At this meeting, the comrade presented the second part of the report that continued the research on the events that have affected Burkina Faso and the surrounding Sahel region in recent years, characterized by strong political instability in the former French colonial territories, what is now commonly known as Françafrique. For the summary of the first part, we refer to the report of the September meeting in issue 431 of this journal.

The history of the region has been described. The territory now occupied by the State of Burkina Faso was part of the larger Mossi Empire from the 12th to the 15th century, whose largest kingdom was that of Ouagadougou.

In 1896, after years of fierce resistance by the indigenous peoples of the Mossi kingdoms, France, in the course of its inglorious European colonization, defeated the Kingdom of Ouagadougou and made the surrounding territories a French protectorate. In 1898, the Anglo-French Convention was signed, which came to define many of the borders still in force today, including that of Burkina Faso.

During the First World War, the metropolis resorted to the conscription of its colonial subjects, destabilizing local communities.

Scourged by years of forced labor and heavy taxes, the different ethnic groups united in a revolt, which began in late 1915 in present-day Mali, Volta, and Burkina Faso. They fought valiantly, routing the French army with guerrilla tactics. The colonizers ultimately prevailed using only the most infamous methods. The anti-colonial resistance of 1915-16 left a legacy that would foreshadow and influence the anti-colonial revolutions of the peoples of black Africa after the Second World War.

In 1919, the French formally established Upper Volta as a colony, which became a labor pool for neighboring French colonies, especially for cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire. A labor migration that still exists today.

France attempted to use the Upper Volta for cotton cultivation. As usual, monoculture production disrupted the primitive local communist economy. Corvée labor was imposed on the population in the construction of railways and on plantations.

The region is still severely underdeveloped today, after decades of colonial and then imperialist exploitation, and Burkina Faso is still one of the poorest nations in Africa. The French eventually divided the colony into the states of Mali, Niger, and Ivory Coast.

Anti-colonial agitation only grew. In 1958, the colony became an autonomous republic but within the French Community, a colonial legacy in which France sought to maintain its sphere of influence.

Upper Volta achieved independence in 1960. After a series of coups d’état the popular Thomas Sankara came to represent the revolutionary and anti-imperialist bourgeois nationalism that tended to free the country from France and to seek real economic sovereignty in Upper Volta, renamed Burkina Faso. But the emancipation movement was ultimately betrayed: Blaise Campaoré would govern for the next 25 years supported by democratic France and the West.

Even today, Burkina Faso has not managed to free itself from the legacy of its colonial history and its evident exploitative relations with France.

Coming to the current situation, the report described the demographic and economic makeup of the country. Burkina Faso’s productive activity is centered on agriculture, which employs about 80% of the workforce, mostly in subsistence farming. Capitalist industry is concentrated in the South. Services contribute 48% of GDP and manufacturing less than 10%. GDP per capita was only $774 in 2019.

The country’s proletarianization process has been extremely slow. Youth unemployment is high, especially in the North, where Islamist groups use it as a recruitment pool. Most young people work in agriculture. Only 46% of the population is literate.

Modern agriculture has historically been based on cotton. Gold and cotton account for 85% of exports. Poverty is entrenched, especially in rural areas. Limited mechanization of agricultural capital makes farms vulnerable to cyclical droughts. The lack of roads is why the domestic market is quite small.

Moreover, Burkina Faso is one of the fastest growing African economies, with a rate of 5.68% in 2019, despite threats from Islamist groups and the Covid pandemic. Between 2000 and 2022, the share of GDP of the manufacturing sector fell from 16.2% to 9.9%, that of agriculture from 26.4% to 21.7% and that of services from 48.8% to 50.5%. But extractive industries increased from 1.9% to 14.5%. In the same period, the share of employment in industry went from 4.2% to 7.0%, that of services from 10.4% to 18.8%, while that of agriculture fell from 85.4% to 74.2%.

The country is thus following the path taken by all capitalist countries. However, the active population is still mainly made up of farmers.

As in most “third world” countries due to Western colonialism and imperialism, they have been reduced to suppliers of raw materials, with the native bourgeoisie earning a rent through the rental of farm and mine land, acting as an obstacle to the development of the country. Imperialism blocks the capitalist development of these countries. And in particular of Burkina Faso.

In 2022, food inflation reached 14.1%. This, combined with political instability caused by Islamist insurgents, led to the second coup in less than a year, which placed Captain Ibrahim Traoré in power. The decline of French imperialism in the region was first evident in Mali, where two coups took place in less than a year. This French withdrawal paved the way for Russian involvement, whose mercenaries have settled in the region.

The popular discontent that fueled these coups was due to both the inability of previous regimes to combat jihadist insurgencies, the dramatic increase in food prices, and widespread social instability. By 2023, over 2 million Burkinabe were internally displaced and nearly 150,000 had sought refuge in neighboring countries.

Farmers in northern Burkina Faso have found themselves caught between Islamist violence and army reprisals. The compulsory enlistment of union members in the army, as denounced by the Unité d’Action Syndicale (UAS), reflects the regime’s desperate need to bolster the military ranks.

The Sahel states have expelled all traces of anything French, in the wake of anti-Western sentiment, dormant but present throughout West Africa. Niger has extended this expulsion to the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) and has ordered the United States to evacuate all its military presence by September.

Senegal, Ivory Coast and Chad have recently wanted to free themselves of all Western military presence, especially French.

But what, moreover, characterizes all the Sahel states is the growing cooperation with Russia, China and Turkey, imperialisms that seek to expand their influence in Africa. These three states have mainly provided military support.

In 2023, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), aimed at strengthening security cooperation against Islamist groups. One of the first actions taken by the Sahelian states was to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The AES has “irrevocably” cut ties with ECOWAS, a structure it rightly sees only as a mouthpiece for the West.

In July 2024, the Alliance transformed into the Confederation of Sahel States, with the express goal of further strengthening mutual economic and political ties. The Confederation’s ambition is to create a common currency and collaboration in sectors such as agriculture, water and energy, in a broader strategy to achieve "economic sovereignty". However, as history has shown, true economic independence for these nations – if they remain disparate and not united in a true pan-African bloc – is impossible within the framework of capitalism, inserted into the global system dominated by more powerful imperialisms.

Popular support for the junta, particularly among the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie, is largely the result of the regime’s nationalist and “anti-imperialist” rhetoric. However, this support is fragile and depends on the junta’s ability to deliver on its promises of security and stability.

Burkina Faso has begun to nationalize mines to better exploit its natural resources, especially gold. The government has acquired two mines for about $80 million and seized 500 kilos of gold for “public necessity”. Most gold mines, however, are still foreign-owned, British, Canadian, Chinese, and Indian. We’ll see if the Burkinabe bourgeoisie not only barks but also bites.

(End of report of the meeting in the next issue)