Burkina Faso adjusts to coup aftermath

Salif Kientga joined more than a thousand people on crowded streets in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, on Tuesday. Demonstrators waved the country’s flag, blew plastic trumpets, and blared motorcycle horns. Similar outpourings of support for the military coup happened in other cities as well.

“I’m happy to be here this morning to support the junta in power,” Kientga said. “We wish that terrorism be eradicated in the months or the years to come.”

Late on Monday, more than a dozen soldiers declared military rule on state media. The takeover followed calls for President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to step down. Protests on Saturday expressed mounting frustration over the government’s handling of the Islamist insurgency. The soldiers said the overthrown president was safe but did not reveal his location.

Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who led the coup, said Kaboré failed to resolve the security crisis that “threatens the very foundations of our nation.” He said his movement will restore constitutional order within a reasonable time. Damiba, who studied at a military academy in Paris, received a new appointment in December to lead anti-terrorism operations in the eastern part of the country and Ouagadougou.

Burkina Faso since 2015 has battled an Islamist insurgency that spilled over from Mali. The violence, blamed mostly on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, has killed thousands and displaced 1.5 million people. In December, attacks displaced nearly 12,000 people in two weeks.

Burkina Faso is the fourth West African nation to experience a military takeover in the past year, after Chad, Guinea, and Mali.

At the demonstrations, protesters burned French flags as others waved Russian flags—a visible signal of declining support for France after its nine-year intervention in the region failed to stem the insurgency. The Central African Republic (CAR) hired the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked Russian mercenary contractor, for security. Russian soldiers last year aided government forces in battling armed groups.

Russia also recently stepped up its military support for Mali despite widespread criticism. The Daily Beast reported that Damiba had asked President Kaboré to hire the Wagner Group earlier this month. One day after the coup, the official representative of Russian military trainers in CAR offered training to Burkina Faso’s military.

Analysts said the leadership change is unlikely to end the battle against insurgency. But the junta has said it will stay in control until it restores constitutional order, despite international criticism. Military officials have organized meetings with religious and community leaders, as well as members of the previous government.

The Vrije Universiteit campus in Amsterdam Facebook/Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

WORLD radar

• NETHERLANDS: Vrije Universiteit, the fourth-largest university in the Netherlands, this week said it will stop accepting Chinese funding for a controversial study center. An investigation by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS revealed the Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre (CCHRC) has received between 250,000 and 300,000 euros annually from China’s Southwest University of Political Science and Law since 2018. CCHRC used the funds to finance seminars, publish a regular newsletter, and run its website, which published several posts rejecting criticism of China’s human rights policy. Vrije Universiteit said it will launch an inquiry and return last year’s funds.

• MEXICO: Demonstrators gathered in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico, and more than a dozen other cities on Tuesday to protest the deaths of three journalists in the past two weeks. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised the protesters that those responsible would be punished. Many of the murders of journalists and rights defenders in Mexico remain unsolved.

• SYRIA: Michel Butros al-Jisri is one of only three known Christians left in Idlib after Islamist rebel forces took over the Syrian city in 2015. The 90-year-old told The New York Times he didn’t attend Christmas services because the rebels in control of the area locked up churches and most Christians have fled. Idlib is the last Syrian province still mostly under rebel control. Al-Jisri said he never considered leaving Idlib, but he misses the Christian community: “I wish they’d come back.”

• MADAGASCAR: Tropical Storm Ana has brought heavy rains and widespread flooding to the island nation. Authorities said the weather killed at least 48 people and displaced more than 55,000 others. The tropical depression moved across the Indian Ocean, also killing at least 29 people in Malawi and Mozambique.

• VENEZUELA: Opposition leader Juan Guaido has asked Venezuelans to turn out for peaceful marches against embattled President Nicolás Maduro on Feb. 12. Guaido said the march would signal a united opposition ahead of presidential elections next year. He received support from several Western countries after challenging Maduro’s 2018 reelection victory.

• NIGERIA: Islamic State insurgents in northeast Borno state kidnapped 17 girls last weekend. Residents of the village of Pemi said the terrorists also razed houses and a church building. Pemi is near the village of Chibok, where Boko Haram insurgents abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in 2014.

• UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: One of the United Arab Emirates’ seven sheikhdoms this week announced it would allow “gaming”—a euphemism for gambling—alongside a multibillion-dollar deal with Casino giant Wynn Resorts. Islam, the official religion of the Arabian Peninsula, prohibits gambling. Other emirates have not announced similar deals, but casino operator Caesars Palace runs a massive resort in Dubai—although without gambling.

Africa brief

Some inspiration for our chess lovers: I follow the work of Babatunde Onakoya, a Nigerian who has taken chess into the slums of Lagos.

Onakoya, who used chess to climb out of poverty, said he was inspired by the 2016 film Queen of Katwe. He launched Chess in Slums in 2018, armed with plastic tables and chairs and chess sets, for children under a bridge and in slum communities. The initiative has since trained more than 200 children and sponsored 15 to attend school on full-ride scholarships. He has won international attention and support, including from Chess.com, Chessable, and English chess Grandmaster Ray Keene OBE.