Ouaga was calm this weekend. The Lebanese shops usually open on Sunday were all closed and I think that rather short-circuited any plans for “retaliation”. Also, it was announced last night that Damin was finally in police custody. He arrived back in Ouaga this morning at 4am and he’s in prison here now, awaiting trial.

Actually, Burkina is a relatively safe, calm country. It’s a bit more perilous than living in, say, Michigan, but a good deal safer than Kenya. I have been keeping up on the situation there through a very interesting blog by a fellow expat mom. I discovered it by chance browsing through a directory and was charmed by the earnest, literate style and the exotic details of life in Kenya. Then, when the election troubles started, it turned out to be a fascinating source of news about the latest developments. Don’t like her better than me, ok?

Even Burkina’s nearest neighbours are far more troubled than we are. Niger is a major source of bad news these days. I previously mentioned the case of Moussa Kaka, the director of Radio Saraouniya and a correspondent for Radio France International and Reporters without Borders. He has been tirelessly committed to fair reporting in his country. His efforts to tell the story of elements unhappy with the current government, the Tuareg rebels ( AKA the Nigerien People’s Movement for Justice or MNJ ) landed him in trouble . His contact with them by telephone has led the government to accuse him of “complicity in a plot against the authority of the State”. This charge carries the death penalty. He was thrown in to prison on Sept 20 and is still there. On October 9, 2007, Ibrahim Diallo, director of Radio Aïr and the newspaper Aîr Info, was thrown into jail up in Agadez, Niger. He is still there and has had no trial yet. He is accused of “criminal association. He, too, dared cover the story of the MNJ rebellion. Ready for yet more exciting news about Niger? On December 17, 2007, two French journalists were arrested for ignoring the ban on travelling to northern Niger, the main rebel stronghold. They are accused of spying, which carries the death penalty. They are still in prison. All in all, there is incredible pressure on journalists not to report on the rebellion at all. They are brutally imprisoned and also frequently threatened, according to this article.
Another radio journalist was killed on January 8, 2008, when he drove his car over an anti-tank mine placed in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Niamey. Abdou Mahamane was the head of Radio R&M and the government is blaming his death on the rebels. But is it true? Here’s part of an article on a Tuareg-oriented news site:

“The government blamed Tuareg rebels who launched an uprising last February to demand greater autonomy for their homelands in the barren, uranium-rich north. The insurgents have mainly targeted army patrols and remote garrisons in the Sahara.
"This attack can only be the work of armed bandits in the north who are trying to establish a campaign of urban terrorism because they are incapable of fighting a conventional war in the region where they launched it," Communication Minister Mohamed Ben Omar said in a communique broadcast on state radio.
The rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), which has killed at least 49 soldiers since launching its revolt last year, vehemently denied responsibility for laying the mines, instead accusing the authorities of trying to tarnish its image.
"This regime which has lost any sense of direction is laying mines everywhere it needs to in order to accuse the fighters for justice, who condemn the use of mines particularly against citizens," the MNJ said on its Web site.”

Despite the problems of Burkina, we don’t have anyone laying landmines around Ouaga and we don’t have any journalists in prison facing the death penalty. Yay for us!
If you want to send a message of support to Kaka ( even in English!), here’s the address: moussa@rsf.org. The messages in this mailbox are being used to show that there is international demand that he be released.

Last night, the nation television station here read a government communiqué regarding the murder that I wrote about yesterday. I didn’t see it myself, but today I received an article by email from Ramata Soré at L’Evenement, Burkina’s best newspaper. Yesterday’s rumours mostly had it right, but the money changer was the Burkinabé man and not the Lebanese.

“The Ministry of Security has just announced that police in the Bogodogo neighbourhood in Ouagadougou have discovered the body of a young Burkinabé named Idrissa Ouedraogo, called Daouda.
According to the Ministry, he was murdered by a Lebanese man called Abas Damin, present in Burkina for the last 8 months. The killing took place the night of the 9-10 January 2008 at the home of the Lebanese. According to the announcement made on television, the Lebanese had called Ouedraogo, a money-changer, to his home under the pretext of wishing to exchange CFA francs for American dollars.
Once the crime was committed, Damin left Burkina. He was located in Abidjan by Interpol, but has not yet been apprehended. According to the announcement, the Lebanese community is also active in seeking the killer. The government asks the population to remain calm and practice restraint, promising that the crime will not go unpunished”.

The article then goes on to reprise the Kundé bar murders of last March. I’m not exactly sure why, as it has nothing to do with this case, as far as I can tell.
After the end of the piece, there are a few comments, one from someone signed “a Concerned Citizen”. Among other things, he complains that:
'This murder is the result of the real chaos that reigns in all the sub-Saharan nations and the demand that all foreigners be treated like kings. So, it is by no means surprising that the latter, Européens or Arabs, turn out to be the worst cases. This culture of impunity towards foreign rich people, constantly supported by the corrupt police force, is very well known in Ivory Coast where many young men from Ivory Coast have been assassinated or wounded by weapons fired by foreigners. And even in Burkina, there are examples ,such as in Bobo where a young man was shot by... a rich Lebanese, because of a money problem between them.
I will avoid citing the Lebanese particularly, even though it is them in general who carry out these kinds of acts with the support of politicians and police officers greedy for briefcases full of cash. I will not to call for a popular uprising against this community, of which some members are now real Burkinabès and take an active part in the construction of our Nation. But we must recognise that a considerable number of foreigners think that this is still the Africa of the ' dirty negro slaves’ where everything is permitted to them .”

The next commenter remarked that “A Concerned Citizen” really needs to start a blog, as his remarks are so spot-on. It all gives an example of the negative general tone of the relationship between the Burkinabés and the large Lebanese population here.

So far there has been no public action. The Ouaga rumour network seems to say that there will protests at the funeral of Ouedraogo. Who knows?