Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’

Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’

People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.

Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.

A transition to democracy had originally been planned for 2024, but that year the junta extended Traoré’s rule until 2029.

“We’re not even talking about elections, first of all … People need to forget about the question of democracy … We must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us,” Traoré said in an interview on Thursday with the state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB).

  • Ontimp@feddit.orgEnglish
    456·
    2 months ago

    …running instead into the arms of Russia, who of course is world famous for not killing children, women and other civilians or destroying hospitals. And the children and other civilians killed by the Burkinabè army in their anti-islamist operations of course don’t compare because, that’s something completely different - those were justified. /s

    It’s perfectly explainable why the colonial history of Burkina Faso with France has given rise to a leader such as him, but Traoré’s probably admirable anti-colonial and anti-islamist positions do not make him any less of a military dictator who is preventing elections, criminalized being gay, is suppressing freedom of the press and all the other things authoritarian leaders do.

    On a more general note: There is this unhelpful tendency by fellow leftists in the west to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of anyone who claims to be ‘anti-colonial’. That’s just righteous bs and we all know it. Being economically left and conscious of western colonialism should not absolve us from critical thinking: Being oppressed does not impart innate moral authority.