Sunday April 17, 2011

Thursday at noon, I got a call from Ben's teacher to pick him up. They had gone swimming so weren't at the school but that the school had been attacked again by striking students and it wasn't safe for them to return. Thursday was the day of the funeral of one of the six students who were killed in the original demonstrations back in Feb. The police/military had suppressed that one fairly violently, 6 students were killed and many more injured. This girl was 16 I think, though most of them were university students. How demonstrating at other schools, and injuring young children helps their cause, I'm not sure. Pauline said a girl in her daughter's class, age 6, was hit in the head with a rock and is in critical condition in hospital. Where kids today in Canada are learning lock down procedures, so kids in Burkina schools are learning to get under their desks and cover their heads should the school be attacked by strikers. Given this is something that happens every year in December, it's an important skill to learn.

The rest of the day was normal. We packed to leave for Fada the next day and Ben went off to bed at 9:30, since he had no school the following 2 days – he left his bag at school with no way to recover it til Monday so he had no homework either. The power had been out, so he asked to sleep on the porch, but he got up when the power came back because he was getting bitten by black ants (I am glad he did!). I started to work out around 10:30. I heard gunfire in the distance, wasn't sure what it was for. Assumed it was police dealing with striking students after the day's events. Then just as I was nearly finished, I heard a gunshot fired into my house. I dropped to the floor in the hall away from windows. The sound was in my bedroom, I heard it strike the window louver, the ceiling, the wall, and drop to the floor. I crawled around the house, shutting off lights and fans, closing window louvers and shutting Ben's door. There was no more sound for about 20 minutes… and then it started - all different kinds of weapons being fired into the air. I chanced a look outside and watched the red fireworks blazing in the sky. Needless to say I didn't sleep much, and certainly not in my room which faces the front of the house. They would come and go until 6:30 in the morning sometimes it would be quiet for 20 minutes only to start again right in front of the house.

The next day, I slept instead of going to work. Some people couldn't make it because roads were blocked and military were stealing cars I was told. Later I would find out how extensive the damage was in town (see article below). I told Ben he was not to go out, his friends could come in the court and play but he was not to leave the yard. Ben asked to go buy bissap (a juice) just 100 yards from the house, I agreed but said he must come back directly. 30 min later he's still not home so Eliza and I went looking for him. He had stopped at a friend's house and was playing. I was furious, and for better or worse, I gave him the lowdown of what's going on and why I need him to listen to me – I've never seen his eyes so big. He chose to watch tv the rest of the morning which was fine by me. I slept from 9am til 1pm. When I woke up and went outside to see my neighbours, I saw a fire truck at the end of the street. I went to Mahdou's house – he's a retired military, used to be a driver for the President (although he doesn't actually have a license, go figure).  Turns out, at noon, soldiers came again on our street, shooting into the air, terrorizing the people there, clearing a space so they could burn down the house at the end of the street. The last 3 houses (mine is the 5^th house) on my side are all lived in by colonels in the military. Fortunately no one was home in any of those houses. It took the fire department 4 hours to put the fire out. Given it's a concrete block house, that was some fire.  

Ben came out to play with his friends and over to see the fire. They were the unfortunate witnesses of a soldier stepping on to the hard top at the end of our street and direct his pistol at an oncoming car. The car of course screeched to a halt and the boys all ran for their lives into my courtyard, terrified. The soldier stole the car and took off.

I wanted to leave for Fada, as it seemed quieter but heard that the military were stealing vehicles on many roads, and I was advised to stay put by Loren and the Canadian consulate. All was quiet Friday night, in our neighborhood but still hot in others. All of this was apparently because some soldiers didn't get their extra lodging and food allowances in their pay on Thursday. These soldiers were actually the Special Presidential guard. They actually mutinied, storming and breaching the Presidential palace. The President escaped without harm, to his downtown office, then to his village 25km outside of town. He returned Friday morning as he had a meeting with the UN Secretary General in the afternoon.

Saturday, the merchants whose businesses were trashed and looted on Friday took to the streets. To their credit they stole absolutely nothing. They broke into and trashed the President's political party office, the National Assembly, burning public transit buses, and vehicles in the mayor's office yard. Compared to what the soldiers did the day before, this was nothing. They were eventually dispersed by municipal and national police who barricaded the other political buildings. Much of the downtown area looks like a war zone. Even the Marina Market, the grocery store I usually go to here in my neighborhood, stood blackened and quiet today as I passed it (trashed by soldiers on Friday). I was stunned when I saw it. I've been going to that place since I lived here before. I know many of the people who work there personally, and now they will not have work for many months until the chain can get the place cleaned up. The ladies who sold fruit outside, their stands trashed and scattered.

The President dissolved the government Saturday and declared curfew for Ouaga. He immediately set about replacing all the heads of the armed forces, chiefs of staff, state etc, in land, air and special forces military. The Prime Minister has stepped down (he was put in power in November 2010). None of this stopped the fighting. This is after the President just spent every day for the last 2 weeks (since the last problem) meeting with every branch of the armed forces to discuss what their issues are and getting them resolved. Ironically, the afternoon of the 14^th, he had met with the final group and the issue was considered resolved.

