Burkina Faso Minister of Foreign Affairs Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré published a statement on 15 April 2025 expressing his disagreement with disparaging remarks made by General Michael Langley, commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), about Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré.

During a recent Senate Armed Services Hearing on 3 April 2025, US Senator Roger Wicker asked General Langley about corruption and bribery connected to trade with China, to which he responded, ‘Absolutely, chairman. I see this, and I don't mind calling this out. Captain [Ibrahim] Traoré in Burkina Faso... their gold reserves are just in exchange to protect the junta regime.’

Continued……In response, Burkina Faso stated: ‘By arguing that Burkina Faso's mining resources, as well as certain revenues from cooperation with the People's Republic of China, do not benefit the population, but rather serve to protect the ‘regime in power,’ General Langley adopts a stance that deliberately denies Burkina Faso's new sovereignist dynamic… The Ministry formally denies these allegations. The concrete actions carried out on the ground testify to the sincere commitment of the Burkinabé authorities to driving inclusive and sustainable development. Far-reaching reforms have been undertaken in the fields of agriculture, water, infrastructure, education and health, with the aim of better distributing resources for the benefit of the population…

Continued……. General Langley would have benefited from confining himself to his field of expertise by providing the members of the Senate committee with a more balanced reading of the causes which led Burkina Faso to re-evaluate certain military cooperation agreements, while respecting its sovereignty.’

The disrespect of the United States and other Western countries toward Africa has led some countries to sever ties with their militaries.

Ouagadougou's neighbouring ally Niger is the first African country to boot AFRICOM. Meanwhile, Eritrea never signed an AFRICOM agreement. Both are the only African countries that do not cooperate militarily with the United States.

Video credit: @SASCGOP / @SASCDems

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxXZneKick
(2:08:10-2:08:32)

WHY RSF’S PARALLEL GOVERNMENT IN SUDAN IS PROBLEMATIC!

The United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have declared the formation of a parallel government in Sudan. 

The troubling announcement came on 15 April, the second anniversary of Sudan’s foreign-backed proxy war that has displaced as many as 14 million people and k*lled as many as 150,000 people by May 2024, per US envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello.

In February, the RSF, a paramilitary group accused of g*nocide against non-Arab peoples, signed a charter to establish a rival administration called the ‘Government of Peace and Unity’ in areas under their control. On 3 March, the RSF, allied armed groups and other formations signed a transitional constitution during a summit held in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. This move was immediately condemned, with the Sudanese civil societies, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), among others, warning that such a step threatens Sudan’s unity.

Continued……. However, the UN International Organization for Migration reported that the RSF’s 13 April siege of Zamzam camp for the displaced in North Darfur alone, had k*lled over 300 people and displaced at least 400,000 people. 

In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused the Janjaweed militia—transformed into RSF in 2013—of g*nocide against non-Arab Sudanese in Darfur, acting under the directives of then-president Omar al-Bashir. Thus, it’s ironic that a group that has t*rrorised Sudanese along ethnic lines for decades, is now claiming to form a non-ethnic rival government of unity.

Many Sudanese also see this move as a way to allow foreign powers to continue exploiting Sudan at the expense of Sudan’s people.

Sources

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/north-africa/more-intrigue-as-sudan-rsf-declares-parallel-government-5004852

https://english.news.cn/africa/20250416/67deacb2b49643df934efd0feaa533cb/c.html

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202504/16/WS67ff06c6a3104d9fd381f8c7.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/16/africa/sudan-rsf-declares-rival-government-intl/index.html

https://english.news.cn/africa/20250416/67deacb2b49643df934efd0feaa533cb/c.html

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202504/16/WS67ff06c6a3104d9fd381f8c7.html

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/north-africa/more-intrigue-as-sudan-rsf-declares-parallel-government-5004852

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/world/africa/sudan-rsf-zamzam.html

