Moumina Cheriff Sy, head of Burkina´s national assembly, called on the presidential guard overnight to turn in their weapons or be treated as “deserters and rebels”. Guy-Herve Kam, spokesman for the civil society group Balai Citoyen (Citizen’s Broom) which helped lead the uprising against Compaore, was seen in tears. At last count, over 100 people have been injured and at least 10 have died during the suppression of the anti-coup demonstrators in the last several days.
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Speaking on state TV and radio early Thursday before a blue background, Lieutenant Colonel Mamadou Bamba said the country’s transitional government was dissolved and the interim president was no longer in power.
Importantly those responsible for the military coup would be pardoned and amnestied under the proposed deal to resolve the crisis.
He called for calm, saying “we aren’t going to light a fire that we can not put out”.
The tiny central African country of Burundi is locked in a power struggle between President Pierre Nkurunziza and opponents resisting his efforts to serve out a third term.
“We fully support the dialogue that has been envisaged by several African leaders (…) to go back to a transition process”, the French president told journalists on the sidelines of a state visit to Morocco. “I warn those who seek to oppose it” to think again, he said during a visit to Morocco.
Pro-coup demonstrators in Burkina Faso on Sunday stormed a hotel due to host talks aimed at restoring a civilian interim government and attacked participants arriving for the meeting, witnesses said.
In an interview with The Associated Press, General Gilbert Diendere said the scheduled October 11 election date was too soon.
Diendere, meanwhile, said later that while the talks were “fruitful”, nothing had yet been agreed. “It’s now a question of how to proceed”. Gilbert] Diendere, there should be no discussion about that.
Elsewhere, protesters angered by the coup attacked the homes of well-known members of Compaore’s Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP).
The optimism voiced Saturday by Boni Yayi and Senegal President Macky Sall, who also participate in the talks, stood in stark contrast to their comments about the crisis less than 24 hours earlier.
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Observers said that the coup supporters, some wearing balaclavas, chased their opponents through the hotel grounds while firing guns in the air. It is thus probable that the global community and the African Union (AU) in particular will be wary of elections and further instability in Burkina Faso.
