Update on Burkina Politics

The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces has issued a press release announcing that only 16 members of the ex-RSP have failed to report to their new assignments (aside from those arrested). That’s a good number.

In other news, a group of armed men attacked a Gendarmerie post near the Mali border last week and killed 3 gendarmes. At first, the attack was blamed on jihadists, but many people were suspicious because the location of the attack was far to the south, near the Cote d’Ivoire border, and the jihadists have been active in the northern part of Mali, far from there. Now, the president said that maybe there is something more to the story, though his comments (during a news conference about another subject) were far from clear.

And it looks like the general election originally scheduled for day before yesterday will take place November 29th. That is the last day it could constitutionally be held, and the victors need to take office the next day since the mandate of the transitional government runs out December 1st. Good luck to all.

Sixteen people don’t sound like very many to cause problems in the country. Of course, in the US we let 19 people screw up our country pretty seriously on 11 September 2001. Mostly, though, it was our intemperate reaction to their attack that really messed things up. Let’s hope the Burkinabé show more restraint.