ECOWAS mediator in Burkina for talks with junta

• Mahamadou Issoufou arrives in Burkina Faso for talks with military junta.
• ECOWAS suspended Burkina and threatened punitive measures.
• Military seized power in coup in January.

West Africa’s mediator for Burkina Faso, Mahamadou Issoufou, arrived in Ouagadougou on Friday for talks with the military junta on a timetable for returning to democratic rule.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has suspended Burkina and threatened punitive measures unless its military rulers speed up the handover to a civilian government.

The 15-nation regional bloc appointed Issoufou, a former president of Niger, as mediator in early June rather than impose sanctions on a nation already struggling with economic hardship and growing insecurity.

Read more: West African leaders discuss sanctions on juntas

Issoufou, whose arrival was witnessed by AFP, was accompanied on his two-day visit by the head of ECOWAS’s executive Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, and the body’s Peace and Security Commissioner, Francis Behanzin.

He was scheduled to meet junta leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, Prime Minister Albert Ouedraogo and the speaker of parliament, Aboubacar Toguyeni.

The army seized power in a coup in January.

It says it needs three years to rebuild the country — which is facing a jihadist insurgency — before it can organise democratic elections.

ECOWAS says this is too long.

In March it gave Burkina a month to come up with an acceptable transition timetable or face immediate economic and financial sanctions.

But after sending a team to Burkina in late May, at the request of the junta, the bloc delayed any sanctions decision, noting its “serious concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation”.

“Our objective has always been to find ways to help these countries return to constitutional order,” the current ECOWAS head, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, said on June 4, when the bloc appointed Issoufou to mediate.

Read more: Burkina army kills jihadist chief, say security sources

Mali and Guinea have also been suspended from ECOWAS following military coups.

Like Mali and neighboring Niger, Burkina is caught in a spiral of violence blamed largely on jihadists linked to the Islamic State group or al-Qaeda.

Attacks in Burkina since 2015 have killed more than 2,000 people and displaced 1.9 million.

Damiba overthrew elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore, accusing him of failing to tackle the violence, and said restoring security was his top priority.

But the bloodshed has continued. Last weekend, 89 people were killed in the northern village of Seytenga, one of the worst massacres in the country’s history.