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Against a backdrop of military disaster in the north of the country, partially controlled by jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, the civil parenthesis has closed in the “Land of Upright Men”. For many, this coup was foreseeable and the French authorities seemed to be preparing for it. Explanations from France 24.
This Tuesday, January 25, Burkina Faso woke up with, at its head, a military government which announced from the studios of the national television the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolution of the government as well as of the National Assembly. President Roch Kaboré presented his resignation in a handwritten letter published Monday evening on the RTB Facebook page.
The country is now led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, president of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (MPSR), an officer trained in France, at the military school in Paris.
Aged 41, he reestablished a military regime in a country that has experienced eight coups since its independence in 1960. The presidency of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (2015-2022), the first democratically elected civilian and to exercise power in duration, lived.
The ouster by the army of the first civilian president of the country since 1966
Economist and former Prime Minister (he had managed the historic devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994), he saw his presidency carried away by thejihadist offensive in the Sahel, part of northern Mali in 2012, which his army failed to contain.
For many observers, this new coup in Burkina Faso is not really a surprise, as the divorce between the former head of state and the armed forces was obvious since the attack on the gendarmerie post. of Inata, in November 2021, during which 54 gendarmes perished after having unsuccessfully requested reinforcements and food from their staff.
Disagreements between Paris and Roch Kaboré
Distrustful of his army, which he suspected of wanting to overthrow him and regain power, the deposed president also seemed to be wary of the Barkhane military operation and refused a significant French military presence on Burkinabe territory.
For Antoine Glaser, founder and former editor-in-chief of “La Lettre du Continent”, a well-informed publication of the political life of the African continent, “Roch Kaboré had a certain distance vis-à-vis France, which reproached him for not wanting to reform his army. He had accepted the presence of Operation Saber, made up of French special forces based near Ouagadougou, but he did not want to have a Barkhane operation in his country because Barkhane is when even an old-fashioned conventional force that African youth see as a throwback to the years of France-Africa”.
Did the Élysée want to exfiltrate Roch Kaboré?
Disavowed by his army, was Roch Kaboré also disavowed by the French authorities? According to AfricaIntelligence, in a note published on Tuesday, “Since September, officers as French diplomats have been working on scenarios of a takeover by the military” and the specialized site affirms that Paris has offered the ex-president “an emergency exfiltration”. on Sunday, before losing contact with him during the day on Monday.
“Several drop-off points in neighboring countries had been studied to shelter the president, but the latter refused to be exfiltrated by Paris”. This information was denied by the Élysée as soon as this note was published, again according to the site specializing in current events and issues on the African continent, which also reports that “the gentleman “Africa” from the Quai d’Orsay, Christophe Bigot, traveled to Ouagadougou in early December, where he met Kaboré, accompanied by the French ambassador to the country, Luc Hallade, and securocrats and senior officers of the Burkinabè army. of State had by then somewhat dissipated, although the threat was still considered very serious.”
The old proximity between the Burkinabè armed forces and France
For Antoine Glaser, the coup concluded on Monday was almost announced, since President Kaboré “had arrested officers who were close to Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba” a fortnight ago. The journalist adds on the antenna of France 24 that he does not think that “Paris has[it] dropped President Kaboré even if it is true that it was the French special forces who exfiltrated former President Blaise Compaoré “, the military leader of Burkina Faso from 1987 to 2014, to Côte d’Ivoire.
Find the full interview with Antoine Glaser in the Journal de l’Afrique
“It’s also true that there has always been French support for Gilbert Diendéré [un général responsable d’une tentative de putsch en 2015 NDLR]. It is also true that the DGSE and the French services have for a long time benefited from the Ouagadougou platform for clandestine operations in the region, but that does not mean that France did not support Roch Kaboré”, explains Antoine Glaser.
The journalist also recalls that in September 2020, Emmanuel Macron confided to him his doubts regarding Roch Kaboré’s ability to respond to the security challenge posed by the jihadist insurgency in the Sahel.
Roch Kaboré’s distrust of his army, a problem for Paris
In his book “The African Trap of Macron” published in 2021, he quotes the French head of state as saying: “In Burkina Faso, there is a problem with the army. Burkina is a country of coups d’etat , President Kaboré himself has devitalized his army. Let’s be clear, he does not want to reform it so it is a self-sustaining model because he will need foreign powers for a long time because he has a mistrust of his own army.”
This Tuesday, the French president declared: “Very clearly, as always, we are alongside the regional organization that is ECOWAS in condemning this military coup”. Asked by RFI, he adds that we must not underestimate the fatigue and exhaustion created by the permanent attacks of terrorist groups which weaken the armed forces on the one hand and which also deeply weaken the link with the population and the institutions. legitimate.”
Beyond the French criticisms of the security strategy of the ex-president, it is indeed the fed up of the population which seems to have authorized the putsch allowing the return to power of the military in Burkina Faso. As the daily notes Release “the impotence of the power in place to slow down the inexorable progression of terrorism has aroused a wind of desperate anger”. A demonstration of support for the putschists is also underway this Tuesday in Ouagadougou where calm has returned.
“Of course it’s a coup, but we have the feeling that, in the Sahelo-Saharan strip, the leaders are bunkering in their capitals, that they are abandoning the rural space to the jihadists and that they have renounced all their sovereign powers of education or health. In Burkina, there were 2,000 dead and millions displaced. After a while, it is no longer possible to continue in the same situation”, concludes Antoine Glaser.