Burkina Faso coup leader General Gilbert Diendere salutes the troops next to Senegal’s President Macky Sall at the airport in Ouagadougou yesterday.

AFP
Addis Ababa

The African Union announced yesterday it was suspending Burkina Faso over Thursday’s military coup, which has halted preparations for the west African nation’s first democratic election.
Following a meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa, the 54-member pan-African bloc said the country was suspended “with immediate effect” and that sanctions would be imposed “if kidnapped Transition Authorities are not released immediately” by the junta.
“The Council decided in accordance with the instrument we have in place to suspend Burkina Faso from all activities of the Union with immediate effect,” Uganda’s ambassador to the AU, Mull Katende, told reporters.
Burkina Faso was preparing to hold its first democratic election in decades before the coup, led by allies of the former president, threw the nascent democracy into turmoil.
The presidential and legislative elections were supposed to mark the end of the transitional government, installed after president Blaise Compaore was toppled in a popular uprising in October 2014 after 27 years in power.
The uprising was triggered by his attempt to extend rule over the poverty-stricken country.
An elite army unit - Compaore’s powerful Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) - seized power after complaining the transitional government was excluding the ex-president’s supporters in the upcoming October 11 polls.
They also kidnapped the country’s interim president Michel Kafando, Prime Minister Isaac Zida and two ministers, declared a curfew and shut the borders.
Yesterday the coup leaders announced they had released interim president Kafando, but said Zida remains under house arrest.
The coup has already been condemned by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the AU and United Nations, who said in a joint statement on Thursday that they rejected “the disruption of the democratic process”.
The European Union, the United States and former colonial power France have also denounced the junta.
The coup leaders began mediation talks with two African heads of state yesterday as troops fired in the air to stop protesters from marching on an iconic square in the capital.
Senegalese President Macky Sall, chairman of ECOWAS, and Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi arrived in the capital Ouagadougou for vital negotiations in a bid to end the crisis.
They immediately huddled into a hotel with coup head General Gilbert Diendere for talks.
As they arrived, members of the presidential guard fired in the air to disperse anti-putsch protesters who tried to march on the capital’s iconic Revolution Square.
Civil society groups had urged people to gather in front of Ouagadougou airport yesterday to “remind” Sall that “one does not negotiate with terrorists.”  
Protests spilled over to the country’s economic capital Bobo-Dioulasso where women gathered with brooms and giant wooden spatulas, showing that they wanted a clean-up.
Ouagadougou was calm throughout the night, with people respecting a curfew imposed by the military. In the morning, there were fewer cars on the road than usual, with some shops locked shut.
On Wednesday and Thursday, clashes between the coup forces and protesters resulted in at least three people dead and 60 wounded, according to a hospital source.  
In response to the violence, the military closed land and air borders, reopening them yesterday afternoon.