{"id":327576,"date":"2015-09-23T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T02:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/burkina-faso-in-an-unstable-political-situation\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:01:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:01:25","slug":"burkina-faso-in-an-unstable-political-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/burkina-faso-in-an-unstable-political-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"Burkina Faso in an unstable political situation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BurkinaFaso\"<\/a>\u201cEver since the coup d\u2019etat last Thursday, 17 September\u2013 we are all still at home: the schools, offices, and shops are all closed. Petrol and food are running out and whatever is available, costs double,\u201d explains Aurora De Oliveira of the Focolare in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second city of Burkina Faso. The protest here is felt, but not as strongly as in the capital, Ouagadougou (population of 1.5 million), where the main events of last week came about and where more than 100 people were wounded and at least ten have died<\/strong>. \u201cThese are determined people who do not wish to be crushed. In the big cities of Burkina Faso everyone participated in demonstrations, but peaceful ones. Undoubtedly, all are afraid, since war could explode any time now.\u201d Jacques Sawadogo of the focolare community in the capital wrote: \u201cThe activities in Ouaga \u2013 where the army came \u2013 have slowed down. The banks, shops and stations have closed. Only small self-supporting activities have continued, like those of the Movement\u2019s members in Ouagadougou. We try to keep contact via e-mail or telephone. We are trying our best to<\/strong> be peacemakers in words and actions.\u201d<\/strong> We spoke on the phone also with Fr. Sylvestre Sanou, general vicar of the diocese of Bobo-Dioulasso. The situation is in constant evolution and we fear it may degenerate. \u201cThere\u2019s a general strike throughout the country <\/strong>\u2013 Fr. Sylvestre continued \u2013 In reality it was not really a coup d\u2019etat. It was a raid conducted by a small group of the Presidential Guards headed by General Diend\u00e9r\u00e9, a close ally of former president, Blaise Compaor\u00e9, who rose to power in 1987 with a small coup d\u2019etat and was forced to escape after 27 years, and only in October 2014, after days of protests. Since then he has taken refuge in the Ivory Coast. \u201cIt seems that Generale Diend\u00e9r\u00e9 has tried to negotiate for his immunity, after having been President Compaor\u00e9\u2019s right-hand man.\u201d We are, therefore, not dealing with a religious conflict <\/strong>between Muslims (50%), Christians (30%) or Traditional Religions (20%) but with a political situation. \u201cThe army seems to side with the population and the governors of the various regions are also against \u201ccoups,\u201d and even Diend\u00e9r\u00e9\u2019s house was burnt down. Violence generates violence,\u201d Fr. Sylvestre continued. \u201cOn 22 September we were all holding our breaths for the ultimatum of the army which entered the capital from four cities. The political future of the country is uncertain, despite the mediation of the Presidents of Benin and Senegal, on behalf of the Economic Community of West African States (CEDEAO) and the return of the transitory President of Burkina Faso, Michel Kafando and also the Prime Minister, Isaac Zida (arrested and then released).\u201d \u201cI had just returned from a stay in the Mariapolis \u201cVictoria,\u201d<\/strong> the town of the Focolare Movement in the Ivory Coast, and found myself in this situation,\u201d concluded Fr. Sanou. \u201dThey blocked the undergoing process of dialogue between the political parties which had tried to find common ground. But all blew up. Let us pray that a solution emerges without bloodshed and also quickly. In the meantime, we have started with the priests, religious and catechists of the diocese and also with our bishop, the pastoral visits programmed before these events. We feel the importance of going ahead and praying for our people and our country.\u201d \u201cHow are we all taking this? At the start we were angry and disappointed<\/strong>\u2013 Aurora De Oliveira confided \u2013 since after the 2014 events the political situation was coming along well. Just a step away from elections, programmed for 11 October (and now moved to 22 November), and here comes an armed group to spoil it all. This was my first reaction, and we felt the need to protest. The next step was to see in this suffering the countenance of Jesus Forsaken, and thus try to strengthen unity among us all in order to transmit peace and forgiveness. We tried to contact all those who share our spirituality of unity, because love must overcome all.\u201d While the meeting in Rome of delegates of the Movement from all over the world has started, and makes the hopes and sufferings of people all over the world particularly felt, the President of the Focolare, Maria Voce wrote to the community of Burkina Faso: \u201cWe shall continue to pray and live in greater unity with all of you, certain that Mary will protect us all.\u201d https:\/\/vimeo.com\/140074710<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news reports on this African country have been alarming. The political conflict has been really trying for the entire population of Muslims, Christians and Animists. All are hoping for a peaceful solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}