The leader of the Burkinabè transition, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba was received by Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan on Monday 5 September. The two men spoke in particular about cooperation and the electoral calendar. But the head of the Burkinabè junta also took advantage of his visit to the Ivorian economic capital to meet the former president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré.
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Peter Pinto
At the sound output interview with Alassane Ouattara at the presidency on Monday, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and his delegation did not leave for the airport right away. They stopped at Hotel Ivoire to meet Blaise Compaore, who has lived in Abidjan since he was overthrown in 2014. The former president was accompanied by his wife Chantal and daughter Djamila. The meeting, which was not on the official program of the visit of the Burkinabe transitional president, lasted almost an hour. And nothing has filtered out.
For months, Blaise Compaoré, weakened and subject to absences, has not hidden his desire to return to Burkina Faso for good. But in April, the former Burkinabè president was sentenced by the courts of his country, in his absence, to life imprisonment for the assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara.
A meeting after returning for a few days in July
When in early July, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba did come back for a few days in Ouagadougou to take part in a meeting of former Burkinabè presidents, convened within the framework of the process of national reconciliation Wanted by the junta, there were many voices denouncing the impunity enjoyed by the former president. Many saw it as a prelude to a definitive return.
Other former heads of state had also refused to take part in this meeting, a sign that the wounds of the Compaoré era are far from being healed.
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