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2024/invisible-and-severe-death-toll-sudan-conflict-revealed

https://theweeklyvisionews.net/2025/04/07/khartoum-claims-ruto-and-uae-are-backing-rebels-escalating-sudan-crisis/

https://english.news.cn/africa/20250416/67deacb2b49643df934efd0feaa533cb/c.html

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202504/16/WS67ff06c6a3104d9fd381f8c7.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/sudan-unrest-what-is-the-rapid-support-forces

BARRICK GOLD CRIES AS MALI CLOSES OFFICE

On 15 April, Canadian mining company Barrick Gold claimed Malian authorities shut down its Bamako office, the latest in the almost two-year conflict between the Malian government and the mining company. According to Barrick Gold, Bamako has also threatened to seize its local assets.

While Barrick Gold frames the actions as unfair, they come as part of Mali’s attempt to reclaim its natural resources, which have been exploited by foreign mining companies. Mali has confronted Australia-based Resolute Mining and South Africa-based Anglo-American. 

Continued….. In February, Resolute Mining CEO Terry Holohan resigned after the company agreed on 18 November to pay Mali $160 million in back taxes following his 10-day detention that began on 8 November. Meanwhile, that same month, Anglo-American CEO Duncan Wanblad said Mali’s new mining laws are of ‘grave concern to any prospective mining investor.’

Neighbouring allies Burkina Faso and Niger have both nationalised gold and uranium mines in recent years. 

These two states and Mali established the Alliance of Sahel States on 6 July 2024 following successful people-backed coups d’état that ousted Western-aligned leaders that perpetuated neocolonial relations with former coloniser France and other powers like the United States.

Sources

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/mali-has-shut-barrick-golds-office-bamako-over-alleged-non-payment-taxes-sources-2025-04-15/

https://www.ft.com/content/ac809397-f757-421f-9755-06a2fca62267

https://www.rml.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/030225-Management-Changes.pdf

https://www.ft.com/content/a92e089f-beb4-4677-9537-f564bff06715

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2025/02/05/anglo-ceo-says-mali-mining-developments-cause-for-grave-concern/

https://en.sputniknews.africa/20240828/burkina-fasos-boungou--wahgnion-gold-mines-now-belong-to-government-1068037322.html

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/niger-seizes-control-of-somair-uranium-mine/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/21/niger-revokes-french-nuclear-groups-licence-at-major-uranium-mine

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/eger-takes-over-as-resolute-ceo-as-holohan-resigns-2025-02-03

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/resolute-makes-second-payment-of-50m-to-mali-government-2024-11-29

FAILURE OF SUDAN’S TRANSITIONAL PERIOD

Sudan’s history since its 1956 independence consists of failed transitional periods.

In Episode 17 of African Stream’s ‘Pan-African Attitude’ podcast, Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo delved into what brought Sudan to the point of a foreign-backed proxy war with prominent politician, academic and economist Sidgi Kaballo. Sidgi, Ahmed’s father, is also a member of the Sudanese Communist Party.

In this clip, the pair explored the failures of Sudan’s fifth transitional period (2019-21), which came at the heels of the popular December 2018 revolution that ousted the country’s 30-year-long ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The transition that followed was supposed to set the country on a democratic, civilian-led path and away from the remnants of the Islamists’ regime.

Continued……However, many expressed scepticism about a power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian leadership. The Sudanese Communist Party, for example, wanted the military to return to their barracks so Sudan could be under civilian leadership.

Nonetheless, a transitional period of 39 months went into effect, during which the military would lead the Sovereign Council for the first 21 months, then hand over to the civilian leadership for the next 18 months. However, this process was interrupted by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) coup in October 2021. The SAF had invited the RSF into the capital, Khartoum, to reinforce the suppression of the 2019 people’s uprisings. Experts warned that two powerful armed groups in the centre was a recipe for disaster.

Then, in 2021, Sudan agreeing to International Monetary Fund (IMF) measures like currency devaluation and subsidy cuts exacerbated the instability, culminating in the foreign-backed proxy war and creating the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over half its population in need of assistance.

