First Mali, now Burkina Faso – and that wasn’t all of them: there have been more coups in Africa than it has been for a long time. The military rules in a belt from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. How does this happen?
from
Bernd Dorries, Cape Town
If there were a handbook for successfully conducting a military coup, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba would certainly have read it, because on January 24 he did everything that putschists in Africa have done for decades: his units occupied important strategic points in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou and stormed the national television station. When it got dark, they read out a statement in which they introduced themselves as the new rulers who from now on only want to govern for the good of the people. The movement also gave itself a name: “Patriotic Movement for Protection and Restoration (MPSR)”. It’s a name that sounds like you forgot a word or stole it from a Monty Python movie.