The military leader of Burkina Faso who took control in a coup three weeks ago has been sworn in as transitional president.
Dressed in camouflage uniform and a red beret, Lt-Col Paul-Henri Damiba vowed to uphold the constitution in a small ceremony in the capital, Ouagadougou.
Lt-Col Damiba led army officers to oust the elected head of state, Roch Kaboré, last month- angry at his handling of a jihadist insurgency.
The military say it will restore constitutional order but has not given a timetable back to civilian rule.
West Africa has experienced a string of military coups in recent years.
Trained by the US and France in warfare, the young Lt-Col Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba turned on his political masters in Burkina Faso by seizing power in a coup.
He anointed himself president just three weeks after celebrating his 41st birthday, making him the latest man in camouflage to overthrow a government, and raising fears that what United Nations (UN) chief António Guterres last year called the “epidemic of coups” – in countries ranging from Sudan to Myanmar – could continue into the New Year.
Sporting a red beret, Lt-Col Damiba sat impassively – as Reuters news agency put it – in a low-lit studio on Monday evening, leaving a captain to announce on state television that he had toppled President Roch Kaboré, a former banker who is now his prisoner.
Holding the grand title of “President of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration”, Lt-Col Damiba formed the West African triumvirate of military rulers – along with Guinea’s charismatic Col Mamady Doumbouya, who was also born in 1981, and Mali’s bearded Col Assimi Goïta, who is the youngest of the trio having been born in 1983.
Though they have become political pariahs in much of Africa and the West for seizing power through the barrel of the gun, the trio appear to have significant public support in their countries – all former French colonies.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s not a coup,” school teacher Julienne Traore told AFP news agency as crowds celebrated in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.
“It’s the liberation of a country which was being governed by people who were incompetent,” the teacher added. -BBC
