Leaders' firm stand on Burkina Faso bodes well for us all

This week's intervention by African leaders to thwart a power grab in Burkina Faso by the military after President Blaise Compaore's flight to Ivory Coast bodes well for the continent.

Difficult talks between the military and opposition leaders on Wednesday produced an agreement to hold elections within a year and form a transitional government in the interim.

Negotiations mediated by Ghana's John Dramani Mahama, Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan and Senegal's Macky Sall continued yesterday among political and civil society leaders, though consensus was not reached on who would lead the transitional authority.

But Agence France Presse quoted President Sall as saying that he was confident that the interim government would be installed ''in days rather than weeks''.

Such an outcome did not seem possible on Monday as troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters who, after sending Compaore packing, were not satisfied with the military takeover.

But, as we have just seen in Lesotho, where an attempted coup by a renegade army chief was thwarted, thanks in large part to prompt action by the South African government, nothing is impossible when the continent's leaders are resolute in their determination to prevent unlawful regime change.

To its credit, the African Union also stood firm when Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down when he had clearly lost an election. Lives were needlessly lost in the ensuing violence but the AU would not budge and Gbagbo was eventually unseated.

Of course, the AU, and South Africa in particular, stand accused of tolerating undemocratic leaders such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Swaziland's King Mswati III for far too long.

And the continent's leaders were reduced to being mere spectators when Libya's Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by rebels and Nato, and when Egypt's military unseated a democratically elected government.

But events in Burkina Faso, Lesotho and Ivory Coast offer a glimmer of hope.