Journalists, officials, civil society members — kidnappings of figures deemed critical of Burkina Faso’s military regime have for months been on the rise, sowing a climate of terror among the population, experts and Burkinabes say.
The policy is backed on social media by pro-junta activists, who publicly denounce people they describe as “stateless” for opposing “patriots” loyal to the regime led by Captain Ibrahim Traore.
Since Traore took power in a September 2022 coup, repression has increased, particularly against those who point to an absence of results against jihadists that the captain had promised to eradicate in a few months.
“We have observed increased repression of all independent voices or critics of the authorities, in an extremely fragile security context, where fighting terrorism justifies any violation of human rights,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, Sahel region researcher for Human Rights Watch, told AFP.
The modus operandi follows a similar pattern.
Men in civilian clothes pass themselves off as ANR intelligence agency operatives and arrest individuals, often in broad daylight, in the capital Ouagadougou or elsewhere.
Days, weeks, even months in some cases will pass before their families receive news of their fate.
Sometimes individuals reappear and are formally incarcerated. Others resurface wearing military uniform, “requisitioned” to go to the front to fight jihadists.
“This is a strategy the junta uses to silence dissent. The junta wants to put them to the test, to punish them for criticising (it). It’s illegal and cruel,” said Allegrozzi, who referred to “a climate of impunity” within the regime.
The latest wave of kidnappings, which occurred last week, concerned the race for a new president of the football federation, where the regime wants to place its favoured candidate.
Three supporters of a rival candidate, Ali Guissou, were kidnapped in turn.
“Tyranny spares no one. Because we want to impose choices, we tyrannise others, we imprison or transfer away from Ouagadougou. How far will we go?” lamented Emmanuel Sawadogo, a collaborator of Guissou.
A month beforehand, four leading journalists and columnists disappeared in turn, two of them kidnapped by ANR men, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which said it was “clear” that the authorities “have a share of the responsibility in their disappearance”.
What the abducted reporters have in common is they have investigated the regime’s excesses and expressed reservations about regime policy.
According to RSF, one of them, Atiana Serge Oulon, is now “probably enrolled in the army”, while relatives of the other three have had no news since they vanished.
‘Forced exile’
For more than a year, kidnappings or arrests have also occurred among civil society leaders — such as renowned lawyer Guy Herve Kam, arrested three times in six months — or officers such as former gendarmerie chief of staff Evrard Somda.
The junta accuses them of “conspiracy” or “attempting to destabilise republican institutions”.
As a result, many people are fleeing Burkina Faso for neighbouring countries to avoid a similar fate.
“This relentlessness of the military authorities has forced the luckiest into forced exile,” said Moussa — whose name AFP has changed out of safety concerns –, telling AFP he left the country in January to “protect himself from such authoritarian drift”.
“In a country where criticism, even objective or constructive, is repressed and any contrary voice is treated as stateless, a kind of enemy of the regime, and therefore of the country according to them, it is better to take a step back,” the former civil servant sighed.
Another exile, who said he had narrowly escaped a kidnapping and spoke on condition of anonymity, said “the country has been silenced”.
“No one dares to say a word for risk of being kidnapped for an unknown destination,” he said, adding that the “war on terror” in the country will be won “through a sacred union of (its) sons and daughters rather than through this omerta and witch hunt” of opponents.
Civil society organisations in Burkina Faso continue to denounce the kidnappings regularly.
But the international community, for its part, is silent on the subject.
“Even at the continental level, there are not many voices that have been raised. The African Union’s Commission on Human Rights has never raised the issue of Burkina Faso,” Allegrozzi said.
On a visit late last month, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed reaffirmed its commitment to “pursuing interventions” in Burkina Faso and working in partnership with the government and people.
