Reigning over a peaceful country for the last 20 years and turning a reputation as a source for regional instability into one of peacemaking, Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaoré is hunkering down for the biggest challenge to his regime. The threat to the government has come from the three parts of society that have shaken regimes from Tunisia to Bahrain: students, the military and traders. To appease them, Compaoré has sacked his government and named a new head of the military. Luc Adolphe Tiao, a former journalist and ambassador to Paris, was appointed the new prime minister on 18 April to calm the political tensions. But unrest in the military has continued and the government is having difficulty fending off opposition claims of brutality and corruption.

Student shake-up

Compaoré came to power in 1987 through a coup and has ruled with an authoritarian paradigm. Though gold production has soared, the population remains poor, the press cowed and the opposition divided and conquered.

Students were the first to protest, turning out into the streets in February. The protests started in Koudougou, in central Burkina Faso, after student Justin Zongo died in police custody. Protests that were originally against police brutality quickly turned violent and were met in return with violent repression from the security services.

Student protesters in Koudougou, Koupéla, Pouytenga and Poa attacked and burned government buildings. The government closed down schools to minimise the risk of trouble, but by early April the police had killed six protesters. Unionists and opposition leaders used the protests to point to the government's lack of engagement on issues such as corruption, impunity in the security services and the increasing cost of living.

Compaoré called for calm, but the protesters did not oblige. The Association Nationale des Etudiants Burkinabè (ANEB) was left unsatisfied when the government sacked the governor and police chief of Centre-Ouest Province. ANEB's Mahamadou Fayama said the group wanted to “denounce the climate of terror that the police have created”.

Justice delayed

Soldiers were the next ones to turn out in force to express their complaints. On 22 and 23 March, soldiers in Ouagadougou ran throughout the city, shooting into the air and pillaging to protest the ruling in a court case involving five soldiers. A court had handed down harsh punishments for the soldiers, who were involved in the beating of a civilian who was courting one of their girlfriends. The government sought to calm down the situation down by freeing the guilty men.

The unrest continued as soldiers tore through the capital city. On the night of 29 March, on their nightly campaign of shooting and pillaging, a group of soldiers attacked the mayor of Ouagadougou, Simon Compaoré, also secretary general of the ruling Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (CDP). The soldiers also attacked the house of chief of army staff Dominique Djindjéré.

On 29 March the trouble in the ranks had spread to the east of the country, where in Fada N'Gourma, soldiers blocked the entrance to the city and fired a rocket at the court house. Again, the case involved a soldier's problems with the justice system, as the rampaging soldiers freed one of their colleagues who had been imprisoned over accusations of raping a 14-year-old girl. Local reports suggested that members of the infantry, gendarmerie and Garde Présidentielle were involved in the unrest. The angry soldiers passed through several barracks to collect weaponry and ammunition for their rampages.

By early April, Compaoré had met with rank-and-file members of the military and also his generals, declaring that problems had been resolved. However, Compaoré's presidential guard were the next to announce their anger when they were not paid in a timely fashion. Problems began in the barracks within the compound of the presidential palace before spreading to other parts of the city. On the night of 14 April, dozens of members of the Garde Présidentielle shot light and heavy weaponry into the air before abandoning their barracks. Compaoré left the capital city to spend the night in his native village of Ziniaré. Unable to take their anger out on the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the highly-trained soldiers sacked the house of Colonel Gilbert Diendiéré, the president's private chief of staff.

On 15 April, Compaoré promised sweeping change. He dissolved the government of prime minister Tertius Zongo and replaced army chief of staff Dominique Djindjéré with colonel-major Honoré Nabéré Traoré. The government also changed the heads of the air force and the gendarmerie. The new chief of staff General Nabere Honore Traore said "the commander-in-chief has responded favourably to the soldiers' grievances. So we will meet with them to start over with a clean slate because the image of our army has been tarnished."

Lots of talk, little clam

The unruliness of the military in Ouagadougou caused collateral damage. In their pillaging, soldiers destroyed the property and sacked the shops of the city's traders. With the government seemingly unable to bring calm to the city, the traders expressed their frustration by setting fire to several public buildings on 16 April. They targeted the headquarters of the ruling CDP and also attacked the Ministry of Commerce and the National Assembly. The government started paying military salaries on 16 April, but that has not stemmed the tide of unrest.

Nor did the formation of the new government do much to calm the spirit of protest as the military mutiny spread to Kaya, northeast of Ouagadougou on 18 April. Showing that the unhappiness is not limited to the soldiers, members of the gendarmerie joined in the tumult. At the same time, students were back in the street in Koudougou, attacking the CDP offices and former premier Tertius Zongo's house.

The government in Burkina Faso walks a fine line: if it gives in too quickly, it may encourage more calls for change. If the government is too slow or too muscular in its response, it could harden the protesters' resolve. The government's inability to bring the military to heel has shown the fragility of the ruling party's grasp on power. Its most immediate concern is smoothing over the problems linked to concerns over working conditions and the generational gap – the differences in viewpoint of those who saw Compaoré into power in the 1987 and those who joined the ranks during the arrival of multi-party politics.

The opposition is calling for Compaoré to announce that this will be his last term and that he will step down in 2015. However, looking at other recent examples, saying that you will retire tomorrow is as good as saying you will retire today.

Source: The Africa Report Web Team & Jeune Africa