Burkinabe Still Waiting for Promised Security

ADF STAFF

Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba sat silently wearing a red beret and a stern expression in the Ouagadougou television studio on January 24 as Burkina Faso’s military spokesman announced the coup that deposed the country’s democratically elected president.

The junta, which called itself “the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration,” seized power, and Damiba was named its president.

The spokesman said Damiba cited the country’s failing security as the primary reason for overthrowing President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

One month later, Damiba’s junta gave him the title of President of Burkina Faso, and with it the job of delivering safety and stability.

“Three months after the putsch, however, the military hasn’t been able to reverse the growing insecurity, and incidents of violence occur almost daily,” researcher Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné wrote in early May for South African think tank the Institute for Security Studies.

“Amid a seemingly endless security emergency and despite justifications offered, the Burkinabe are unwilling to wait any longer. If not properly addressed, their expectations could lead to a new political crisis that would plunge the country further into instability.”

The author of a book titled “West African Armies and Terrorism: Uncertain Responses?,” Damiba has presented himself as a counter-terrorism expert who understands the strategies — both successful and unsuccessful — employed in the troubled Sahel region.

News of the January coup was met with celebrations in the streets by some Burkinabe who were fed up with the growing wave of extremist violence.

Now Damiba’s government bears responsibility for providing security.

Attacks by multiple armed Islamist extremist groups that began spilling into Burkina Faso from neighboring Mali have claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people since 2015.

Since Damiba’s coup, however, security has worsened. Incidences of violence have quadrupled and deaths tripled, compared to the same time period in 2021.

Between January 25 and April 8, there were 610 violent incidents and 567 deaths, mostly by terror groups, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The country also is dealing with the largest refugee crisis in the Sahel, as Burkinabe make up a staggering 64% of all displaced people in the region.

Forced displacement increased by 72,628 in one month, from 1,741,655 at the end of January to 1,814,283 at the end of February, according to the National Council for Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation.

In his inauguration speech on February 16, Damiba vowed to defeat the terrorists. He promised to reorganize Burkina Faso’s security forces and strengthen links between military intelligence and field operations.

With violence continuing to rise, Damiba shifted blame during a national broadcast on April 1, tying the lack of military progress to the government transitional institutions that still must be composed.

He also announced a new security strategy that he said would produce results within five months. Major changes will include replacing heads of command, creating a new national operations unit, improving equipment and calling in retired troops to strengthen military capacity.

In a May 16 report, international nonprofit Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that new issues are emerging with the continuing carnage.

“I documented dozens of cases of girls and women who were sexually abused and beaten, as they forged for wood, as they went back and forth to the market, and as they fled their villages from fighting,” HRW West Africa Director Corinne Dufka said.

Government security forces and pro-government volunteer militias increasingly have abused, abducted and killed civilians.

Terrorists have targeted villages with mortars and buried improvised explosive devices on main roads, killing dozens in recent weeks while stifling humanitarian aid.

Unchecked violence also is fueling the recruitment of child soldiers.

Soaring instability has Burkinabe impatiently looking to Damiba for answers, which news website Burkina24 demanded in an April 11 editorial.

“One has the impression that the security situation has not improved,” it read. “It is up to the one who broke into Kossyam [Burkina Faso’s presidential palace] to reassure his compatriots very quickly, not only with warlike speeches but also with concrete and visible results at the front.”