In the small town of Arbinda, the birds are chirping over light scenery. Here in northern Burkina Faso, both streets and houses are built of red-orange soil. Desert overflows into city, overflows into savannah. Two women who have survived sit in a small hut built with plastic tarpaulin and wire. Play audio – We saw them at the bottom of the hill. From there they took us to Sirgue, then Dala. We walked all day. – Then we talked among ourselves, and agreed that those of us who wanted to flee had to try. Around At 7 in the evening I managed to escape with my daughter who is here with me. – The others couldn’t do it, they were too scared. Most of the girls were younger than my daughter. The woman speaks in a low voice in the Fulse language, looking down at the ground as she speaks to the reporters from Reuters. She will remain anonymous, for security reasons. On the night of January 13, she was one of more than 50 women kidnapped by Islamist terrorists. One of several million inhabitants who have suffered in the struggle that is unfolding, here on the southern border of the Sahara. A little girl looks out of the window of the school for refugees she attends in northern Burkina Faso in January 2020. Photo: OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP The fight against terror. The fight against hunger. The fight against rape, poverty and fear. A battle that takes place behind meandering rivers and rolling sand dunes, and that stretches from Mauritania in the west to Chad in the east. A battle Burkina Faso’s authorities believe they must now handle themselves, without the help of French soldiers. Once a man with a red beret thought the same. In the 1980s, the young Thomas Sankara from Burkina Faso became a symbol of the entire world’s anti-imperialism. Now the country’s new military junta hopes to follow in his footsteps. The five Sahel countries where French forces participated in the Barkhane military operation from 2014 to 2022 are, from west to east: Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso (highlighted), Niger, Chad. – Like Satan in Burkina, a pyromaniac, a terrorist The fight has lasted since 2014, and of course much longer than that too. But that’s when the former colonial power France sent soldiers to the entire Sahel belt to sort things out. A French soldier gives a high five to a Malian boy wearing a PSG uniform in the streets of Timbuktu in December 2021. Photo: THOMAS COEX / AFP Now the 400 French soldiers must return home from Burkina Faso, as their colleagues in Mali did last autumn. That is exactly what the Burkinabe government, a military junta that seized power last year, has decided. Senior researcher at NUPI Morten Bøås has been to Burkina Faso and the Sahel countries several times, and follows the political situation in the country closely. Photo: – / NUPI NUPI researcher Morten Bøås believes there are several reasons for this. – One is that there is a growing distrust of France and the West. France is the former colonial power. There has also been some irritation because France has made no difference on the battlefield, Bøås explains. A French soldier looks towards the horizon in northern Burkina Faso in 2019. Photo: MICHELE CATTANI / AFP – Yes, France was our partner helping us fight terror, but since there has been no change since 2016, we don’t think France deserves the trust of Burkina Faso’s youth, says Adama Sawadogo to Reuters. He has just taken part in a demonstration in the capital Ouagadougou, where French flags were burned. At the same time, some proudly waved Russian flags. Many believe that the Russians are part of the solution. That Putin’s men, and perhaps even the Wagner group, can take over France’s role in the fight against the terrorists. Burkinabe men hold Russian flags during a rally in support of junta leader Ibrahim Traore in Ouagadougou on January 20. Photo: VINCENT BADO / Reuters They are probably not that many, but they are visible. And they say something about the region looking around for other partners, Bøås explains. – I don’t think they are particularly representative. And most people really just want the war in Ukraine to end. But among some radical groups, Putin has become a symbol of resistance against an arrogant West and what they perceive as neo-colonialism. Members of the Burkinabe army announce they have seized power on live television on September 30, 2022. Photo: – / AFP French ambassador Luc Hallade receives a verbal abuse. – He has to go out right away. We do not want a French ambassador like Luc Hallade. He is like Satan in Burkina. He is seen as a pyromaniac and a terrorist, Sayou Ouedraogo, another protester, told Reuters. On Thursday, it became clear that Hallade was called home. Where does all the hate come from? And how will things now go with Burkina Faso? A French Caiman helicopter takes off in the desert of Mali during Operation Barkhane. Photo: Benoit Tessier / Reuters France’s foreign policy cornerstone: “Operation Dune” Paris was in full swing in the summer of 2014. French authorities were very concerned about the spread of Islamist terrorist groups such as IS and Al Qaeda in the Sahel belt. Now they were to present the new cornerstone of French great power politics. They had succeeded well with earlier, less extensive operations. Now they took a step up. – The point is that we will assist the African armies in West Africa, and allow them to fight threats. And threats, there are many of them, explained a sweaty President François Hollande on a visit to Niger in July 2014. Francois Hollande announces the start of Operation Barkhane in Niamey, Niger in 2014 Photo: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP The whole thing was to be called “Operation Barkhane” , i.e. “operation dune” translated from Arabic. And it was a good fit, because over the next eight years, more than 3,000 French soldiers would get to know the ever-changing sand dunes across the five African countries. Along the way, they also received help from other European countries such as Sweden and Estonia. French soldiers carry the coffin of a French soldier killed in Mali during a ceremony in Paris in September 2021. Photo: STEPHANE MAHE / AFP More than 50 of the French soldiers lost their lives. Why? To consolidate France’s position as a great power in the only part of the world they still had hegemony over, Morten Bøås says: – France still sits as a veto power in the UN Security Council, and where can France show any particular global great power status? It is in the former West African colonies. People pose for cameras in front of a statue of revolutionary hero Thomas Sankara in Ouagadougou in October 2022. Photo: OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP Revolutionary hero’s dream: “Upright fatherland” The name Burkina Faso means “Upright fatherland” in a mixture of two local languages, Mossi and Fulani . It was the revolutionary anti-imperialist Thomas Sankara who in 1984 gave the country this name. – We must dare to invent the future, said Sankara. The past gave him very little help in his role as head of state from 1983 to 1987. Thomas Sankara looks up at the ceiling at an international summit in Harare in 1986. Photo: – / AFP Sankara wanted to build his own Burkinabe identity. The starting point was a conglomeration of ethnic groups distributed over a somewhat randomly cut piece of land. Play audio A single night gathered in its scourge /The history of a whole people /And a single night set in motion the triumphant march /Toward the horizon of happiness /A single night reconciled our people /With all the peoples of the world /In the conquest of freedom and progress / Fatherland or death, we will win! This is how the refrain in Burkina Faso’s national anthem Ditanye reads. Written by Sankara in 1984. He was also an amateur musician. Before France took control of the area in 1896, countless different empires and cultural groups resided in present-day Burkina Faso. The unity was not much larger when the country became independent in 1960. Muslims pray in Ouagadougou during the holy period owned in July 2022. About 60 percent of the country’s population is Muslim, while just under 25 percent are Christian and 15 percent follow local animist religions. Photo: OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP And despite independence, France never quite went home. At least in the eyes of many Burkinabes. In a book from 1998, the economist François-Xavier Verschave describes how French leaders laid the foundations for a more invisible form of control and exploitation called “Françafrique”. A newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron visits a school in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso in 2017. Photo: PHILIPPE WOJAZER / Reuters Through, among other things, coups, cultural and economic ties, France was able to achieve many of the benefits of colonialism without being a colonial master, writes Verschave. An often cited example is the murder of Thomas Sankara, the man who told his countrymen to keep their backs straight. Sankara was a communist, a kind of Africa’s Che Guevara. He managed to modernize and raise the standard of living in Burkina Faso considerably, but France viewed him with skepticism. Two men stand in Ouagadougou wearing T-shirts with Thomas Sankara and Che Guevara on their stomachs. Photo: KAMBOU SIA / AFP It was partly because Sankara wanted to build close ties with the Soviet Union, and several African countries looked to him for leadership. Then, in 1987, Sankara’s right-hand man Blaise Compaoré seized power. He got help from the notorious warlord from Liberia, Charles Taylor. Sankara was killed. Compaoré built a strong alliance with France. French archival documents about the events are still sealed under lock and key. But suspicion is high in Burkina Faso. Morten Bøås believes there are signs of an emerging pan-Africanism in Burkina Faso and Mali in the wake of the end of Operation Barkhane. Photo: VINCENT BADO / Reuters The conquest of freedom and progress Old Compaoré was still in power when France almost 30 years later launched Operation Barkhane. But when he wanted to change the constitution to serve even longer a few months later, it was over. The coup plotter was couped. In 2022 there were two successful coups. First in January, then in September. Now 34-year-old captain Ibrahima Traoré is in charge. Captain Ibrahim Traore surrounded by soldiers in Ouagadougou in October 2022, one month after the coup. Photo: VINCENT BADO / Reuters – He is a fairly nondescript leaf. But we know that he was a former soldier who was out at the front with his people. There are some rumors that he enjoys himself inside the safe presidential palace in Ouagadougou, but among the younger people he is considered less corrupt, says Bøås. He says a point is being made that Traore was the same age as Sankara when he took over. – It may be that he has some ambitions to model himself as the new Thomas Sankara. – At least they scored a real PR stunt when they managed to free the more than 50 women who were abducted by Islamists in the north of the country at the beginning of January, Bøås points out. Supporters of former head of state Thomas Sankara stand gathered around a portrait in April 2022. Photo: ANNE MIMAULT / Reuters
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The echo of Africa’s Che Guevara is heard on the border of the Sahara – Urix
