20110419
reuters

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore appointed a former journalist and ambassador to France as the new prime minister, hoping to restore stability after a series of violent protests by soldiers.

Compaore had sacked the government and top military chiefs on Friday after members of his own presidential guard went on a rampage in the capital of the West African state, firing their weapons in the air, looting shops and commandeering cars.

A decree made public late on Monday named Burkina's 56-year-old ambassador to France, Luc Adolphe Tiao, as the new prime minister.

Since mid-March, the capital and outlying towns in the impoverished country have been roiled by unrest.

Protests by soldiers over pay have been joined by angry students, business people, and residents taking to the streets against rising food prices, police brutality and crime.

A spokesman for Compaore's presidential security regiment appeared on television on Monday night calling on soldiers to stop their protests and apologising to the public for the "inconveniences" caused during Friday's riots.

"We condemn the vandalism, the looting and the troubles that have taken place over the past few days," Moussa Ag Abdoulaye, a low-ranking soldier, said in the statement read out on television.

The new army chief of staff, a respected general and former chairman of Burkina Faso's football federation, said the military needed to resolve its own problems through dialogue.