mutany without a bountyWhen most major international news networks finally caught up withthe final climactic moments of the Tunisian revolution, it seemed asthough, between racing to get last-minute flights to Tunis and playingcatch-up with other news agencies that had been reporting on Tunisiasince December, the world's major media players made a collective 'neveragain' resolution to never or try not to ignore any developing storyagain. Having gotten over the failure to cover the fall of Zineal-Abidine Ben Ali from day one, Algeria, Libya and Egypt all jostlingto take centre stage in popular uprisings were brilliant opportunitiesfor a media that had missed out to cover up. In the end, Egypt provedripe for revolution and so for 18 days, in spite or in remembrance of800 civilian casualties, the Egyptian people successfully toppled theMubarak regime.
As hundreds of thousands gathered in communal points all over Egyptchanting down Mubarak, to a far lesser extent similar popular protestswent down in Cameroon, Angola, Gabon and Burkina Faso. All of thesereceived marginal coverage. Even Côte d'Ivoire was at one point wasrightly dubbed 'the forgotten war'. It did not fit the media template ofa sexy, tech-savvy, populist revolution, as that which had beenconstructed of Egypt. Instead Côte d'Ivoire had the uncomfortable butfamiliar look and feel of a Rwanda genocide-lite. It was a messy, bloodystruggle for power between rebel and patriot factions in a country mosteducated people outside of Africa would struggle to find on a map. Côted'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer and native home of soccerstars Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and Yaya Touré has the misfortune ofbeing a country with little global influence and of lesser strategicimportance than Egypt or Libya to the (mostly anglophone) countries thathave historically determined which international news stories are to beprioritised.
And now that the French troops have assisted Alassane Ouattara indeposing the resistant Laurent Gbagbo from the presidency, most of theTV crews and cameras have gone. Field correspondents and NGOs continueto file dispatches of fighting in the streets of Abidjan and ongoingatrocities committed in the forests in the western side of the country,but the world's eyes have moved on. Not to Burkina Faso next door, butelsewhere, where more thrilling stories of revolution beckon.
But what makes Burkina Faso's crisis so un-newsworthy that it iseasily swept under the news pile?
The beginnings of the crisis in the little West African nationparallel events in tiny Tunisia where it took an individual catalyst in asmall town to set things off. On 20 February, in an industrial towncalled Koudougo, bigger than Sidi Bouzid, a student named Justin Zongowas taken into police custody after an alleged dispute with a femaleclassmate. A few days later, Zongo was pronounced dead and according toofficial police reports, the cause of death was meningitis. His familyand friends rejected this and claimed Zongo's death was due to policebrutality. This led to a series of protests by students in four towns,Koudougo, Koupéla, Pouytenga and Po, and they were met with violence bythe police. In an effort to contain the demonstrations, the governmenttemporarily closed all schools and the national university. AlthoughCompaoré pleaded for peace and national dialogue, a death toll of sixprotesters sent a different message to the student movement. The AfricaReport states that the Association Nationale des Etudiants Burkinabé(ANEB)'s student representative, Mahamadou Fayama, the movement wantedto 'denounce the climate of terror that the police have created'.
The student chants of 'Blaise dégage' and 'Tunisia is in Koudougo',urging Compaoré to step down from 23-year rule, spread to junior armyofficers in the military barracks of Lamizana. On 22 March the courtsruled against five soldiers for assaulting a young designer whom theyclaimed had made sexual advances towards another soldier's wife. Theirdisgruntled military colleagues took the streets of the capital,Ouagadougou, and went on a rampage. Although the government tried toassuage the gun-toting military men by pardoning and releasing theircounterparts, by the end of March the spirit of mutiny had gone viral.Scores of junior soldiers demanded their salaries, which as yet had beenunpaid by the government. The mayor's home was vandalised; in someparts of the capital, market stalls and shops were looted and in theeast of the country more soldiers joined the uprising as well as membersof the Presidential Guard. Speaking to L'Evénement, a bi-weekly localpaper, one soldier expressed a dejectedness at the heart of the mutinywhich was likely felt by many soldiers:
'I just returned from Darfur. Our contingent has been deployed sinceno other country wanted to go, that is to say, 7 km from the Chadianborder. This is the corridor for many rebels in both countries. We arethe Burkinabe who have managed to secure the area. We have built in lessthan six months roads, bridges and schools. Everyone congratulated usfor that. When we go, people applaud us. The UN congratulated us. Thatwe came home and we do not care about us. First, they are our superiorsthat cut money from our mission. Following is a mayor [of Ouagadugou]who tells traders deal with us as "military thieves." You see that, ithurts.'
So far none of Compaoré's pleas to restore order have worked and themutiny's snowball effect continues to grow. There are reports that,despite the soldiers' lawlessness in some cities, the youths and sometraders have united with revolting army officers. In Koudougo on 18April, the youths are said to have set fire to the ruling party's localoffices, while by contrast in the capital, market traders burnt severalgovernment buildings in retaliation for acts of vandalism by statetroops. On 23 April it was reported that the soldiers upped their gameand seized the southern town of Po, which is home to a state militaryschool where Compaoré himself trained.
In a more hardened response, Compaoré has reacted to the military-leddissent by imposing a nationwide night-time curfew and firing the wholegovernment, including the army chief. Last week he appointed Burkina'sambassador to France, Luc Adolphe Tiao, as prime minister, while hedoubled as president and minister of defence. True to dictator form,Compaoré, like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, has blamed foreign conspiratorialforces for the unrest and he has gotten rid of everyone else, exceptthe problem, himself and his corrupt system. Appointing himself ministerof defence when he is already supreme chief commander of the armedforces adds another fancy title to his name and gives the impressionhe's a superhuman who can juggle three cabinet roles. But superhumanability or not, a display of megalomaniac tendencies will not heal therift between the army and the government, or quieten feelings ofresentment among oppositional regiments. If Compaoré's cosmetic changesand payouts to the soldiers prove unsatisfactory, now that theopposition and civil society have called for nationwide demonstrationson 30 April they would do well to join forces with the mutineers andinstil some sense of order and discipline so that the ousting ofCompaoré and not looting from civilians becomes every protester's goal.Such a union would ensure the movement reaches the critical mass neededto topple the regime. But should Compaoré restore complete order, theeight weeks (and counting) of nationwide unrest will make it much harderfor him to prevent his departure in the future should things escalateagain. The continual playing out of mutiny and retaliation on stateproperty signifies a loss of fear of repercussions for damaging stateproperty and it also symbolises a loss of control and authority by theformer army captain who has previously used the army to crush unrestlike the food riots of 2008.
This dramatic story of Africa's top cotton producer is deserving ofmore attention, especially in the context of unrest on the Africancontinent as a whole. All of the protests, from Cape to Cairo, withtheir own distinct set of local conditions, are linked to food security,economic instability and political dispossession - be it by ballot ordictatorship. There is a widespread feeling of continental discontent,but international and national pundits are so busy putting out possiblefires of revolt in 'sub-Saharan Africa' with their analyses that theBurkina uprising has gone by largely unnoticed, and yet in two monthsmutineering soldiers and youth have stirred up serious trouble for theCompaoré regime - and possibly regionally too. Should Compaoré fall, itwill have a significant impact on the fledgling administration of hisneighbouring ally, Alassane Ouattara in Côte d'Ivoire, which Compaoréplayed a key diplomatic role in ensuring.