How One of the Most Stable Nations in West Africa Descended Into Mayhem
Burkina Faso once looked like a success story for U.S. military aid. But now it’s contending with a growing insurgency, an unfolding humanitarian crisis — and a security force targeting civilians.
October 15, 2020
by Nick Turse "The fact that Burkina Faso’s military has failed to protect its people while simultaneously committing atrocities against them is not America’s failure alone. Other international supporters, like France and the European Union, bear a responsibility — not to mention the Burkinabe government itself. But a history of spectacular collapses by U.S.-trained militaries, from South Vietnam in 1975 to Iraq in 2014, and rampant atrocities by allies, such as torture, rape and murder committed by Afghan forces and the yearslong killing of Yemeni civilians, with U.S. weaponry, by Saudi Arabia, demands a frank reappraisal of U.S. military assistance abroad. Ordinary people in Burkina Faso are paying a grave price for failed foreign-policy decisions and autopilot assistance that favors throwing military aid at complex social problems."
Ann Garrison interviews Bénédicte Kumbi Ndjoko: Congo is indeed in a critical situation. We know how much its people have suffered since the genocides in Rwanda and all the displacement they caused, then by the wars that Rwanda and Uganda waged against Congo from 1996 to 1997 and then from 1998 to 2003, with the support of the US, UK, and their allies. Today some observers speak of Congo as a post-conflict country, but it’s still in a low-intensity conflict, off and on, hot and cold. A conflict that drags on like this can become even deadlier than declared war, as it has in the North and South Kivu Provinces bordering Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. More than a million of the 4.49 million internally displaced people are in North Kivu Province.
It is rolling out 376 small cells that will cover 1 million people who are currently without a signal and the roll-out is now underway. The cost of the investment is US$10 million. That’s US$10 million to cover 1 million people. Now Rwanda’s a small country and it would cost more to cover a larger geographic area but the potential is clearly enormous if it works.
Gerard Boyce
2016-01-14, Issue 757
cc Getty Seventy years after commencement of the Manhattan project that developed the atomic bomb, a conscious debate on its socio-political consequences is missing when decisions are reached to adopt nuclear energy, most recently by a number of African countries. Until today, the costly projects draw on the legacy of demonstrating power, couched in language of necessity and accompanied by secrecy.
Le Burkina Faso – paroles d'une révolution démocratique menacée Selection de scènes du film documentaire „Revolution à mains nus. Le trajectoire d'un peuple....
Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
2014-11-12, Issue 702
Rwanda has banned the BBC for airing a documentary that reveals the Big Lie told by Paul Kagame and his cronies about what happened in Rwanda in 1994. Kagame and his RPF have for 20 years concealed their primary role in setting off the genocide – in which most victims were Hutus and not Tutsis, contrary to State propaganda amplified by international media and powerful Kagame-Power enablers. With publication of a new book, this Big Lie is being dismantled.