A pillar of Blaise Compaore’s regime, Djibrill Bassole was first Minister of Security and then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso. In 2019, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for his alleged role in a failed coup attempt in 2015, charges he denies and a conviction he appealed. In early 2020, he was allowed to come to France for treatment and has not since returned to his country, which has experienced two coups in recent years.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently spoke of an “epidemic of coups” in West Africa, including two in Mali, two in Burkina Faso, one in Guinea and now another in Niger. An avalanche of putsches with “contexts which are not quite the same”, according to Djibrill Bassole. The former head of diplomacy of Burkina believes that jihadist insecurity is at the origin of this institutional instability in Mali and Burkina Faso but not in Guinea or Gabon.
On the subject of Niger, Djibrill Bassole judges that it would be a shame to arrive at “the extreme solution” of using force to restore constitutional order. He calls for “more dynamic and effective mediation” to allow heads of state to find a way out of the crisis.
Asked about France’s role in West Africa, the former minister evokes a “page of the traditional relationship of trust between France and African countries” which has been turned and of which “we must accept the consequences”.
On the situation in Burkina Faso, Djibrill Bassole deplores that the country has become “the epicenter of the jihadist phenomenon”. He also explains that the “all-military approach is slow to produce tangible results” and that a change of strategy is necessary to find a peace solution through dialogue.
Source: France 24
