Well that was pretty short lived. The curfew is already over - ruined my night! I was out for drinks with a bunch of blokes from the mines and thought I had to run home to give my house girl time to get home before curfew. Turns out, I didn't have to rush. Anyway, there will be other nights. I don't think we'll travel to Fada just yet though, I want to wait and see how things pan out.

 

Okay, apparently there was an additional issue on the table that the military hadn't been paid for missions made to both Sudan and to Ivory Coast. Sudan would be the equivalent of not paying Canadian troops for going to Afghanistan. Ivory Coast was before it got ugly but still. So the President met with 150 representatives of the military yesterday? or this morning and they seem to have come to some understanding. The military has promised no more shooting or demonstrating (at least not over this issue) and I guess the President promised to pay them. He also promised compensation for people who had damage done to their property (the Ouaga military trashed parts of the downtown area - I figure this should come out of their pay but that may not be the most expedient path to peace). Apparently the reason why the Mayor of Ouaga was attacked is he's 3rd in line for the throne (after the President and the Prime Minister) and probably not as well armed as the first and second. The General was attacked as apparently it was his girlfriend that caused the original 5 military to be incarcerated. (I just realized that I've been translating from french - militaires  to military - what do you call them in english? soldiers I guess?).

 

2 other things of interest that occurred during all of this: 1) the government froze the assets of a number of mining companies here without any notification, using problems with their taxes as a pretext. Waiting to hear what that's about - that's not normal procedure. 2) the World Bank has promised 57.5 BILLION F CFA ($150M Canadian) to Burkina for the development of its mining law and membership into a Mining ethics community - putting it in the big leagues. I'm sure that mining would go away here same as Ivory Coast and Liberia if revolution breaks out here. I'm thinking the President was highly motivated  to get things sorted ensuring the safe arrival of a lot of money.

 

So anyway, that's the lowdown. I'll keep you posted as to how this actually pans out. I suspect there's more to come...