In the last hour, there has been a full-fledged revolution/coup in Burkina Faso, deeply tied to many other ongoing (and left-ish) democracy movements in West Africa. This latest uprising started only 3 days ago, in opposition to the corporatist dictator Compaore constitutionally formalizing his endless rule. Compaore came to power in 1987 in a coup that brutally deposed the state socialist, anti-imperialist Sankara regime. In just 4 years prior to that, the third worldist Sankara government that had come into power by liberating Burkina Faso from French colonial rule made its people significantly more food secure, independent, literate, egalitarian, etc; in the 25+ years since then, NATO and World Bank have helped prop up this authoritarian, far-right strongman as he hugely rolled back political rights, economic gains, and so forth. But the army is already declaring itself the new state, now that the political class has been chased out of power by the people. Soldiers have been having disputes with Compaore since at least 2011 over low pay and lessened relevance (as the domestic security forces gradually replaced them). If Egypt is any guide to go by, that just means the military will get easily bought and attempt to continue ruling in the interests of transnational capital. theguardian/world/2014/oct/30/burkina-faso-protests-president-constitution-power
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:53:15 +0000
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