Fifteen Nigerian Muslim pilgrims were recently murdered on their way to Tijaniyya annual convention in Kaolak, Senegal when the buses conveying them through conflict hotspots in northern Burkina Faso and Central Mali came under gun attack. At least 25 people, including civilians and three police officers, were reportedly killed in that attack by suspected terrorists.
Burkina Faso has been rocked since 2015 by attacks by terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic state, and their clashes with the armed forces. The violence has reportedly left thousands dead and some two million displaced. Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina Faso’s transitional president, resulting from a military coup on September 30, 2022, the second in eight months, has set himself the objective of reconquering the territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists.
The attacks mark a further escalation of an insurgency that has besieged Burkina Faso and other African countries for more than 10 years now. Around 400 French Special Forces are based near the capital Ouagdougou in a deployment dubbed operation sabre, part of a broader military presence, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or the North Atlantic Alliance, to fight terrorists across the sahel region.
Arbinda, located in the Northern region, is currently under blockage by terrorist groups, cutting off the area from food supplies, even in the presence of the French forces. Africa indeed has become the new grand Zero for terrorist groups. Since January this year terrorists have continued to massacre and kidnap civilians including women and children in Nigeria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Mali, Ivory Coast, South Africa and Cameroon.
This is happening despite the presence of a full spectrum combatant command, the US AFRICOM, on the African continent, its island nations and surrounding waters in defense operations, exercise and security cooperation. In fact, in just 15 years of AFRICOM’s existence, at least 24 military bases have been established in Africa as part of an extensive network of over 100 outposts and access points in at least 34 countries, more than 60% of the African continent, in pursuance of AFRICOM’s stated goals which include protecting United States’ interest and maintaining its supremacy over Africa countries.
Despite Western rhetoric about promoting democracy and human rights, self-serving interest remains the goal. It is on this ground that the former AFRICOM commander, General Stephen Townsend, referred to Africa as “NATO’s Southern Flank”. That reference reminds one of the neo-colonial position espoused by the 1823 Monroe doctrine in which President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, during his 17th annual state of the Union Address to Congress, described Latin America as the US backyard and opposed European colonialism in the Western hemisphere.
The doctrine held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the United States. The new US foreign policy strategy in African countries, according to observers, is to counter the harmful activities of China, Russia and other foreign states on the continent. But there is no mention of the sovereignty of African countries in this new strategy. Yet an important principle of pan-Africanism is political unity and territorial sovereignty of African states.
The continued presence of NATO military bases in Africa not only symbolises that lack of unity and sovereignty, but equally reinforces the fragmentation and subordination of the peoples and governments of African countries to US interests. As global tension rises, the US and its allies have signaled that they see Africa as a battle ground for a new cold war against China and Russia.
At the UN General Assembly in 2022, the African Union (AU) strongly rejected the coercive efforts of the US and Western countries to use the continent as a tool in their geo-political agenda. South African Development Community (SADC) also criticised the US government for trying to overly influence African foreign policy by imposing sanctions on those who support Russia in the current crisis in Ukraine.
South Africa Minister of international Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Ponder, criticised the US law, Country Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, and called it absolutely disgraceful. The law seeks to punish African countries cooperating with Russia. The destructive nature of the US and NATO military presence in Africa was demonstrated in 2011 when ignoring opposition from AU.
The US and NATO launched their disastrous military intervention in Libya, which previously was among the best African countries. This invasion has turned the country into a point of slave market, the entry point of thousands of foreign fighters and ongoing terrorist violence which has spread to the Sahel region and West African countries including Burkina Faso and Nigerian states of Gombe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Borno, Bauchi and Taraba.
Ohrebi, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja