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December 22, 2007

I love Burkina Faso, but…

I love Burkina Faso and her people. Any regular reader of this blog will know that I always try to present the often unseen face of the beauty and wealth of this country.

However…

There are times that certain things here get me really riled. And one of them happened this week in Dori, just 40 miles from Gorom-Gorom.

It apparently started with a fight over a woman. So far, so predictable. What made this particular fight unusual was that it was a fight between a local man and a soldier – and the local man won, putting the soldier in need of medical treatment.

The soldier’s friends then apparently decided to take revenge, who then went on a wrecking spree in Dori. Any man they found on the street, they beat up, regardless of who he was, and without asking any questions. Two local pastors, friends of mine, who happened to be in town at that time, were among those who got beaten up.

The incident brings to mind the spat between the police and army in Ouaga earlier in the year. At that time, the soldiers reacted in a similar way, attacking indiscriminately the Burkinabé police, following an incident between a policeman and a soldier.

Burkina is generally a peaceful country, and has been free of the kind of conflict so often seen elsewhere in West Africa. However, the willingness of young soldiers (and they do seem mostly to be ill-disciplined young soldiers) to take the law into their own hands, and to do so with such indiscrimination, is a worrying precedent. They must not be allowed to continue in the belief that they can do as they please with impunity, free from the justice of Burkinabé law.

A couple of days of high tension followed, with nightly curfews, and mutual threats of further revenge, and the possibility even that Tabaski would be cancelled in Dori. But now, following an “agreement” between the military chief and the local authorities, Dori is apparently peaceful again.

The soldiers are currently keeping a very low profile. Please pray for peace.

Posted by Keith at December 22, 2007 09:01 PM