PREVIEW
Burkinabés see the reality of military defeats, a cratering economy and growing authoritarianism despite millions spent on propaganda
Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s regime in Ouagadougou has uncovered yet another ‘plot’ showing that Burkina Faso’s security crisis is deepening in many different ways.
When the military government accused neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire of hosting conspirators planning to attack the presidential place on 16 April, it also tacitly acknowledged internal rifts. Côte d’Ivoire government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly responded laconically saying that he expected more seriousness from Burkina’s military leader. Among those arrested in Ouagadougou were Commandant Frédéric Ouédraogo, the head of military justice who was investigating the shooting of a suspect in a previous abortive putsch, as well as Captain Elysée Tassembedo, head of a vital northern force.
An isolated Traoré is increasingly reliant on a coterie of hardline advisors and committed to a strategy of le tout sécuritaire. This entails repeated army purges, the suppression of political opponents and civil society critics and a relentless campaign against presumed jihadist groups. The latter is carried out by the armed forces and the Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie (VDP) militias, in an operation that often lurches into targeting of Peulh (Fulanis) and other groups considered sympathetic to militants.
There are doubts about these campaigns. Some 54 Beninois soldiers were killed inside Benin, close to the border with Burkina Faso. But Benin reported that noted the Burkina side of the border was unprotected. Similar complaints have been heard from Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. Soldiers from the Niamey junta also criticise the lack of Burkinabe soldiers guarding against jihadists on their common border.
In the latest incident, a video emerged of the VDP and other pro-government militia, led by a commander appointed by Traoré, in the aftermath of a fatal attack on mostly Peulh civilians in Solenzo in the far west on 10 and 11 March. Such brutality has alienated the public to a degree that could erode remaining support for the regime and create a wider opening for militants.
After exposure of the Solenzo attack, Jaffar Dicko, leader of Ansaroul Islam, the Burkinabè affiliate of the pan-Sahelian Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) group, described the jihadists as patriotic opponents of Traoré’s junta and the others in Mali and Niger. Posing between a map of Burkina and Ouagadougou’s Monuments des Martyrs, he accused the VDP of killing Peulh to seize their livestock.
In the widely circulated video, Dicko accused the three regimes of disregarding both sharia and democracy as he praised Human Rights Watch, independent media and humanitarian groups. Yet the jihadists have been sabotaging bridges and mining roads, attacking trucks, stealing livestock and food, murdering civilians and assassinating local religious and community leaders.
Jihadist push
Even before the overthrow of elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in 2022 in the first of two coups, the army was struggling to resist the spread of Ansaroul Islam across the far north, the east, Boucle du Mouhoun and Centre-Nord. Since then, the militants have pushed over the southern border into all neighbouring coastal states. Meanwhile, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) has also become active from its bases in north-east Mali and the Tilabéri region in Niger.
When Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba deposed Kaboré in January 2022 he said a stronger military response to the jihadists was needed, but allowed civil society and political activity to continue. Nine months later, Traoré elbowed him aside and adopted a more uncompromising approach, pouring money into the military and launching a mass recruitment drive for the VDP, which had emerged out of the koglwéogo vigilante groups.
But Traoré’s regime has fallen out with some of the koglwéogo and its old leaders such as Moussa Thiombiano (aka ‘Django’), who was based in Fada Ngourma. He was kidnapped and is presumed to have been killed by unknown individuals in an unmarked car. Traoré draws much of his support from unemployed youths in the suburbs of Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulassso, who have also joined the ranks of the VDP. They are the so-called wayiyans – a reference to their message to the French to ‘get out and to the youths themselves to protect Traoré.
In less than three years, Traoré oversaw the recruitment of 14,000 soldiers and almost 100,000 militia. In January 2023 he set up the Fonds de soutien patriotique, raising CFA175 billion (€270 million) in a year from levies on salaries and public sector workers’ allowances, imports, communications, mining and donations. Through a January 2024 presidential decree, Traoré created the Brigades Spéciales d’Intervention Rapide – 28 units in the army and 13 in the police, complemented by a 1938-strong unit of forest rangers – to spearhead the fight against terrorism.
These measures have boosted a military that never fully recovered from divisive management under former President Blaise Compaoré (1987-2014), who concentrated resources in the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) while neglecting the rest of the armed forces. Traoré has even amnestied former RSP soldiers who backed a failed pro-Compaoré counter-coup in 2015 and absorbed them into his presidential guard, although he left Compaoré’s security chief, General Gilbert Diendéré, in jail (AC Vol 56 No 19, The people take on the putschists).
However, the mass mobilisation of the VDP has proved hugely contentious with many, especially the Peulh. Leaders of the Peulh civil society movements – Tabital Pulaaku Burkina and Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities – have mostly been driven into exile or intimidated into silence. While there are many Peulh in the military, the VDP is derived from the koglwéogo, who are mostly from the Mossi, the predominant ethnicity in central Burkina. This ethnic composition, combined with the polarising slide into violence, means the VDP is often accused of sectarian killings and other abuses.
