West African leaders hold a key summit on Thursday as a series of coups buffet a region struggling with poverty and a long history of turbulence.

Emergency talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra were triggered after Burkina Faso on January 24 became the third member of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to be overtaken by the military.

Burkina followed Mali, where a coup in September 2020 was followed by a second in May 2021, and Guinea, where elected president Alpha Conde was ousted last September.

Adding to the region’s turmoil was a gun attack on Tuesday on the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, stoking fears that years of efforts to steer West Africa towards stability and democracy are failing.

Thursday’s one-day meeting, scheduled to start at 1000 GMT, will assess the outcome of two missions to Burkina following the coup.

Burkina was suspended from ECOWAS after rebel soldiers arrested President Roch Marc Christian Kabore amid public anger at his handling of a jihadist insurgency.

The question now is whether the country — ranked a wretched 182nd out of 189 countries in the UN’s worldwide development index — will escape economic punishment.

ECOWAS has already slapped crippling sanctions on Mali and Guinea for dragging their feet on commitments to restore civilian rule.

Those measures have included the closure of borders by ECOWAS members, an embargo on trade and financial transactions and sanctions against individuals.

Positive signs

Military chiefs from ECOWAS flew to Ouagadougou on Saturday for talks with the junta, and this was followed on Monday by a diplomatic mission led by Ghana’s foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

Early reactions from the envoys have been positive.

“They seemed very open to the suggestions and proposals that we made. For us it’s a good sign,” Botchwey told reporters after meeting with strongman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and other junta members.

The talks were attended by the UN’s special representative for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who described a “very frank exchange”.

The delegation notably met Kabore, whose wellbeing and demands for release from house arrest are major issues.

During the visit, the junta declared it had restored the constitution, which it had swiftly suspended following the coup, and named Damiba as president and head of the armed forces during a transition period.

And on Tuesday, Damiba met with political party chiefs, many of whom said they were keen to take part in the restoration of civilian rule.

But major questions remain unanswered, including the key issue of a date for elections. On January 24, the junta vowed to re-establish “constitutional order” within a “reasonable time”.

In deciding whether to impose sanctions, ECOWAS leaders have to balance the credibility of their organisation against the fragility of some of their states, especially in the Sahel.

Mali and Burkina Faso are in the throes of a nearly decade-old jihadist emergency that has claimed thousands of lives and forced at least one and a half million people from their homes.

Escalating political friction with the junta in Mali has driven Bamako closer to the Kremlin and cast a shadow over France’s anti-jihadist mission in the country.

Source: AFP

President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday said he survived heavy fire for five hours during an attempted coup which he claimed killed or injured many people in the unstable west African country.

Appearing in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page hours after gunfire was heard near a compound where he was chairing a Cabinet meeting, Embalo said some of the people involved had been arrested.

“The attackers could have spoken to me before these bloody events that have seriously injured many and claimed lives,” he said, without clearly indicating who was behind the unrest.

But Embalo said the failed coup was linked to decisions he had taken “notably to fight drug trafficking and corruption”.

Shortly before the video appearance, the president told AFP in a brief telephone call: “All is well” and added that the situation is “under control”.

Earlier on Tuesday, sustained gunfire was heard near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state in what the African Union and a regional bloc called an “attempted coup”.

Heavily-armed men had surrounded the Palace of Government, where Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to have been attending a cabinet meeting.

People were seen fleeing the area on the edge of the capital Bissau, near the airport.

Local markets were closed and banks shut their doors, while military vehicles laden with troops drove through the streets.

According to various accounts, in the early afternoon armed men were seen entering the government palace, which houses different ministries.

Some witnesses described the gunmen as military, others as civilians.

Gunfire could be heard for a large part of the afternoon when the complex was surrounded.

An AFP reporter was warned to leave the area by a man carrying a gun who pointed it at him.

The former Portuguese colony, just south of Senegal, is an impoverished coastal state of about two million people.

It has seen four military coups since gaining independence in1974, most recently in 2012.

