Burkina Faso: the dissatisfaction of the soldiers on the front line in the fight against the jihadists

Burkinabè soldiers in eastern Burkina Faso (illustration image, archive 2019).

ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

3 mins

In Burkina Faso, the President of the Republic instituted a night curfew yesterday Sunday across the entire territory in response to the mutinies that took place in several military barracks in the country this Sunday.

All night, rumors and counter-rumors of a coup circulated.

The mutineers ask the government for more means to fight against terrorism and changes within the staff.

Decryption.

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Some of the mutineers spoke until late Sunday evening with the Minister of the Armed Forces, General Barthélémy Simporé.

Siaka Coulibaly, jurist and political analyst, is director of the Center for Citizen Monitoring and Analysis of Public Policies.

According to him, at the microphone of Gaëlle Laleix, of the Africa editorial staff, these mutinies are not really a surprise.

Burkina has been living under extreme security tension for quite a few years now.

Inevitably, this ends up causing tensions within the military body, too many defeats suffered, deaths... There was a general background of discontent or tensions within the army.

In early January,

several soldiers were arrested

as part of an investigation for

"

 attempting to destabilize the institutions of the Republic".

Among these soldiers is Lieutenant-Colonel

Emmanuel Zoungrana

, corps commander of the 12th commando infantry regiment.

He was the commander of the western sector force grouping in the fight against terrorism.

To read also

: in Burkina, the government gives details of the alleged coup attempt

Apparently, the whole troop is not willing to accept this idea of ​​​​the involvement of this officer - in addition to the mutineers - they would not agree with the latest appointments to the head of certain units",

continues Siaka Coulibaly

.

But

“It is not because there are mutinies that the whole army would be in rebellion,

tempers Siaka Coulibaly

.

The president necessarily has allies, some who would remain Republicans or who would not get involved in all these considerations...

So in the end, it's not so much the support of the president in the army that counts today.

Rather, it is the proportion of those who would disagree with the way the fight against terrorism is handled that matters

”.

Since the attack on Inata last November and the death of around fifty gendarmes, the atmosphere has become very tense in Burkina, our correspondent

in Ouagadougou

recalled on Sunday .

Changes have taken place at the head of the armed forces and the populations are demanding results in terms of security. 

In Ouagadougou on Sunday, demonstrators gave their support to the soldiers and erected makeshift roadblocks in the capital.

The day before, Saturday, demonstrations against President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré had been

dispersed by the police

.

According to Siaka Coulibaly, there is a risk of convergence of these different protest movements... "

That within the army there is discontent and that also at the political level there are movements demanding the resignation of the Head of State, as we have seen… All this put together, there can be a junction to give a tense socio-political situation.

The precedent of 2011

This happened in March 2011

.

The mutiny had lasted three or four days.

So we don't know if the exchanges could end and restore calm in the barracks, or if the movement could resume overnight or tomorrow.

The ingredients, at the level of security within the troop and the socio-political ingredients, all of this can come together to generate a situation conducive to a coup d'etat.

The president had several alerts that forced him to change his government, when he was not inclined to do so.

Now we can think that if he does not manage, through the reshuffles, to at least resolve the socio-political crisis, it will be like a dead end

 .

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  • Burkina Faso