Aigerim Suleimenova
Burkina Faso is a former French colony and became independent in 1960. This is a semi presidential government, and from 2000 the presidential term is 5 years. The whole history of independent Burkina Faso is correlated with its first president Blaise Compaore who overthrow his friend –Thomas Sankara with a French help and seized a power in coup d’état until 2014 when he was displaced by mass protests. This was a response to the changes in Constitution that could allow presidency of a Compaore.
The mass protests were successful therefore Blaise dissolved parliament and resigned and gone. However what is interesting is that the several month after this, on September 2015 just before new president elections, the members of Compaore presidential guard (Regiment of Presidential Security, RPS) which is basically a branch of Burkina Faso’s military in a charge of protecting the president. There were 1200 men with big amount of weapons who were loyal to RPS, which claimed itself an autonomous military unit. The reason of the coup was worry of soldiers that new president will make the end of RSP, because there was no need “army in army”.
This coup was successful and the capital –Ouagadougou was seized and they proclaimed about the establishment of the junta ( military junta- military dictatorship) headed by General Gilbert Diendere. Despite this fact, there was no support from regional leaders and the regular army ( branch of Burkina Faso’s military) entered the capital and this was the end of the coup. The duration of coup was about 7 days, 11 people died and about 250 people were injured. Despite the fact that this duration was 7 days and this applied as a successful coup, this coup has failed. According to Bertrand, the researcher from Warwick university the major factor was that this coup was unpopular and the RPS did not control the army of the country, second is regular army has an effective tactics in preventing coup, they were highly specialized.
Also as Talmadge (2015) suggests that the success of failure depends on effectiveness of military of the state, its organizational practices, right battlefield power and so on. Also this is important not only when the external threat comes, but such military is important because of “an active liability for regimes vulnerable to military coups”. The Burkina Faso is an example, where military coups existed from the time of its independence. The author gave four key features of military actions that help to prevent coups. These are promotion patterns (military’s human capital), training regimes, command arrangements, information management. Here we can see that promotion patterns and command arrangements did not help to prevent, rather catalyze the coup as RPS was afraid of new constitution changes that can end its power therefore they did a coup.
Burkina Faso is a former French colony and became independent in 1960. This is a semi presidential government, and from 2000 the presidential term is 5 years. The whole history of independent Burkina Faso is correlated with its first president Blaise Compaore who overthrow his friend –Thomas Sankara with a French help and seized a power in coup d’état until 2014 when he was displaced by mass protests. This was a response to the changes in Constitution that could allow presidency of a Compaore.
The mass protests were successful therefore Blaise dissolved parliament and resigned and gone. However what is interesting is that the several month after this, on September 2015 just before new president elections, the members of Compaore presidential guard (Regiment of Presidential Security, RPS) which is basically a branch of Burkina Faso’s military in a charge of protecting the president. There were 1200 men with big amount of weapons who were loyal to RPS, which claimed itself an autonomous military unit. The reason of the coup was worry of soldiers that new president will make the end of RSP, because there was no need “army in army”.
This coup was successful and the capital –Ouagadougou was seized and they proclaimed about the establishment of the junta ( military junta- military dictatorship) headed by General Gilbert Diendere. Despite this fact, there was no support from regional leaders and the regular army ( branch of Burkina Faso’s military) entered the capital and this was the end of the coup. The duration of coup was about 7 days, 11 people died and about 250 people were injured. Despite the fact that this duration was 7 days and this applied as a successful coup, this coup has failed. According to Bertrand, the researcher from Warwick university the major factor was that this coup was unpopular and the RPS did not control the army of the country, second is regular army has an effective tactics in preventing coup, they were highly specialized.
Also as Talmadge (2015) suggests that the success of failure depends on effectiveness of military of the state, its organizational practices, right battlefield power and so on. Also this is important not only when the external threat comes, but such military is important because of “an active liability for regimes vulnerable to military coups”. The Burkina Faso is an example, where military coups existed from the time of its independence. The author gave four key features of military actions that help to prevent coups. These are promotion patterns (military’s human capital), training regimes, command arrangements, information management. Here we can see that promotion patterns and command arrangements did not help to prevent, rather catalyze the coup as RPS was afraid of new constitution changes that can end its power therefore they did a coup.
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1. Ouedraogo, Brahima (2015). "Military detains Burkina Faso's president, prime minister weeks ahead of landmark vote". U.S. News & World Report. Associated Press.
2. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/burkina-faso-coup-attempt-thwarted-government-161021154201818.html
3. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21670491-power-shifting-military-civilians-burkina-faso-why-burkina-fasos-coup-failed
4. Boukari Ouoba. "A triumpf for young people
5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/burkina-faso-coup-rise-and-fall-of-what-you-need-to-know
6. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21670491-power-shifting-military-civilians-burkina-faso-why-burkina-fasos-coup-failed
7. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/25/burkina-faso-foiled-military-coup
8. Talmadge, Caitlin. 2015. The Dictators Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian
Regimes. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press.
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