In 2014, the country vowed to return to constitutional government, but it has enjoyed little stability since then, and the armed forces wield substantial clout.

A 36-year-old Frenchwoman living in Bissau, Kadeejah Diop, said she rushed to pick up her two children from school and witnessed armed troops entering the government complex.

“They made all the female workers leave. There was huge panic,” she told AFP by phone from her home. “Right now, we are holed up indoors. We have no news.”

Troops set up a security perimeter around the palace and kept people away.

A journalist, asking not to be named, reported that at the start of the afternoon the public television centre had been occupied by soldiers who refused to let staff leave. It was not clear if they were part of the coup bid or government loyalists.

African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed deep concern over the “attempted coup”.

An AU statement said he was following “with deep concern the situation in Guinea Bissau, marked by the attempted coup d’etat against the government”.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also issued a statement saying it “condemns this attempted coup” and urged soldiers to “return to their barracks”.

The bloc warned that it “holds the military responsible for the well-being” of the president and government members.

The United Nations said Secretary General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned with the news of heavy fighting in Bissau”.

He called for “an immediate end to the fighting and for full respect of the country’s democratic institutions,” the UN’s statement said.

Election turmoil

Embalo, a 49-year-old reserve brigadier general and former prime minister, took office in February 2020 after winning a second-round runoff election that followed four years of political in-fighting under the country’s semi-presidential system.

He was a candidate for a party called Madem, composed of rebels from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which had led Guinea-Bissau to independence.

His chief opponent, PAIGC candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira, bitterly contested the result but Embalo declared himself president without waiting for the outcome of his petition to the Supreme Court.

Late last year, the armed forces chief said members of the military had been preparing to launch a coup while the president was on a working trip to Brazil.

Troops had been offering bribes to other soldiers “in order to subvert the established constitutional order”, armed forces head General Biague Na Ntam said on October 14.

The government spokesman denied his account the following day.

In addition to volatility, Guinea-Bissau struggles with a reputation for corruption and drug smuggling.

Its porous coastline and cultural ties have made it an important stop on the Africa trafficking route. In 2019, nearly two tonnes of cocaine were seized.

Three countries in West Africa – Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso – have experienced military takeovers in less than 18 months.

The region’s mounting instability is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday at an ECOWAS summit in Accra, Ghana.

“It looks increasingly hard to argue against the idea of coup contagion,” Eric Humphrey-Smith, an analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told Reuters.

“When added to successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad in the past year, there is no doubt that West African leaders are nervously looking over their shoulders.”

Source:  REUTERS

The African Union said Monday it had suspended Burkina Faso in response to the January 24 coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

The bloc’s 15-member Peace and Security Council said on Twitter it had voted “to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the effective restoration of constitutional order in the country”.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commission, had already condemned the coup before the military junta officially announced that it had ousted Kaboré.  

Burkina Faso’s coup is the latest bout of turmoil to strike the impoverished, landlocked state that has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The coup leader, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, has not set a timeline for Burkina Faso’s return to constitutional order besides a vague promise to do so “when the conditions are right”.

Insecurity and coups

 A jihadist insurgency that spread over Mali’s border has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.5 million to flee their homes since 2015.

Between 2015 and 2018, terrorist attacks targeted the capital Ouagadougou and other centres of power. Since 2019, attacks by mobile combat units targeted mostly rural zones in the north and east of the country, fuelling displacements en masse and intercommunal violence. Some 2,000 people were killed, among them civilians and members of the armed forces or the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a civilian auxiliary group of the army created in 2020.

Islamist militants now move freely across entire swaths of the country and have forced inhabitants of some regions to conform to a strict version of Islamic law. Meanwhile, the army’s continuing fight against the Islamists has depleted the country’s already meagre resources.

The West African bloc ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso on Friday and sent a delegation to meet with the ruling junta Saturday.

