Reuters
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As a closely armed convoy drove via a cheering crowd in Burkina Faso’s capital on Sunday morning, the boyish face of the nation’s newest navy ruler, Captain Ibrahim Traore, emerged from the turret of an armored personnel provider.
Sporting fatigues and a crimson beret, the 34-year-old smiled and raised his thumb as onlookers welcomed him, some by waving Russian flags.
Traore, a comparatively low-ranking officer who days earlier was working an artillery regiment in a small northern city, has been catapulted onto the world stage since he and a bunch of troopers overthrew President Paul-Henri Damiba in a Sept. 30 coup.
Little is thought about Traore and his colleagues, who since Friday have delivered statements on nationwide tv brandishing weapons, ammunition belts, and masks.
They face gigantic challenges to alleviate hardship in one of many world’s poorest nations the place drought, meals shortages, and creaking well being and schooling methods present each day challenges for hundreds of thousands. Yet the preliminary focus has been battle and politics.
In an interview with Radio France International on Monday, Traore, a profession soldier who has fought on the entrance traces towards Islamist militants within the north, insisted he wouldn’t be in cost for lengthy.
A nationwide convention will appoint a brand new interim ruler by the top of the yr. That chief, who may very well be civilian or navy, will honor an settlement with West Africa’s regional bloc and oversee a return to civilian rule by 2024, he mentioned.
“We did not come to continue, we did not come for a particular purpose,” he mentioned. “All that matters when the level of security returns is the fight, it’s development.”
Still, an early image has emerged of what Traore’s junta intends to do with its time in energy.
Their strikes, which can embrace military reform and ties to new worldwide companions comparable to Russia, might alter politics in West Africa and alter how Burkina Faso fights an Islamist insurgency that has killed hundreds and compelled hundreds of thousands to flee.
Army officers initially supported Damiba when he took energy in his personal coup in January, promising to defeat the Islamists. But they rapidly misplaced persistence. Damiba refused to reform the military, Traore’s junta mentioned. Attacks worsened. Just final week, no less than 11 troopers had been killed in an assault within the north.
Meanwhile, Russia has expressed help for the coup simply as regional neighbors and western powers condemned it.
“I salute and support Captain Ibrahim Traore,” learn a press release from Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of personal navy firm Wagner Group, which has operations throughout Africa, together with in Burkina Faso’s neighbor Mali.
Ties with Russia would put an extra pressure on relations with former colonial energy France, which has offered navy help in recent times however has turn out to be the goal of pro-Russian protests. Its embassy in Ouagadougou was attacked within the aftermath of Friday’s coup.
Wagner’s entry into Mali final yr spelled the top to France’s decade-long mission to comprise Islamists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State who’ve since unfold into Burkina Faso.
Wagner and the Malian military have since been accused by rights teams and witnesses of widespread abuses, together with the killing of lots of of civilians within the city of Moura in March.
Burkina Faso’s new leaders on Saturday stoked anti-French rioting after they mentioned in a press release on tv that France had sheltered Damiba at a navy base and that he was planning a counter-offensive.
The French overseas ministry denied the bottom had hosted Damiba.
Traore is on a crash course in diplomacy. He downplayed the hyperlink between Damiba and France and known as an finish to the protests. About ties with Russia, he was obscure.
“There are many partners. France is a partner. There is no particular target,” he informed RFI.
Meanwhile, he should juggle on a regular basis issues. On Sunday, he arrived in navy fatigues for a gathering with ministerial officers which was streamed on-line.
Can the junta assure the security of colleges that reopen this week, they requested their new chief. What is being achieved a few tender for a railway hyperlink to Ghana?
Traore, who needed to seek the advice of with advisers, didn’t have all of the solutions.