Date: Sat Nov 29 11:56:42 2014
Burkina Faso: The Black Spring blossoms
Islamic Awakening
by <http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/author/mvarga/> Mark Varga | on
November 29th, 2014 |
<http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2014/11/29/burkina-faso-the-black-spring-blos
soms/#disqus_thread> 0 comments
With Western leaders occupied by rising tensions in Ukraine and the Middle
East, it appears that the emergence of uprisings on the African continent
has largely been overlooked. The recent protests in Burkina Faso and the
subsequent overthrow of Blaise Compaoré on Oct. 31 from his 27-year reign,
illustrates the far-reaching social and political changes taking place in
Africa. As the population’s voice has increasingly grown louder since the
Arab Spring, so have their demands for accountable leadership and a new,
more democratic political sphere. Are we witnessing the nascent cries of a
new social contract in Africa and if so, what should the West do?
Blaise Compaoré seized power during a coup in 1987 and has since remained
the former French colony’s strongman, guiding it through economic reforms,
steering it clear of regional conflicts and working with global powers in a
seemingly never-ending fight against terrorism. While throughout this period
Compaoré has been increasingly viewed a symbol of stability in a region
plagued by volatility
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/opinion/burkina-fasos-reverberating-crisi
s.html?_r=0> , during recent years his regime has become the dead ringer of
authoritarianism adorned with democratic decorations hiding his corrupt,
exclusionary and autocratic tendencies.
This flawed social contract between Compaoré and his population worked for
almost three decades. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was his
attempt to unilaterally re-write the constitution in order to remove the
limit on consecutive presidential terms. As a young and increasingly angry
population took to the streets in late October to protest and set fire to
the parliament in the capital, Ouagadougou, the president embarked on a
final ditch attempt to hold on to power. He
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/burkinafaso/
11199820/African-protesters-launch-Black-Spring-in-Burkina-Faso.html>
vouched to drop his plans for constitutional change and arrange for a
transfer of power, but stopped short of resigning from his post. With the
chants of the protestors growing louder, Compaoré finally stepped down and
fled to neighboring Ivory Coast on Oct. 31.
A Western scare
For the West, the fall of the first African regime has widespread
implications with regards to its policies in the region. Burkina Faso, for
all its democratic inadequacies, has served as a key partner in Europe’s and
the U.S.’ anti-terrorist efforts. A prescient report by the International
Crisis Group (IGC) from July 2013
<http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/west-africa/burkina-faso/205-b
urkina-faso-avec-ou-sans-compaore-le-temps-des-incertitudes.aspx> pointed
out that “a crisis in Burkina Faso would not only mean the loss of a key
ally and strategic base for France and the US, it would also reduce the
capacity of an African country in dealing with regional conflicts.”
Indeed, the country is home to a French military base, which has served as
the West’s forward bastion against al-Qaeda’s allies in Mali and Boko Haram.
Moreover, the United States has
<http://abcnews.go.com/International/upheaval-burkina-faso-matters-us-nation
al-security/story?id=26608578> increasingly used Burkina Faso’s strategic
position in West Africa to monitor the security situation in the region and
to launch counterterrorism efforts.
Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-expands-secret-int
elligence-operations-in-africa/2012/06/13/gJQAHyvAbV_story.html> operated
“as a key hub of the US spying network” where under the guise of the Creek
Sand surveillance program, a military base was established. Manned with U.S.
spy planes tasked with patrolling the region, searching for fighters from al
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the outpost’s importance grew considerably
after jihadists declared Mali’s northern
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-mali-an-islamic-extremist-hav
en-takes-shape/2012/06/06/gJQAIKNlKV_story.html> provinces “an independent
Islamist state.”
The overthrow of Compaoré is certainly a cause for concern for the West and
its planned operations in the region. However, one U.S. military official
<http://abcnews.go.com/International/upheaval-burkina-faso-matters-us-nation
al-security/story?id=26608578> slyly remarked that, given its support for
the country’s own anti-terrorist operations, as well as the millions of
dollars in foreign aid doled out annually, they should be able to work
together no matter who holds the reigns of power.