Mali and Guinea, also in West Africa, have also seen coups in the past 18 months that have prompted AU suspensions. In opening remarks at Friday’s summit, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, the acting ECOWAS chairman, acknowledged the organisation has work to do convincing people of the benefits of democracy.

The AU has also suspended Sudan following a coup there on October.

The spate of coups is expected to be a major point of discussion at the AU summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, diplomats say.

Source:  REUTERS

Supporters of the new junta in Burkina Faso gathered in the capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday as neighbouring countries, the UN and France condemned the military coup.

Military leaders on Monday detained Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, later announcing they had ousted the leader, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution.

“I came here this morning to support the putsch. We expect the military to deal with the corruption in the country”, said one of hundreds of people gathered in Nation Square, Ouagadougou, on Tuesday.

As the crowds waved flags and sounded vuvuzela horns, some hoped the new leaders would tackle security concerns including jihadi attacks which have killed millions in the country. “We are tired of this situation. We are tired of crying, we are tired of always suffering because our brothers are killed”, said another.

The West African country is now in the hands of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (MPSR), the name of a junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Source: France 24

Burkina Faso’s army said on Monday it had ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, suspended the country’s constitution, dissolved government and closed the national borders. The announcement followed hours of confusion after gunfire erupted at army camps on Sunday night. Kaboré has not been seen since Sunday and his whereabouts remain unknown.

The military takeover statement was made in the name of a previously unheard of entity, the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration or MPSR, its French language acronym.

“MPSR, which includes all sections of the army, has decided to end President Kaboré’s post today,” it said.

It cited the deterioration of the security situation and what it described as Kaboré’s inability to unite the nation and effectively respond to the challenges it faces.

Earlier Monday, the African Union and the West African bloc ECOWAS both condemned what they called an attempted coup. The US and the EU have also called for Kaboré’s “immediate release”.

Source: France 24

Sudanese anti-coup demonstrators built street barricades in and around the capital overnight Saturday following calls for civil disobedience to protest last month’s military coup.

Activists were seen working in darkness to pile up bricks and large slabs to block streets in Khartoum and neighbouring cities, according to witnesses and AFP correspondents.

Their preparation followed calls for civil disobedience made by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella of unions which were instrumental in the 2018-2019 protests which ousted the longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir.

The SPA circulated its appeals via text messages to bypass internet outages since October 25, the day of the putsch.

“The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup,” the SPA said on Twitter, vowing “no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy”.

“We will start by barricading the main streets to prepare for the mass civil disobedience on Sunday and Monday,” it said, urging protesters to avoid confrontation with the security forces.

Nationwide protests — including by tens of thousands on October 30 — have been met by a deadly crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded, according to the independent Central Committee of Sudan’s Doctors.

By Sunday morning, some shops were still open but others were shuttered in Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Khartoum-North, according to witnesses.

“Movement on the streets is less than usual but there is not full blockage of streets or closure of shops” after the civil disobedience call, said a witness from Omdurman who declined to give his name fearing reprisals.

Almost two weeks ago Sudan’s top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the government as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule.

He also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan’s civilian leadership, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and members of his government.

Hamdok was later placed under effective house arrest and the military has since Thursday released four civilian members of his government.

The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule.

Burhan insists it “was not a coup” but a move to “rectify the course of the transition.”

Source: AFP

Protesters in Sudan remained in the streets on Tuesday, despite the violence, a day after the country’s military seized power from a transitional government in an apparent coup d’état.

At least seven protesters have been killed and 140 others injured in the countrywide protests that broke out on Monday.

Military forces in the African Union country on Monday detained Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok after besieging his house. He was taken to an unknown location “after refusing to support coup”.

Hamdok had shared power with the country’s military leadership following the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir more than two years ago.

Hours after the apparent military coup on Monday, Sudan’s main opposition coalition called for civil disobedience and protests across the country.

The Sudanese Information Ministry said the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance had demanded that the transitional military council step down and transfer power back to the civilian government.

The alliance also called for the release of all detained members of the Sudanese cabinet and the Sovereign Council, the ministry said on its Facebook account.

