Burkina Faso coup weakens Paris’ local alliances, emboldens jihadists controlling large swathes of territory and gives the opportunity for Russia to fill the vacuum.
This coup puts the French in a difficult position because they have come down hard in Mali. Paris loses its influence in the West Africa to the Kremlin.
January 24,2022 a group of soldiers in Burkina Faso said that they had ousted President Roch Kaboré, suspended the constitution, closed the borders and dissolved the parliament. The announcement came hours after soldiers had detained Kabore in his residence. A soldier read the statement signed by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba on live television.
Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba has been at the forefront of the country’s fight against Islamist militants. The lieutenant-colonel studied in France, at a military academy and a prestigious institution, where he got a Master’s in criminal sciences. In 2015, Damiba and other officers took part in an attempted coup that briefly deposed the transitional government.Following the events in 2015, Damiba left the country to pursue further military studies, according to L’Observateur, which did not provide further details on his time abroad. Upon his return, he took the leadership of the 30th RCAS, a regiment tasked with supporting Burkina Faso’s counterterrorism strategy.
He started his career in the presidential guard (RPS) – the now-disbanded unit was seen as powerful during the presidency of Blaise Compaoré, who was overthrown in 2014 amid protests. After that unit was disbanded, he was integrated into the regular army, where he was professionally promoted. Later on he was sent to the northeastern town of Dori as Commander of the 11th Infantry Commando Regiment (RIC) and to the northern town of Ouahigouya as Commander of the 12th RIC.
Damiba is a lieutenant colonel and commander of the third military region covering Ouagadougou, Manga, Koudougou and Fada N’Gourma.
Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was presented as the president of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR). According to L’Observateur newspaper, Damiba quit the RPS in 2011 following a wave of protests and a violent army mutiny.
In 2020, voters who fled their homes in parts of the north and east were unable to participate in the presidential poll in which Mr Kaboré was re-elected with 58% of the vote. That’s why a captain, who according to him he represented the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration, said this group would work on a timetable for holding new elections that was ‘acceptable to everyone’.
Earlier there were reports informing that mutinous soldiers had seized a military base, stoking concerns about a military coup.Mutinies were reported in several military camps, in the capital, Ouagadougou, and the northern towns of Kaya and Ouahigouya.
Burkina Faso has a long legacy of military intervention. In the first 27 years of independence, Burkinabè soldiers staged five coups d’état and one autogolpe – a military coup initiated or abetted by a country’s elected leader. One resulted in the death of the famed Captain Thomas Sankara. He gave Burkina Faso its name, meaning land of the upright people. The coup saw Sankara’s second-in-command Captain Blaise Compaoré installed as president.
A military junta also runs neighboring Mali after a pair of coups in late 2020.
As in Mali, Mr Kabore’s removal was triggered by growing discontent among security forces over his alleged failure to support them adequatelyagainst al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group-linked militants.
Mr.Kaboré never had a strong interest in military matters, and his fate was sealed by a growing public perception that he was incapable of defeating the Islamist militant threat.
Like its neighbor Mali, Burkina Faso has been also suffering from attacks related to various insurgent Islamist groups conducting their activity across the Sahel region.
Initially, Burkina Faso had been spared the conflict seen in Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Chad, but in 2016 gunmen shot at least 30 people in an attack on a hotel and restaurant in the capital.
Following the First Libyan Civil War and the concurrent NATO intervention in 2011, neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso Islamist attacks became more regular.
Burkina Faso’s rural north and east have been badly hit by Islamist violence.
The West African country is also one of the poorest in the world and the conflict has sparked a humanitarian crisis and popular unrest.
Public confidence in the president’s management of the security crisis sharply fell after an attack in the northern village of Solhan in June 2021. More than 100 people were killed in the attack blamed on militants who had crossed from Mali.
The Solhan attack prompted opposition protests in the capital, forcing Mr Kaboré to reshuffle his government and appoint himself defence minister.
Another attack on the northern Inata military base in November 2021 heightened anger towards the government.
Like Mali, Burkinabè security forces depend onsupport from France who deployed 5,100 personnel in the region under so called Operation Barkhane. It began when France sent troops to stop jihadists marching on Mali’s capital, Bamako in 2013.
In December, residents of Kaya blocked a French military convoy delivering supplies to the Burkinabè army and instead accused Barkhane forces of co-working with jihadists.
The security vacuum could be exploited by jihadists, while persistent political instability could undermine defence cooperation under so called the G5 Sahel force including troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
While Mali is turning to Russia to fill this security gap, Burkina Faso has strongly opposed this move.However, the latest signs of public appeal to Russia during street protests leave no doubt of Russian involvement in crisis. Demonstrators gather in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, to show support for the military while waving a Russian flag and an anti-France placard.
The coup in Burkina Faso suggest that putschists are not concerned about the reaction of the West African regional group ECOWAS.
In addition, the instability in Mali and Burkina Faso gives birth to security concerns in Ivory Coast, their neighbour to the south. Since June 2020 there have been jihadist attacks targeting security forces.
There are rumors, that Russian Wagner PMC Group is going to deploy in Burkina-Faso and its advisor consulted the army team on coup.
Earlier Lieutenant Colonel Damiba made two offers to the ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to get Wagner PMC engaged in fighting against Islamist groups. The offers were turned down. January was the last time when Damiba tried to get green light from the president.