Traoré’s approach has not been that militarily effective. The regime tries to control information as it seeks to downplay jihadist successes and claim its own victories. Russia-linked troll armies in Ouagadougou churn out pro-regime messaging and attack critics, such as Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. Prime Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo, a former editor-in-chief of the national broadcaster who in December replaced Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambéla, is in charge of Traoré’s public relations operation. There’s a group of highly skilful pro-Traoré propagandists in Côte d’Ivoire. One of the leading propagandists, Alain Christophe Traoré aka ‘Aino Faso’ was arrested in Abidjan in January and is accused of links to a Ouagadougou plot to destabilise Côte d’Ivoire. Another big Traoré propaganda operation is run out of the United States, headed by Ibrahim Maïga (AC Vol 66 No 6, Captain Traoré digs in for a long stay). They have deluged YouTube platforms and ensure they get picked up by artificial intelligence companies, one of which was faithfully reporting that mass pro-Traoré demonstrations were happening across Africa on 30 April – hours before they were scheduled to start.
The consensus among analysts is that the Traoré regime controls less than a third of the country. At least 22 and perhaps as many as 40 towns are isolated due to militant group activity and accessible only by helicopter or armed convoy. State authority does still extend to Kaya, 110km north-east of Ouagadougou, but around Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina’s second city, it is limited to a perimeter of just a few kilometres. The government also maintains only tenuous control of the road and rail corridor linking the capital to Bobo and the Ivorian border.
Probably the most of the people in the countryside now live in communities under the sway of jihadists, who pressure them to adopt conservative patterns of dress and deprive them of basic education, health and administrative services. Those who abandon their farms and pastoralist livelihoods to seek refuge in Ouagadougou or other towns scrape by on handouts and the informal economy. With transport disrupted, those who remain in their villages struggle to get produce to markets. Conditions are particularly difficult in Djibo, a key town in the far north, where tens of thousands of people, both residents and recently displaced, struggle to survive on supplies that are mostly brought in by helicopter.
Output of cotton, the main cash crop, and key staples such as maize threaten to be reduced by the disintegration of government control over Boucle du Mohoun in the west, the most important agricultural region. A once well-regarded food monitoring and grain storage system is now dysfunctional in many areas. A number of NGOs – MSF Belgique, Action contre la Faim and some Scandinavian organisations – were trying to maintain a presence in areas outside government control, but have been forced to rein in their activities because of insecurity and government pressure. Officials fear that humanitarian support or public services in jihadist-controlled areas might legitimise the militants in the eyes of locals. In Soum province, out of nine municipalities, only two – Djibo and Kelbo – continue to function at all.
Ansaroul Islam fighters do not appear to be short of food or weapons, many of which were seized in battle. In terms of funding, the militants control many communities involved in artisanal gold mining, raising funds for the struggle ahead.
CAPTAIN TRAORÉ CHOOSES STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
Designer fatigues, with matching leather gloves in the West African sun and a service pistol in a holster on his waistband, Captain Ibrahim Traoré is every inch the thoroughly modern putschist – even if the biggest threat to his security comes from his fellow officers. When he attended the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Mahama in January, his revolutionary chic contrasted gratingly with West Africa’s establishment politicians. His demeanour, even his fashion sense, is calculated to draw comparisons with Burkina’s revered military leader in the 1980s, Captain Thomas Sankara. But for those with long memories, the comparison doesn’t hold up.
Traoré espouses a pan-Africanist ideology that centres on opposition to Western neocolonialism – messages which he pays social media influencers handsomely to push into cyberspace. But unlike Sankara, he is detested and feared by many of his own people.
The 34-year-old Traoré originates from the village of Kéra near Boundoukui in the west, 120km from Bobo Dioulasso. His mother is from a Mandingue family while his father, Zoumana, a nurse, may have Mossi origins; his paternal grandfather is thought to have come from Yako in the centre of the country, but later settled in the west near Bobo. He had served in the French colonial army in the Tirailleurs Sénégalais in the Second World War, and then adopted the typically Mandingue Traoré family name.
Studying geology at university, Traoré was an activist in both Muslim and Marxist student organisations before going on to join the army. He served in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (Minusma) and then in campaigns against jihadist militants back home.
He has sought to present himself as a natural successor to Sankara to tap into the widespread nostalgia for the national folk hero. But these are very different times from the peaceful 1980s when Sankara – who studied agriculture alongside political and military subjects while at the Antsirabe military academy in Madagascar – could launch a much admired and still internationally influential programme of grassroots rural and social development.
In today’s catastrophic security environment, pursuing such an agenda would be unfeasible across much of Burkina and, even where conditions are less difficult, Traoré seems more interested in experimenting with collectivist models rooted in the Soviet-era rather than focusing on smallholders.
Moreover, economic and social innovation have become almost impossible in a tense political climate where Traoré remains largely isolated, partly protected by Russian bodyguards despite the departure of Moscow-tied paramilitary group the Bear Brigade.
In government affairs, the key actors now seem to be Oumar Yabré, the intelligence chief, and Lt Abdul-Aziz Pacmogda, head of security for Ibrahim Traoré, who enjoy substantial autonomy in day-to-day decision-making. Yabré is at the heart of Korag, an advisory team created by Traoré that operates like a politburo. They are behind the repression machine in Burkina Faso, from forced recruitments to disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings. Drawn from the security apparatus, members of the Korag oversee specific policy areas and wield more influence than ministers.
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