Once again, the democratic aspirations of a long-suffering African nation have been dashed. It emerged on Wednesday evening that a coup had taken place in Burkina Faso - less than a month before a watershed election that was to usher in democracy after almost three decades of ruthless misrule.Members of the elite Presidential Security Regiment barged into a cabinet meeting, seized the interim leader and some of his ministers, and announced the establishment of a ''national democratic council" to end what it called ''the deviant regime of transition". A government committee had just recommended that the presidential guard be disbanded.After the takeover, there were the usual platitudes from the coup leaders about the need to create a new government to arrange genuinely inclusive elections, discussions with the international community and calls for the public to stay calm.But the people of Burkina Faso were having none of it. Residents set up barricades in the capital, Ouagadougou, and other towns, and clashes erupted between protesters and troops, with reports of several fatalities and many injuries.It remains to be seen whether the coup leaders can contain the anger of the people, whose mass protests unseated strongman Blaise Compaoré last October after he tried to extend his 27-year rule.The leader of the putsch, Gilbert Diendéré, a general in the presidential guard, yesterday dismissed suggestions that Compaoré, who is in exile, was pulling the strings, saying he had not been in contact with the former leader.But Diendéré was Compaoré's chief military adviser for three decades, and ran a powerful intelligence network in West Africa.Much now hinges on the African leaders who thwarted an attempted power grab by the military in November, paving the way for the short-lived interim government.The AU needs to show its mettle and ensure that the people of Burkina Faso get the democracy they have been denied for so long...