Burkina Faso Police Join in Popular Unrest

 

DAKAR, Senegal — Police officers in Burkina Faso joined a growing wave of popular unrest on Thursday, firing their weapons in the air and shooting tear gas as discontent over high prices, low wages and the 24-year-rule of President Blaise Compaoré spread in the landlocked West African nation.

Officers poured into the streets in the central district of the capital, Ouagadougou, on Thursday morning, according to a local journalist, Paul Miki Rouamba, who witnessed the scene. He said they had fired off shots around the central police station and roared through the capital on motorcycles to express their discontent over low salaries and some of the force’s commanders.

The police in other cities of the impoverished, Colorado-size nation of 16 million also fired into the air in a show of anger at economic conditions, according to news organizations in Burkina Faso, including in the country’s second largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso. The day before, merchants in the city of Koudougou burned down several buildings associated with the local government to protest a crackdown on unpaid rent in the municipal market.

The police are the latest group to exhibit frustration in Burkina Faso, joining students, soldiers and merchants in the tightly controlled, one-party state run by Mr. Compaoré ever since a coup d’état that saw the demise of his former army comrade, in the late 1980s.

Mr. Compaoré was re-elected with over 80 percent of the vote last fall, amid opposition complaints of an unfair election, and his rule has mostly gone unchallenged in a country where 80 percent of the population relies on subsistence agriculture and three quarters are illiterate. That dynamic, analysts suggest — low educational levels in one of the world’s poorest countries — makes a North African-style revolt against a long-ruling autocrat unlikely.

But with the political crisis this year in a neighboring state, Ivory Coast, on which Burkina Faso is economically dependent — thousands migrate there for work, and most goods pass through the port in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s main city — the country’s economy has suffered and social discontent has mushroomed.

In February, students demonstrated after the death of a colleague in police custody, and five were killed. In April, soldiers rioted in the capital, looting businesses, hotels and the homes of government officials because they were unhappy over the prosecution of army comrades. Mr. Compaoré, a former army captain, dissolved his government and named the former editor of the state newspaper as prime minister. He did not, though, name any opposition figures to the new cabinet, and the unrest has continued.

Analysts say there is no obvious link between the various protesting groups in the country except general discontent. “They seem to be somewhat separate strands,” said one Western expert on the country, who asked not to be named so as not to jeopardize his current position. Everybody is angry at high prices, the expert said, “and almost nobody has confidence in the government. If the military stuff isn’t settled, everything else is up for grabs.”

The opposition has called for a large-scale demonstration in the capital on Saturday.