On Tuesday, more than 24 hours later, protests were gathering momentum across the country, according to reports.

Sudanese security forces keep watch as they protect a military hospital and government offices during protests on October 25, 2021 in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman. (Photo by AFP)

Protesters were chanting slogans like “returning to the past is not an option,” and “civilian rule is the people’s choice,” while some were using tyres to create burning barricades.

The employees of the country’s central bank have also announced a strike to reject the coup, according to the Information Ministry.

The protests have, however been marred by violence. The country’s Health Ministry on Tuesday announced that at least seven people had been killed by gunfire and 140 others were injured.

Authorities said tens of thousands of people opposed to the takeover had taken to the streets and had faced gunfire near the military headquarters in the capital Khartoum.

The Information Ministry said on its Facebook page that the transitional constitution gives only the prime minister the right to declare a state of emergency, calling Hamdok a “legitimate transitional authority”.

The state of emergency was on Monday declared by the coup leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who dissolved the cabinet, as well as the ruling sovereign council of military and civilian figures.

The international community has condemned the military takeover, with the UN Security Council expected to hold a closed-door meet on Tuesday to discuss the unfolding crisis.

The United Nations has demanded the prime minister’s “immediate release,” with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres describing their detention as “unlawful.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned that Sudan risked the return to oppression.

“It would be disastrous if Sudan goes backwards after finally bringing an end to decades of repressive dictatorship,” she said.

Meanwhile, the US government has decided to halt the $700 million in economic support for the African country, according to the US Department of State.

African Union Commission head Moussa Faki Mahamat has also expressed “deep dismay” about the emerging political situation in Sudan.

General Burhan, however, defended the military actions, saying, “What the country is going through now is a real threat and danger to the dreams of the youth and the hopes of the nation.”

He is slated to hold a news conference later in the day, officials from his office said.

Source: Presstv

Mali’s foreign ministry summoned France’s ambassador to Bamako on Tuesday over comments by President Emmanuel Macron that it said were unfriendly and disagreeable.

This is the latest salvo in a tense dispute between Mali and its key military partner France over reports Bamako could recruit Russian mercenaries as Paris reshapes its 5,000-strong counter-terrorism mission in the region.

Mali’s prime minister has accused France of abandoning it in the joint fight against Islamist insurgents. Macron last week rejected the charge and questioned the legitimacy of the Malian authorities overseeing a transition to elections after two coups in just over a year.

In response, the Malian foreign ministry said it had summoned the French ambassador to inform him of the authorities’ indignation and disapproval.

At the meeting, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop “strongly protested (Macron’s) regrettable remarks, which are likely to harm the development of friendly relations,” the ministry said in a statement.

It said Diop also called for the two sides to take a constructive approach and prioritise countering the insurgency in the region.

Violence in the Sahel, a band of arid land that borders the south edge of the Sahara Desert, has intensified in recent years despite the presence of thousands of United Nations, regional and Western troops.

Diplomatic and security sources have told Reuters that Mali’s year-old military junta is close to recruiting the Russian Wagner Group, and France has launched a diplomatic drive to thwart it, saying such an arrangement is incompatible with a continued French presence.

(REUTERS)

Guinea’s ruling junta on Saturday ruled out exile for detained former president Alpha Conde and said transition towards civilian rule would be done in accordance with “the will of the people”.

The statement from the ruling council came in defiance of international pressure for Conde’s release and a six-month timetable for elections after a coup on September 5 sparked global condemnation.

It also followed the visit on Friday of a mission from ECOWAS led by two heads of state from the 15-member West African bloc.

Mamady Doumbouya, the colonel who led the coup, told the visiting delegation that “it was important for ECOWAS to listen to the legitimate aspirations of the people of Guinea,” said a junta spokesman, Colonel Amara Camara, at the ruling council’s first news conference on the six-month deadline.

