In recent years, the Sahel region of West Africa has become part of the so-called ‘coup corridor’ that has witnessed a quick succession of revolts against French neo-colonialism in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
In the three years since the young army captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso, he has burnished his anti-imperialist credentials and Pan-Africanist image, admonishing African leaders to ‘stop behaving like puppets who dance every time the imperialists pull the strings’.
After seizing power in a coup in 2022, Traoré’s military-led government initiated a wide range of reforms, including setting up a state-owned mining company called SOREM, and requiring foreign firms to give it a 15% stake. The government also nationalised two gold mines, stating its intention to take control of more foreign-owned mines.
Agricultural reform has also been a priority, including a farm equipment redistribution programme that has significantly increased production, stimulating consistent GDP growth of 4-6%.
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have established their own ‘anti-imperialist confederation’, the
Alliance of the Sahel States (AES), after former colonial power France and the ECOWAS (an imperialist-backed union of West African states) imposed sanctions and cancelled trade agreements in the aftermath of the coups.
The AES expelled French and US troops from the region, who were ostensibly supporting military efforts against Al-Qaeda and IS-affiliated groups, but have been accused of human rights violations. The AES is also pursuing monetary independence and a shared new currency to replace the France-backed CFA franc.
A new Sankara?
Comparisons, inevitably, have been drawn between Traoré and Burkina Faso’s earlier leftist leader, Thomas Sankara. Traoré leans heavily on his legacy. Sankara, often celebrated as ‘Africa’s Che Guevara’, consistently called for pan-African unity against imperialism.
After leading a coup in 1983, Sankara launched ambitious reforms, including massive vaccination and literacy campaigns, agrarian expansion and land redistribution, and initiatives to advance women’s rights. He was assassinated four years later in a counter-revolutionary coup, led by his deputy Blaise Compaoré.
Sankara realised that anti-imperialism at its core must be understood as a struggle for self-reliance, rather than dependence on one side of the global power divide. Suspicious of foreign aid coming with strings attached, he urged African nations to reduce their debt obligations to the IMF and the West. By contrast, Traoré has sought support from Russia, which deployed the mercenary Wagner group to help consolidate his rule after the coup. At the Russia-Africa summit in 2023, Traoré hailed the advent of a ‘multipolar order’ and the alliance with ‘true friends’ such as Russia.
But Russia is no friend of Africa. Russia’s Wagner group funds its brutal operations in the Central African Republic and Mali by exploiting their natural resources. The Russian mining company Nordgold, which has deep ties to the Russian state, secured a controversial mining deal in Burkina Faso involving the extraction of 20 tonnes of gold over eight years. The company holds an 85% stake and receives the majority of the gold.
Increasingly across Africa, Russia replicates classic neo-colonial structures based on extractive economics and coercive security arrangements. By aligning with a rival capitalist power like Russia, Traoré has replaced one imperialist relationship with another, thereby renegotiating the terms of Burkina Faso’s dependency and exploitation.
Repression
Lacking a coherent programme for economic transformation, Traoré’s rule has become increasingly repressive. He cracked down on dissent inside the country with forced disappearances of journalists and human rights activists. Homosexuality has been outlawed. Forced conscription has also been used to send ‘volunteers’ to the front lines of battle against the violent Islamists.
Moussa Diallo, the General Secretary of the General Confederation of Burkina Workers (CGT-B), has made public criticisms of these repressive measures. In January 2024, Diallo himself was the victim of a kidnapping attempt and forced to go underground.
He was then sacked from his university lecturer post, which the CGT-B called an ‘act of repression against the union [which] infringes on the right to freedom of association’. Health workers have also gone on strike to demand pay rises and compensation.
Africa finds itself again in a strategic dispute between rival imperialist powers, but it is clear from the case of Burkina Faso that genuine anti-imperialist politics must be rooted in anti-capitalist struggle. Only the working class, in alliance with the peasantry and youth, can liberate Africa from imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation. Socialists and trade unionists must fight for immediate democratic rights while simultaneously raising the need for socialist revolution as the only path to liberation.
