Bloodletting in Burkina Faso

So it seems the president of Burkina Faso, who has ruled the country for 27 years, has decided to extend his rule. Par for the course in sub-Saharan Africa, you say.

Well it seems the people had enough. Violent protests have begun, and they have now stormed the Parliament.

Why is this important? The country borders Mali, which has its own problems, and is not too far away from the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic, which could enter the country if people get too distracted by this.

Thoughts?

edited 30th Oct '14 11:22:46 AM by SeptimusHeap

Opened and fixed the link in the OP. Also, the thread title might use an improvement.

Yeah needs a better name. Bloodletting sounds like a medical procedure.

So how bad is the violence? We talking angry mob breaking stuff? Or are we talking Syria and Libya bad?

So far the former (they've set fire to the parliament and the cabinet has fled), but this can easily become the latter.

And sorry for the title. Was trying to be aliterative. If someone could fix it and keep it so, I'd be mighty grateful.

They're decently separate from the goings-on in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone

What's interesting is that they've always been a little more on the mild side (though Mali was too until it blew right the hell up in 2012), but they don't have quite the same ethnic or religious divisions of their neighbors.

"Upper Volta" is a dismissive pejorative for a reason, after all.

They are, but chaos tends to attract problems from neighboring areas.

And Mali's descent from stability to madness is exactly why I thought it pertinent to make a thread here on this.

Perhaps "Protests in Burkina Faso" might be a better title?

Or, alternatively, we could make this a general thread for West Africa? That way I could share some stuff from the Portuguese-speaking countries (namely Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau)?

edited 30th Oct '14 12:18:03 PM by Quag15

Making it a general West Africa thread ain't a bad idea.

The President has fled the country, right after imposing emergency rule.

Oh, yeah: classy.

Personally, I find that one of the "how can we tell if they're a dictator" markers. When they do a decent rat leaving a sinking ship impression after running the ship into the ground. <_<

edited 30th Oct '14 1:49:00 PM by Euodiachloris

Well, this escalated quickly.

The military is stepping in now to maintain state function. They've made official what has already happened in practice and dissolved parliament.

How effective of a military are we looking at here? And do they have any major powers backing them ala Syria?

Small military, The Other Wiki says about 16,000 soldiers, not including the reserve forces of 45,000. So far, these guys seem to just want to restore order (usually if they had intention of ruling, they'd form a junta council with an elaborate name and name a general, but this time that doesn't seem to be happening. Yet.), but if these guys were somehow trying to keep their old boss in power or were worse, I imagine they'd end up like Mali or CAR.

As for who backs them, France and the US. We'll see if that continues going forward.

edited 30th Oct '14 4:41:50 PM by FFShinra

From a bit of basic research it seems like they are a key ally to the American/French counter terror operations in the region, though if this does escalate to a coup and/or violent crackdowns of protest this will get awkward fast. Though I doubt this will make the news to the extent that D.C. and Paris have to worry about the domestic PR front, everything is Ukraine/IS/Ebola right now.

From what The Other Wiki says at least there aren't any major terror groups or insurgencies brewing, unlike Mali, just anti-government unrest. Of course if this goes on, who knows what brand of ugly will crawl out of the woodwork.

edited 30th Oct '14 5:04:25 PM by Rationalinsanity

A bit of history:

The current president is Blaise Compaore, a rightist who took power in a coup in 1987, with a small amount of French support. He took power from a more progressive leftist called Thomas Sankara, who was very people-focused but less good at economics, while Compaore has been better at economics but worse at cultivating a good public image. This mess is because the president decided to pursue yet another term of office, presumably when he had promised to step down or something. Not sure on that part.

One of my professors is a West Africa specialist, so we talked about it for a while during class today.

He put term limits in 2000, so presumably he made promises at that time that he suddenly forgot....

A BBC profile on Thomas Sankara's legacy I find the fact that he was friends with the former President of Ghana,Jerry Rawlings. It seems the two planned on merging their nations.

According to CNN the military has dissolved the government,and has imposed a curfew to "restore order."

edited 30th Oct '14 6:02:48 PM by JackOLantern1337

The President refuses to give up his post. I don't see why he bothers at this point, but there you go....

Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore ousted, army says

Looks like the pres doesn't have a choice in the matter.

CNN are anything that local media is reporting that the president has given in and said that he will resign.

Interesting. One wonders if this won't be Mubarak-style, though, since the military restores order after the protests but then just puts their man in charge anyway.

Of course, there's the off-chance that their man might be a good man.

Compaore was once their man. As was Sankara before him. They've picked their man for the moment BTW: Gen. Honore Traore.

The country has a long history of military mutinies, usually over pay, so the fact that army is trying to restore order unilaterally isn't a surprise. They ultimately take care of themselves.

Seems the Army is not as unified as we thought. A second officer is now proclaiming himself president, this one a colonel.