Doumbouya stressed the need not to repeat the “mistakes of the past”, recalling that national consultations to outline the transition had begun on Tuesday and that “only the sovereign people of Guinea will decide its destiny”, Camara said.

“It is also clear to all parties that the former president will remain in Guinea,” he added.

‘Frank and fraternal talks’

During their visit, the Ghanaian head of state Nana Akufo-Addo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of ECOWAS, and his Ivorian counterpart Alassane Ouattara, presented the junta with the organisation’s demands for elections within six months.

They also insisted on the release of Conde.

“We had very frank, fraternal talks with Colonel Doumbouya and his associates and collaborators and I think that ECOWAS and Guinea will find a way to walk together,” Akufo-Addo said at the end of the visit.

The ruling council, which now designates Doumbouya as “president of the republic and head of state”, said that consultation sessions scheduled for Friday with banks, insurance companies and unions would be held on Saturday.

The consultations will continue next week, it said, including Monday meetings with cultural actors, press associations and those within the informal sector.

The military has already held talks with political parties, religious leaders, and the heads of mining companies, key players in this poor but resource-rich country, and other figures.

Local rights groups, including the Guinean Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights (OGDH), put out a statement voicing their concern over “respect for democratic principles and the rule of law” and called on the ruling junta to “communicate as soon as possible a roadmap for the transition that takes into account all the proposals arising from the consultations”.

Activists return from exile

Public discontent in Guinea had been brewing for months before the coup over the leadership of Conde, 83.

A former opposition figure, Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015.

But last year, he pushed through a controversial new constitution that allowed him to run for a third term in October 2020.

The move sparked mass demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed. Conde won the election but the political opposition maintained the poll was a sham.

On Saturday four activists against Conde serving a third term returned to the country from exile and were met by cheering crowds at Conakry airport.

“Honour to the patriots” read one placard on display among the hundreds who waited hours for the exiles to return.

Some in the crowd were wearing the red t-shirts of the opposition FNDC coalition, which led the protest against a third mandate for Conde. Others sported the red, yellow and green of the Guinean flag.

“We never doubted for a moment that we would win this fight,” said Ibrahima Diallo, one of those returning.

“We want to accompany the process of democratic transition that will lead to credible and transparent elections so that Guinea can turn towards development,” he added.

Fellow returning activist Sekou Koundouno, expressed his relief that the people of Guinea “have rid themselves of the despot Alpha Conde who had taken the institutions and the army hostage”.

Source: AFP

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday appointed Aziz Akhannouch of the liberal RNI party as prime minister and asked him to form a government, state news agency MAP reported.

The king appointed Akhannouch “head of the government and tasked him with forming a new government”, following Wednesday’s polls, a statement from the palace said.

RNI emerged as the biggest party in Wednesday’s parliamentary election, taking 102 of the 395 seats while the former largest party, the moderate Islamist PJD, collapsed to take only 13 seats.

Akhannouch, a former agriculture minister, is one of Morocco’s richest men with a fortune estimated at about $2 billion. He has led the liberal RNI party since 2016.

Under reforms introduced in 2011, the king picks the prime minister from the largest party in parliament but retains veto power over cabinet members. In recent years he has taken back more powers within the palace walls, analysts say.

RNI is seen as close to the royal establishment and Akhannouch said in a speech after the election results were declared that he would “implement his majesty’s vision.”

Akhannouch, whose holding company operates in the fuel and gas distribution business, and was targeted by a consumer boycott campaign in 2018 over prices, has pushed RNI as a champion of social and economic reforms.

It must now build a governing coalition that can command a parliamentary majority of at least 198 seats.

The next-largest party after Wednesday’s vote was PAM, which is also liberal and pro-establishment, with 86 seats.

The PJD, whose leader Saad Dine El Otmani had been prime minister since 2017, has complained of violations in the election including what it said was vote buying by rivals.

However, after securing only 13 seats compared to 125 in 2016 it has said it will go into opposition and not seek to join the next governing coalition. Otmani and some other senior members have resigned their party posts.

Source: AFP and REUTERS