Benny is showing signs of stress; general listlessness, not enjoying any of his activities, looking glum. We spent some time talking about how he felt; being here instead of Canada, the stress and worry of what was happening, what he missed and what he liked being here; and praying last night. He was sick with stomach pains in the night – with vomiting and diarrhea so I think that was part of it. Today, Sunday, he seemed in better spirits.  

There is a tense calm in the city. There was more violence in Po, near the Ghana border, same thing but no one knows why. Perhaps the soldiers felt left out of the last 2 months of revelry by their counterparts in different cities. Who knows.

http://www.lobservateur.bf/spip.php?article16213

If you load the Google toolbar it has a tab for Translate and will translate the whole story into English in about 30 seconds. It's not the best translation, parts won't make any sense, but the article gives a good blow by blow recount of what happened the last 3 days in town.   

Monday April 18, 2011

Went to work today, tired as I didn't sleep at all last night. There was just too much going on and I couldn't see the sense in what was happening. None of it made sense and in my exhausted state I somehow came to the conclusion that these people weren't rational, were capable of nearly anything so I was going to stay up and protect myself and my son. I have the bag I packed for Fada ready to go and if that meant driving through curfew, so be it. Why I'm still up now, at nearly midnight is beyond me.

It's supposedly over. The group that started this recent round is calling to their military brethren to stop the madness, providing a public apology for the "inconvenience" caused. Now that they got what they want, others should be sensible. I have not a doubt in my mind that they had right to be angry with the government – 10 000s of soldiers losing just $15 from their pay – when you are probably only paid maybe $200/mo anyway, the question of where all that money went? But exactly where did shooting through the night, injuring people, stealing cars, tvs, phones, computers, alcohol, etc, looting stores, raping women, taking passports of tourists and sowing complete chaos, while allowing bandits to terrorize and roam free, help your cause?

But they're on a roll. I don't see that this is going to stop if meeting with the President for him to hear all your concerns and having them met isn't going to prevent this sort of thing.

The divide has opened between military and the public, the government and the students, the merchants and the justice system. No one is happy. Everyone is tense and tired and edgy. This isn't a quick heal. There is still much gangrene to be painfully cut out before the healing can begin. What reassurance is there to the public that their security is provided for? What gets put in place to prevent money from going missing or minimizing violence at demonstrations? What retribution will there be for the crimes committed? What possible way will the government soften the blow of price increases that have/WILL result from this, especially on the poor (better than half the 14 million in the country) who will be hit hardest? Gas was 642 (about $1.40/L) on Wednesday last week. Today it was anywhere from 682 to 1500 per L. My Hyundai I10 sewing machine on wheels with a 30 L tanks costs nearly $50 to fill already. Bread went up from 125 to 150 over the weekend, more than it's gone up in the last 10 years. At least so far, staples appear to be consistent. The trust that was so tenuous before is gone now.

Saturday April 23, 2011

Things are calmer, as people wait to see what happens. The RSP apologized for the "inconvenience" they caused which is to say they started it but it wasn't them going around looting – which I understand to be true from various sources. It's understood that this situation was created out of Blaise's desire to not see the military style problems of the Arab world come to his door. He was in fact, bribing the Chief of Staff of the army to not start a coup d'etat. But the military, non-commissioned soldiers were being marginalized – they have to pay for their own uniforms and had a fee deducted from their salary every month. They were losing about 1/5 of their salaries and 65 million CFA per year coming from them was going to officers, who are living in nice houses, driving nice cars. The chief of Staff was known for his blatant showing off of his wealth to soldiers, rubbing it in their faces as it were. So what started as a legitimate issue, got out of hand quite quickly and as other non-commissioned soldiers caught fire, it was directed the wrong way. In fact many of the places they looted were actually directed at officers as well, most of them being owned or financed by the heads, like the Chief of Staff. It just got out of control and other places that were nearby were hit as well. Why they burned down the Marina Market in my neighborhood, I'm still not sure – it was the only place in my neighbourhood that was hit. I understand that actually the military broke in and it was civilians who looted and eventually burned it because of the security cameras.

None of this justifies it in my thinking and probably in the thinking of a lot of civilians, but it has brought some of the solidarity back between them. Most people understood the problem and so weren't terribly surprised when certain people's houses were burnt down (apparently the Mayor had called the military "thieves" which is why they attacked him, last round. They were caught on camera making him say that the military were not thieves, over and over).

The President has named himself as Minister of Defense which is interesting. We'll see what these changes bring about. But I think the President is caught in a place of his own making that he's going to have a hard time extricating himself from: he can either make the people happy and get rid of the corruption and graft, or he can make his cronies happy and keep things the way they are. If the people are unhappy, he will have a civil war on his hands. If he stops the graft, what will the extremely wealthy of this country do to him? One of those people, the most notorious of them, is his younger brother. The plot thickens.

Meanwhile, there is still curfew, which is being strictly enforced. So I sleep well at night knowing, I need to get it in before the next part starts, and that for the moment at least, I can.