Historical Background experience of Burkina Faso.
Burkina Faso is landlocked country in West Africa around 274,200 square kilometres (105,900 sq mi) in size. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north; Niger to the east; Benin to the southeast; Togo and Ghana to the south; and Ivory Coast to the southwest. Its capital is Ouagadougou. Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) achieved independence from France in 1960. Repeated military coups during the 1970s and 1980s were followed by multiparty elections in the early 1990s. Its government structure is a military junta. Burkina Faso's high population growth and limited natural resources result in poor economic prospects for the majority of its citizens.
United States , France AND West Africa COUNTIES UNITE TO FIGHT Terrorism In Burkina Faso
His Excellency Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, participated in a high-level G5 Sahel meeting on Monday 18 September, 2017. The objective of the meeting was to make the international community aware of the urgent need to support the joint anti-terrorist force which will begin operations in October, despite having received just a quarter of its budget. In addition to the funding issue, discussions focused on the relationship between the G5 Force and the UN forces.
Recently people were killed when gunmen struck a restaurant and hotel in the capital Ouagadougou exposing a days-old government to a critical security challenge that risks derailing its pledge to transform the economy of one of the poorest nations on earth.The jihadists behind the Ouagadougou attack have called the bloodbath that left 30 people dead last week a drop in the sea of global jihad and said it comes within a series of operations to cleanse the land of Islam and Muslims from the dens of global espionage, according to a translation published by SITE Intelligence Group.
Burkina Faso, which has suffered several jihadist attacks, the first in January 2016 and the latest in July 2017, is tackling the problem head on. Among the measures taken by President Kaboré, who is calling for a merciless fight against this global scourge, and his Government are: the setting up of a full Department of Homeland Security and the appointment of a Minister of Defense, the redeployment of the security and defense forces (SDFs) in the north, equipping the SDF, strengthening international cooperation and joint operations with Mali (and with the French Barkhane force in particular).
The attack on the Radisson Blu, like the recent violence in Ouagadougou, was claimed by an alliance between al-Qaida and the feared Algerian extremist Moktar Belmokar. In addition to staging attacks in Mali, he also was behind a series of bombings in Niger in 2013. Now people across the region wonder what his next target will be.security officials, authorities in Burkina Faso also had begun monitoring activities in mosques and the movement of some imams they suspected of fomenting extremism. In early December 2006, several men from Niger and Nigeria who said they were coming to preach in Burkina Faso were questioned and then expelled. The government has managed to keep the regions extremist jihadist forces at bay even as bloody insurgencies are waged in neighboring countries. Burkina Faso has remained a steadfast U.S. ally in the war on terrorism and is lauded by the State Department as a cooperative partner in the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), a U.S.-led initiative in North and West Africa designed to confront al-Qaeda. The State Department has not made any major pronouncements about the recent rallies or the possibility of Compaores re-election. On the contrary, the United States has remained more concerned with continuing military co-operation through the TSCTP than bringing up the issue of political unrest Kabore and his ministers have taken to the airwaves to reassure the public, investors and potential tourists that the government can face down the threat facing Burkina Faso, one of a belt of French-speaking countries in the Sahel, south of the Sahara.
In the days to come, France is set to play an important security role both in terms of investigating the attack and using its intelligence network to track potential threats. Burkina's former colonial master has around 200 special forces based in Ouagadougou as part of a regional operation against Islamist insurgents. Some of them participated in the counter-attack that killed three of Friday's attackers.
At the diplomatic level, the country is part of the African Union and ECOWAS. Burkina Faso Armed Forces are part of the ECOWAS Standby Force, and multilateral exercises have been conducted under that heading. Additionally, security and military cooperation with neighboring countries is paramount and is specified in Burkina Faso's defense policy. The country, therefore, has excellent security and military cooperation relationships with neighboring countries at strategic and local levels.
This strong security cooperation was demonstrated in the investigation of the terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou; Bamako, Mali; and Abidjan, C^ote d'Ivoire; through efficient information sharing that led to the arrest of suspects in all three countries. The creation of the G5 Sahel Group, a political grouping of Sahelian countries that includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, will only strengthen this cooperation. This has allowed for improved information sharing and the creation of joint border operations. Moreover, Burkina Faso has increased security and military cooperation with strategic partners such as France, Taiwan and the United States. This cooperation includes new foreign bases, training, equipment programs and joint operations
The president has also taken credit for mediating conflict resolutions in war-torn neighboring countries. In June 2013, Compaores government hosted talks between the Malian government and two Tuareg rebels groups the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) in Ouagadougou. The Ouagadougou Accords that resulted were a preliminary agreement aimed at resolving the lingering tensions between the Malian government and Tuareg rebels following last years French-led military operation (Operation Serval) that dispersed AQIM and MUJAO from northern Mali. In 2011, Compaore hosted AU-sponsored talks in Burkina Faso to help mediate the Cote DIvoire crisis. Two years earlier, the Burkinabe president secured the release of two Canadian envoys for the United Nations whom AQIM had kidnapped in Niger for 130 days. During the 2008 coup in Guinea, Compaore helped mediate the aftermath. And in 2006, Compaore played a role in brokering negotiations that ended a crisis in neighboring Togo.
Reference
https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en
http://www.imuna.org/resources/
http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/AJBR/article-full-text/EA2707452040
The Army and the Exercise of Power in Burkina Faso
PDFhttps://www.files.ethz.ch isn
China Rising: Whither Taiwan in Africa? - SOAS University of London
PDFhttps://www.soas.ac.uk eats file43256
http://itweb.co.za/mobilesite/defenceweb/home/item_id-46811/
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