By Jose Ernesto Novaez Guerrero on May 17, 2025 from Havana
Ibrahim Traoré, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso
In the African Sahel, a revolution is underway that is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media. In an area historically dominated by French colonialism and neocolonialism, the military in three states—Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso—have seized power.
Unlike other military dictatorships that have proliferated on the African continent, often propped up and financed by Western powers, the governments of these countries have embraced an agenda of national reconstruction, recovery of state assets, often in Western private hands, and defense of national sovereignty and the rights of their peoples.
The case of Burkina Faso is particularly interesting. Since September 30, 2022, following the coup against interim president Paul-Henri Sandaogo, the country has been ruled by young captain Ibrahim Traoré. Traoré is one of many officers trained in the fight against jihadism in the north of the country, deeply disillusioned with the prevailing corruption and the lack of effective equipment for the units facing the terrorists.
Traoré has shown himself to be a leader with a clear pan-African vocation, strongly influenced by the example of the great Burkinabe revolutionary leader, who promoted an ambitious program of economic and social transformation in his country in the 1980s, frustrated by his assassination in 1987, promoted and financed by France. During his four years in office, Sankara established close relations with Cuba, even setting up Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in the country, inspired by the Cuban experience. He promoted mass vaccination campaigns against polio, meningitis, yellow fever, and measles.
He also promoted literacy, took important steps toward gender equality, and maintained a strong pan-African and anti-imperialist program.
Thomas Sankara
It is no coincidence that both Sankara and Traoré came from the ranks of the army. This is a situation common to many African countries and elsewhere. In societies so devastated by poverty and government neglect, with few opportunities for access to education and culture, military life often becomes one of the few options for building a stable future. Within this institution, not only are educational opportunities available, but also, as a tool of class domination, the structure of society’s domination is exposed more starkly.
The military comes from the people, but it is not uncommon for it to be forced to confront them in defense of foreign or national capital interests. And the poorer and more corrupt the country, the more the military experiences firsthand the abandonment and disdain of its commanders and the elites to whom it is subordinate. It is a breeding ground for reaction, hence the proliferation of coup-plotting and opportunistic military personnel, but it is also a space where a revolutionary conception of society and the country can mature within a sector.
The reemergence of the example of Sankara in the current practice of President Traoré demonstrates the vitality of ideas, even when they are betrayed and attempts are made to bury them. And today, as forty years ago, the challenges of advancing a project of sovereignty and social justice in Africa, against the old colonial powers, are immense. Traoré has already had to face several coup attempts and threats of foreign intervention. Jihadism, most likely encouraged from outside, has increased hostilities against the government, complicating the country’s already complex security situation.
Despite this, in his three years at the helm of the executive branch, Traoré has taken concrete steps that are impacting the quality of life of the Burkinabe people and have important implications for their future. On the economic front, the country’s GDP is expected to grow between 2022 and 2024, rising from approximately $18.8 billion in 2022 to $22.1 billion in 2024.
the popular Ibrahim Traoré
The government of Burkina Faso has rejected loans from the IMF and the World Bank, explicitly breaking ties of financial dependence on Europe and the United States. Progress has also been made in recovering national resources, such as gold, with the creation of a state mining corporation and the inauguration in November 2023 of the country’s first gold refinery. Previously, the mineral was exported unrefined at much lower prices.
The government has also committed to agricultural development, distributing more than 400 tractors, 239 cultivators, 710 motor pumps, and 714 motorcycles to rural producers. Access to improved seeds and other agricultural inputs has also been facilitated. Although the figures are still modest, production of key crops has increased, such as tomatoes, which rose from 315,000 metric tons in 2022 to 360,000 in 2024, and millet, which rose from 907,000 metric tons in 2022 to 1.1 million in 2024. Two tomato processing plants were also established in the country, launching their own brand of canned tomatoes on the market, and a second cotton processing plant.
The construction of roads has been promoted, expanding existing ones and building new ones, using Burkinabe engineers as much as possible in the execution of the projects. The new Ouagadougou-Donsin airport is also being built, with an estimated capacity of one million passengers per year. He also reduced the salaries of ministers and parliamentarians by 30 percent and increased those of civil servants by 50 percent.
In foreign policy, his government has taken several bold steps in the context of the current intensification of contradictions in global geopolitics. With the intention of breaking definitively with French neocolonial domination, he expelled French forces from the country in 2023, including those participating in Operation Sabre against terrorism.
Carrying flags of Togo, Burkina Faso, and Niger during a march in support of the Alliance of Sahel States in Niger.
After leaving the Economic Community of West African States, he created, together with Niger and Mali, the Alliance of Sahel States, which includes several clauses for mutual development and defense. In a clear move away from the West, he has strengthened ties with Russia on economic and security matters, including an agreement to build a nuclear power plant in the country, and with China, which is promoting numerous investments in Burkinabe territory.
Although some of these achievements may be somewhat exaggerated, the truth is that Burkina Faso is undergoing a profound economic, political, and social transformation, with concrete steps that are leading to a better quality of life for its people and a better redistribution of national wealth. Of course, the challenges of such an agenda are immense.
On April 3, 2025, during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, General Michael Langley, commander of AFRICOM, accused the Burkina Faso regime of being bribed by China and using “its gold reserves to protect the junta regime,” which could open the door to future actions by Washington against the Burkinabe government.
The most immediate danger, as already noted, comes from the exponential increase in the activity of jihadist groups in the country.
Like many other revolutionary transformations in the past, what is happening in Burkina Faso is covered by a cloak of silence and defamation by the major Western powers, which are undoubtedly preparing to apply to Ibrahim Traoré the same solution they applied to Sankara in his day. Breaking this veil of silence is a fundamental duty of solidarity for all revolutionaries. Let us not stop talking about Burkina Faso and the immense task of transformation undertaken by its people.
At a time when capitalism aspires to present revolutions as relics of the past, processes such as this continue to remind us of the relevance of the revolutionary task. More than a century later, the imperialist chain continues to break at its weakest links.
José Ernesto Nováez Guerrero is a Cuban writer and journalist. Member of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS). Coordinator of the Cuban chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity (REDH) and Rector of the University of the Arts.