International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

The proper use of conspiracies

Paul Martial — 2026-01-16T21:26:38Z

The announcements of coup attempts, whether real or imagined, are evidence of the junta's weakness, as it is unable to curb the advance of the jihadists.

- IVP612 - January 2026 / Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso: Junta steps up repression

Paul Martial — 2024-11-17T09:50:11Z

To make up for its inability to improve the security situation in Burkina Faso, the ruling junta is stepping up its repressive course. On 24 August, nearly 400 civilians were killed by jihadists in the village of Barsalogho in north-central Burkina Faso. This tragedy sheds a harsh light on the real situation in the country, far removed from the triumphalist rhetoric of the putschists.

- IV598 - November 2024 / Burkina Faso

Sahel: a military coup

Paul Martial — 2024-02-09T11:17:00Z

Victims of ECOWAS economic sanctions, the three Sahelian countries are leaving this economic union, criticising its harmful role for their populations.

- IV589 - February 2024 / Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso

A bleak future for the Sahel

Paul Martial — 2023-04-19T22:10:01Z

“The Sahel is experiencing an increase in refugee populations. They are caught between the regular forces and the various armed jihadist or community groups.”

- IV579 - April 2023 / Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso

Sahel: with or without Barkhane, a policy against the people

Paul Martial — 2022-11-20T08:50:43Z

“The new military orientation advocated will, without a doubt, continue to be exercised against the peoples in struggle.”

- IV574 - November 2022 / Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin

Sahel: towards a policy other than “security”

Paul Martial — 2022-07-16T05:28:01Z

Violence continues in the Sahel. While the junta in Mali, with Wagner mercenaries, is adopting a strategy of total war against the jihadists that is causing many civilian casualties, the governments of Niger and Burkina Faso are sketching out an initial dialogue with the armed groups that cannot be viable without a strong economic and social commitment on the part of these governments.
The Malian junta keeps talking about the successes of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) against the (…)

- IV570 - July 2022 / Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso: a country under pressure

Paul Martial — 2021-12-24T10:43:32Z

“The crisis in the Sahel is primarily a political and social crisis. African and Western leaders have chosen to respond by force, not out of stupidity, but to preserve the stability of post-colonial systems at the expense of the people.”

- IV563 - December 2021 / Burkina Faso

A scathing disavowal of Macron's African policy in Burkina Faso

Paul Martial — 2021-12-13T08:26:37Z

“The episode of the recent blockade across Burkina Faso of the French military convoy illustrates the crisis between French and African elites on the one hand and the people on the other.”

- IV563 - December 2021 / France, Burkina Faso

The trial concerning the murder of Sankara and his comrades begins

Paul Martial — 2021-11-01T05:48:53Z

“The Sankarist experience also represented a danger for the African dictatorships, corrupt and subjugated to the rulers of the West, because it outlined a credible political alternative for the continent.”

- IV562 - November 2021 / Burkina Faso

Constitutional gerrymandering and murderous consolidation of capitalist nepotism

Jean Nanga — 2017-01-18T17:04:31Z

From Angola to Chad, Central Africa, including Equatorial Guinea, is the sub-region most affected by the decline in oil prices, because it is dependent on oil revenues. An oligarchic resistance to the respect of the rules of the democratic game, in the form of a new type of authoritarian regime combining a formal multiparty regime with a repressive confiscation of power, characterized by nepotism, is closely related to this rentier character.
Thus, in a direction contrary to the wind that blew from North Africa in 2010-2011, sweeping away in 2014 the Blaise Compaoré regime in Burkina Faso, in 2016, the Congolese, Chadian and Gabonese peoples were forced to suffer, for another term of office, disgraced regimes. The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), confronted with the postponement of the elections, which extended the presidency of Kabila, have already seen dozens of people killed following the repression of popular demonstrations. So we could speak of a "spirit of sub-region". Without forgetting that in CÃ´te d'Ivoire Ouattara has had a constitution drafted that allows the president to appoint one third of the members of the Senate.

- Features / France, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Chad, Central African Republic