-Analysis-
PARIS — Last Saturday in the town of Barsalogho, in northern Burkina Faso, several hundred farmers were killed by jihadists – up to 400 according to some reports. Machine-gunned with Kalashnikovs by men affiliated to Al Qaeda, who appeared on motorcycles on the arid tracks of the Sahel; massacred while digging a protective trench on government orders.
It’s the worst massacre ever recorded in Burkina Faso, a country with scarce resources that has been mired in a war of destabilization waged by terrorist groups. It is a war has claimed more than 11,000 lives since Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s military junta came to power nearly two years ago.
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Last month, Mali recorded a similarly brutal toll, in Tinzaouaten, near the Algerian border. That attack there was carried out by separatist rebels, with the victims including a record number of mercenary soldiers from the Russian-based Wagner Group, dubbed Afrika Corps.
The departure of French troops, demanded by the Sahel region’s countries — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — after a long and frustrating intervention, was intended to enable the military juntas of these three states to usher in a new era. The desired results have not been borne out.
Vague election promises
Not only has the jihadist threat not diminished simply by replacing French soldiers with Russian mercenaries, but their political regimes have reached a dead end.
The military are also regularly accused of massacring civilians.
In all three countries, military juntas are in power, and have fallen back on their promises of a return to civilian life. The transition promised by Mali’s main leader, Colonel Assimi Goïta, the first to lead a putsch, is already two years behind schedule — and elections are only a vague promise.
It is a predictable drift towards authoritarianism. Several political leaders are in prison in Mali, the country’s vibrant civil society organizations are a shadow of their former selves, and press freedom is in decline everywhere. The military are also regularly accused of massacring civilians.
A Senegalese exception?
The West African sovereignty to which these young officers aspire has taken the form of a break with the former colonial power, and even with the ECOWAS regional organization,deemed subservient to Paris. Together, they created the Alliance of Sahel States, with little impact on their situation.
Breaking away from French influence offers no simple answer
Russia has indeed taken the ascendancy: a “sincere partner” according to Colonel Goïta. But if Russia has been able to blow on the embers of an underlying anti-French sentiment, and offer its services to the new juntas, it does not have the solution to their problems.
Breaking away from French influence offers no simple answer to the problems of development, security and political organization that these countries face.
A new experience to watch closely is that of Senegal, where, this time, it is through the ballot box that a nationalist party has come to power. The experience may prove decisive, as its legitimacy is not contested in a major West African country. Its success or failure will set an example for the region.
In the meantime, the people of the Sahel are faced with both the jihadist threat and the authoritarianism of their khaki-clad rulers: the immediate future, alas, is hardly encouraging.
