Burkina Junta Leader Damiba Agrees To Step Down – Mediators

Burkina Junta Leader Damiba Agrees To Step Down – Mediators
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Burkina Faso’s junta leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba agreed to step down Sunday, two days after military officers announced he had been removed from power, religious and community leaders said.

Following mediation between Damiba and the new self-proclaimed leader, Ibrahim Traore, ‘Damiba himself offered his resignation in order to avoid confrontations with serious human and material consequences’, the religious and community leaders said in a statement.

They added that Damiba had set ‘seven conditions’ for stepping down, including a guarantee of security for his allies in the military, ‘a guarantee of his security and rights’ and that those taking power must respect the guarantee he had given to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for a return to civilian rule within two years.

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The religious and community leaders — who are very influential in Burkina Faso — said that Traore accepted the conditions and ‘invites the population to exercise calm, restraint and prayer’.

Since the announcement on Friday that army officers had removed Damiba — who himself came to power in a coup in January — tension has been high in the landlocked West African country.

Damiba had previously made clear that he had no intention of stepping down.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse angry protesters outside the French embassy in Burkina Faso’s capital earlier Sunday.

A statement issued on Sunday by the pro-Traore military said he would remain in charge ‘until the swearing in of the president of Burkina Faso designated by the nation’s active forces’, at an unspecified date.

Moussa Faki Mahamat who is the African Union chief has on Saturday condemned the ‘unconstitutional change of government’ which had taken place in Burkina Faso after some of the military officers had also ousted junta leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

‘The chairperson calls upon the military to immediately and totally refrain from any acts of violence or threats to the civilian population, civil liberties, human rights,’ the AU had announced in a recent statement, calling for the restoration of the constitutional order by July 2024.
The dismissal of Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba, who himself came to power in a coup last January, had also been announced late Friday in a statement which had been read out on national television.
 

Africa Daily News, New York

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