It doesn’t stop there
Despite this somewhat positive perspective, Western powers with strategic
interests on the African continent should not simply to write off Compaoré’s
overthrow as a fluke. The incident has wider implications for the rest of
the region, as Burkina Faso was not the only African state hiding its
authoritarian tendencies behind a shabby veil of democracy.
In light of the people’s uprising in Burkina Faso, Djibouti
<http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2014/10/10/djibouti-reliable-partn
er-terrorism/> , also dubbed a key strategic partner for U.S. and Western
forces, may be up next. As I’ve written before on FPA, the country’s
strongman, Ismail Omar Guellah (IOG), has been in power for 15 years and has
already changed the Constitution once in 2010 to allow him to run for a
third term
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ddc43b0a-6351-11e4-9a79-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IM
tzqyDT> . Reports indicate that Guellah will to rewrite the constitution
again to get rid of term limits altogether, a development that has already
sparked protests across the country. On November 3, the Opposition Youth
Movement
<http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/11/04/djiboutis-young-people-look-to-bur
kina-faso-to-pave-their-own-democratic-way/> filled the streets of Djibouti
city demanding free, fair and transparent elections, demands that have been
remarkably absent in the country’s past. In the run up to the 2011
elections, reports indicate that opposition forces
<http://www.friendsofdjibouti.org/wp-content/themes/azure-basic/pdf/Human-Ri
ghts-in-Djibouti-Report.pdf> were harassed, as the government banned
demonstrations and undertook arbitrary arrests. Similarly, the country is
mired by human rights abuses with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
Defenders in Africa, Mrs Reine Alapini-Gansou,
<http://www.achpr.org/press/2014/01/d186/> stating that the elections were
“marked by an increase in arrests, police and judicial repression, and all
forms of threats against independent journalists and opinion leaders.” It
comes as no wonder then why the country’s citizens have started to rise
against their leader and demand for his resignation.
Long time coming
In many African analyses, the historical role of ideologies is often
overlooked. The current state of affairs on the continent is a remnant of
the Cold war struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which used the
region to fight a drawn-out war by proxy. For example, Burkina Faso was the
home of Thomas Sankara, a
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/11/02/burkina-fasos
-uprising-part-of-an-ongoing-wave-of-african-protests/> Marxist
revolutionary dubbed the African Che Guevara that was backed by Moscow. He
ruled the country for four years with an iron fist before being killed in
the coup that brought U.S.-backed Compaoré to power. Sankara has since been
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-mungai/thomas-sankara_b_1588163.html>
elevated to a mythical status, haunting the October protests, as many
rioters held up signs with “Sankara lives”. In one of its first acts, the
transitional government announced on Nov. 22 that they would
<http://www.france24.com/en/20141122-burkina-faso-vows-identify-remains-folk
-hero-thomas-sankara-compaore/> conduct a DNA investigation into the alleged
remains of Sankara and shed more light into the way he met his end. Given
the revolutionary’s popularity, it is by no means a fait accompli that
Compaoré will be replaced with a like-minded, pro-Western ruler.
Up until now, African leaders have run unchallenged, and have used their
strategic positioning to fight terrorism as a pretext to ensure Western
backing. However, today both Compaoré and Guellah, along with a handful of
other African leaders, are starting to see their grip on their populations
weaken. In many quarters, the poor state of Africa’s economies is blamed on
the passive continuation of neo-imperial policies by a corrupt political
class. Therefore, a new social contract has to be engineered that is mindful
of the multiple cleavages ripping apart the emergent African middle class.
This time, both the U.S. and Europe have to make sure they will be on the
right side of history.
<http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/9896840543_1137b7f0c0_k.jp
g> Compaore and Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon in 2013 - (c) Flickr
Compaore and Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon in 2013 – (c) Flickr
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)