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Ten days after requesting the departure of French troops from Burkina Faso within a month, the coup president, Captain Ibrahim Traore, affirmed on Friday that this did not mean “a diplomatic break” with France.
The coup president of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, affirmed on Friday that “there is no break in diplomatic relations” with France and denied the presence of Russian Wagner mercenaries in his country.
Although anti-French demonstrations have taken place regularly in Burkina since he took power in September, Captain Traoré said his desire for French special forces to leave Ouagadougou did not affect diplomatic relations with Paris.
“The end of the diplomatic agreements, no!” he declared in a televised interview with Burkinabé journalists. “There is no break in diplomatic relations or hatred against a particular state,” she added.
According to him, there was simply a breakdown at the request of Burkina of a military agreement on the presence of French special forces in Ouagadougou. “It’s just a process that has been set in motion and it has nothing to do with diplomacy.”
“The French embassy is there (in Ouagadougou), the nationals are there, we have our embassy there (in Paris), so, diplomatically, nothing has been touched,” he remarked, without mentioning the tense relations with the French ambassador named to Paris “for consultations”.
“Safety is the main mission”
He also denied the presence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner company in Burkina, a country plagued by jihadist violence since 2015 and where violence has increased in recent months. “We hear everywhere that Wagner is in Ouagadougou, I even asked some people: ‘Really, where are they?'” he said.
“We have our Wagner, they are the VDP (Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland, civilian auxiliaries of the army) that we recruit. They are our Wagner,” he said.
According to him, Burkina Faso’s rapprochement with Russia is seen “necessarily in a political way, but we are there for a mission, it is security, it is the main mission.”
“We really want to look at other horizons, because we want win-win partnerships,” he said, adding: “We don’t want unclear, vague or unbalanced partnerships.
He said that “the only thing the people want is their sovereignty, to live with dignity.” “It doesn’t mean leaving one country for another.”
The associations that Captain Traoré seeks are, in particular, of a military nature and “if we are not allowed to acquire military material in such and such a country, we will go to other countries to acquire it.” We must be “allowed to equip ourselves and make war, because we will not sit back and watch our people die, ever!
But if a country comes “to colonize us, to dominate us, we will not agree.”
“Sovereignty and Dignity”
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been trapped since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that began in Mali a few years earlier and has spread beyond its borders.
Attacks by groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have left thousands dead and some two million displaced. These groups occupy about 40% of the territory of Burkina Faso.
Captain Ibrahim Traore, transitional president who emerged from a military coup on September 30, 2022 – the second in eight months – has set himself the goal of “reconquering the territory occupied by these terrorist hordes”.
On Friday he ruled out any negotiations with the jihadists. “They attack unarmed civilians, who are sitting quietly at home, or traveling (…) they are arrested and killed. How can you negotiate with people who do that?
According to him, “Burkina is a sovereign country, a secular country and these values are not negotiable.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in French
