RE: RE: My take on Burkina FasoBurkina Faso's capital remains calm, but soldiers' unrest spreads to more towns in east, north
By Brahima Ouedraogo, The Associated Press – 50 minutes ago
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — A mutiny by soldiers that started in Burkina Faso's capital last week has spread north and east, residents said Monday.
Anatole Kiema, a teacher at a grammar school in the town of Kaya, north of Ouagadougou, said Monday that schools in the area have closed after soldiers shot into the air from Sunday night until early in the morning.
"There was a panic in town and we have closed classes as precaution measure," Kiema said.
Tassere Koanda, a resident in Tenkodogo, a town east of the capital, also said soldiers shot into the air for hours Sunday night before returning to their barracks. He said they also stole cellphones and went to bars where they demanded free drinks.
Soldiers in Ouagadougou protested last week over payment of housing and daily subsistence allowances. The soldiers' protest started late Thursday when gunfire erupted at the presidential compound and led to days of looting. That incident prompted President Blaise Compaore to announce that he was dissolving his government and naming a new army chief and a new head of presidential security.
A government statement Friday said that the problem was being "sorted out," and expressed its regrets for any suffering during the protests.
The security minister also instituted a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the capital on Saturday.
The southern town of Po was calm Monday after unrest on Sunday. Po hosts a training centre for senior officers and their commandos. During Sunday's uprising, Po's Mayor Henry Koubizara said he didn't know why soldiers there had joined in the mutiny.
"We know nothing about their demands. We didn't expect Po to enter the crisis since calm is back in Ouagadougou," he said.
In recent months, Burkina Faso has seen several episodes of unrest. On April 8, people took to the streets of Ouagadougou to protest soaring prices of basic foods.
In March, students torched government buildings in several cities to protest a young man's death in custody. The government said he had meningitis, but accusations of mistreatment have fueled deadly protests, killing at least six others.
Compaore, who seized power in a bloody coup 23 years ago, was re-elected by a landslide in a November vote rejected by the opposition as being rigged. The former army captain took power in 1987 in the small West African nation after the former leader was gunned down in his office.
Burkina Faso is near the bottom of the United Nations' Human Development Index, which measures general well-being, ranked 161 out of 169 nations. It has high rates of unemployment and illiteracy, and most people get by on subsistence agriculture.
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