokesperson for the African Patriot Coalition of Burkina Faso (COPA / BF) who supports the putsch and had called to demonstrate against the passage of a French military convoy in the country in November, asked Cedao “to pay attention to his sanctions against the Burkinabe people”, who will not “let go”.

The question of Mr. Kaboré’s future should also arise soon. In residence, he is in good health, according to several sources, and has a doctor at his disposal.

/Media reports.