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Report: Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso celebrates Eid as civilian rule returns

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Ouagadougou’s municipal stadium on Thursday for a mass prayer for Eid or Tabaski, as the Muslim holy day is called in Burkina Faso. Coming less than 24 hours after the country’s return to civilian rule, it was a festive and colourful occasion, a celebration of peace and the rule of law.

Muslim faithfuls pray to celebrate Eid at Ouagadougou's stadium.
Muslim faithfuls pray to celebrate Eid at Ouagadougou's stadium. AFP PHOTO/Sia Kambou
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The crowd was an extraordinary sight. The men in flowing robes, the women in colourful veils, the handicapped in makeshift wheelchairs.

At prayer time they all turned to Mecca – even the Christians, a sizeable minority in this country, who have a long tradition of mingling with Muslims on holy days.

The chief imam of Ouagadougou, Sana Aboubacar, gave thanks to God for peace. He also praised the people of Burkina Faso, including the authorities -- a reference to the interim transition authorities that were overthrown by a military junta last week.

Speaking in More, the lingua franca of Ouagadougou, the imam asked God to protect the Burkinabe people from, he said, “everything that we fear”.

The transitional authority is now back in the saddle, keen to return to an electoral campaign set to designate the country’s first democratically elected president in nearly three decades.

Widely respected imams, chiefs in elaborate robes, including the Mogho Naba, the ethnic Mossi king, and two sitting cabinet ministers, attended Tabaski prayers today.

“Who could have imagined this 24 hours ago?” said Ablasse Ouedraogo, a former foreign minister. “No one could have imagined such a celebration. God loves Burkina Faso and the Burkinabe can be proud.”

Interim President Michel Kafando returned to power yesterday in a highly symbolic ceremony attended by several African leaders, including the presidents of Benin, Ghana and Niger, in a Ouagadougou hotel.

Although he failed to attend the ceremony, General Gilbert Diendere, head of the short-lived junta, met with African heads of state mandated by Ecowas, the west African bloc, to help find a solution to the crisis.

At the end of their meeting, Diendere told reporters the coup had been his “worst mistake”, a stunning admission by a man who only the previous day was the country’s all-powerful ruler.

Ecowas has asked Diendere’s RSP presidential guard, the elite army unit behind the putsch, to lay down their weapons.

Speaking at Wednesday’s ceremony, the lead Ecowas facilitator, President Thomas Boni Yayi of Benin, called for “unity, unity, unity” of the armed forces, suggesting that the RSP, which came close to clashing with other army units, should not be shunned.

“All the Burkinabe feel happy for what happened yesterday so we have to thank God,” said Ouedraogo.

In his speech Wednesday, Kafando denounced what the “coup d’état”, saying that Burkina Faso had overcome “the forces of evil”, a reference to Diendere and his backers. Many people on the streets of Ouagadougou believe exiled former president Blaise Compaore, deposed in a popular uprising in October, is behind the failed coup. But he has yet to make a statement about it.

A deal signed by the RSP and loyalist army officers on Tuesday night at the residence of the Mogho Naba paved the way for reconciliation.

Under the agreement, written long hand on a simple piece of paper, the RSP will remain in their Naaba Koom barracks next to the presidential palace and lay down their weapons, although the accord only refers to an inventory of their weapons.

Once this is accomplished, loyalist troops who had converged on the capital from outlying military bases are to pull out of Ouagadougou and station 50 kilometres away, according to a high-ranking military source.

The deal, which carries the signatures of Commander Abdoul Aziz Korogo, a high-ranking RSP officer, and four loyalist officers, also calls for the protection of RSP members and their families.

At least 10 civilians have died since the coup in Ouagadougou, according to the university hospital morgue. A member of the presidential guard died in clashes with loyalist forces on Monday, according to Diendere.

Loyalists issued an ultimatum on Wednesday, threatening to attack the presidential guard by 10.00am local time but it turned out to be an empty threat.
 

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