Burkina Faso soldiers storm hotel hosting mediation talks

Pro-coup demonstrators and elite presidential guard members in Burkina Faso have stormed a hotel hosting talks aimed at restoring civilian rule, and attacked participants, witnesses said.

The violent incident threatened to torpedo efforts by regional mediators to peacefully roll back last week’s military putsch and salvage an October presidential election.

The October 11th vote is meant to mark a return to democracy after unrest toppled President Blaise Compaore last year when he tried to extend his 27-year rule. The uprising became a beacon for democratic aspirations in Africa at a time when veteran rulers from Rwanda to Congo Republic are seeking to scrap term limits.

Balaclavas

Members of the presidential guard (RSP), some wearing balaclavas, burst into the Leico Hotel in the capital Ouagadougou brandishing rifles, pistols and shotguns as participants arrived for talks. They were accompanied by civilian protesters, some with signs expressing support for an RSP-led military junta, which interrupted a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and took the interim president, prime minister and several ministers hostage.

“They invaded the hotel. It was violent,” said a Reuters witness. “They attacked ex-opposition members as they arrived. One had to be saved from the crowd by security forces.”

A number of high-level participants in the talks, including foreign ambassadors, were inside the hotel, with both the US and French ambassadors confirmed to be safe.

Senegal’s President Macky Sall, the chairman of West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS who is leading the mediation efforts, continued his consultations and was expected to announce his proposals later in the day. Benin’s president Thomas Boni Yayi, mediating alongside Sall, said on Saturday that Sunday’s talks were expected to lead to the reinstatement of President Michel Kafando’s interim government.

It was unclear however whether Sall would succeed in bridging the gap between the junta led by General Gilbert Diendere, Compaore’s right-hand man, and political parties and civil society groups that backed the ex-president’s ouster.

Highlighting a gulf in expectations, in a proposal to mediators seen by Reuters, Diendere put his name forward to head a new post-coup transition. Mr Diendere has claimed he carried out the coup over plans to disband the presidential guard and because several of Compaore’s allies were barred from taking part in the polls.

Military matters

Under his proposal, all military matters would be handled internally by the army and the law excluding pro-Compaore candidates would be repealed.

Anti-coup demonstrators erected barricades across Ouagadougou on Sunday, braving the presidential guard’s attempts to break up gatherings of protesters. “Our country calls us, comrades! We must paralyse Ouagadougou by any means,” Smockey Bambara, a leader of the civil society group Balai Citoyen (Citizen’s Broom), wrote on Facebook.

A Reuters witness saw presidential guard soldiers set light to pile of motor scooters as part of efforts to limit the mobility of demonstrators. Businesses remained closed and sporadic gunfire could be heard throughout the capital.

The junta has so far failed to gain nationwide traction for its coup, and outside the capital on Sunday, including in the second largest city Bobo-Dioulasso, people opposed to the putsch demonstrated without the interference of security forces.

– (Reuters)