Watch the whole conversation on Rumble, Patreon and Editor-in-Chief @ahmedkaballo’s YouTube channel (@ahmedkaballo4170).

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e46Nmw1neZc&t=1588s

https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/dilemma-political-transition-sudan-analytical-approach

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/overcoming-history-sudans-uncertain-transition-democracy-face-military-pressure

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/04/resolving-sudans-crisis-means-removing-those-fighting

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/how-will-sudan-s-army-chief-decision-to-dissolve-rapid-support-forces-affect-war/2987074

https://www.cfr.org/blog/sudans-coup-one-year-later

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/1/19/imf-working-very-intensively-with-sudan-for-debt-relief

https://www.ossrea.net/publications/images/stories/ossrea/ssrr/ssrr-series-10.pdf

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2021/06/30/Sudan-Enhanced-Heavily-Indebted-Poor-Countries-HIPC-Initiative-Decision-Point-Document-461368

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/5/25/africa-dont-bite-the-poison-pill-of-austerity-any-more

https://horninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/HORN-Bulletin-Vol-VII-%E2%80%A2-Iss-IV-%E2%80%A2-July-August-2024.pdf

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/04/the-fight-for-sudan-was-inevitable.html

On 18-24 April 1955, representatives from 29 newly independent or soon-to-be independent countries met in Bandung, Indonesia, for the Asian-African Conference, better known as the Bandung Conference. It marked a pivotal turn for the quest for freedom across the colonised world, with attendance from some of Africa’s most prominent anti-colonial leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) and Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70).

From Africa came the newly independent states of Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and Libya, and the soon-to-be independent Ghana and Sudan. Apartheid South Africa was not invited. The Central African Federation, also known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, consisting of what is now Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, but under racist settler-colonial rule, declined to send a representative.

Continued……The conference’s theme was promoting peace and cooperation amongst these new states. Indonesian President Sukarno (1901-70) famously declared, ‘We are often told ‘Colonialism is dead.’ Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead. How can we say it is dead, so long as vast areas of Asia and Africa are unfree.’

The conference produced a charter known as the ‘Ten Bandung Principles,’ which contributed to the definitions of national sovereignty and independence.

The Bandung Conference’s legacy includes influencing the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Yugoslavia in 1961. It would also go on to inspire the 1966 Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, also known as the Tricontinental Conference, which drew more than 500 representatives from the national liberation movements, guerrilla movements and independent governments of 82 countries in Havana, Cuba.

Sources

https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/asian-african-bandung-conference-fact-and-fiction

https://www.southcentre.int/question/revisiting-the-1955-bandung-asian-african-conference-and-its-legacy

https://ces.uc.pt/en/agenda-noticias/agenda-de-eventos/2016/legacies-of-the-tricontinental

Continued…. Khalil's arrest was amongst the first in a series of arrests of pro-Palestine student activists. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, was detained by immigration authorities on 25 March. Yunseo Chung, a US permanent resident born in South Korea and a Columbia University student, was arrested on 5 March. More recently, on 14 April, another Colombia student and a permanent resident, Mohsen Madawi, who co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Khalil, was also arrested. US agents reportedly lured Madawi into a citizenship interview, upon which he was detained. 

The Trump administration has said it has revoked hundreds of other students’ visas over what it calls their 'anti-semitic' stance, an umbrella term used to delegitimise those who denounce Israel’s military onslaught. So far, Israel may have k*lled at least 186,000 as of early July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Since World War II, Israel has been the largest recipient country of US aid.

Sources

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-screening-aliens-social-media-activity-for-antisemitism

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=854e49b0-9704-4bdc-831c-443b4d15aead

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/additional-measures-to-combat-anti-semitism/

https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-trump-c60738368171289ae43177660def8d34

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/11/zjrk-a11.html

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8369

https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/04/rumeysa-ozturk-describes-detainment-poor-conditions-at-ice-detention-center-in-declaration

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/nyregion/columbia-student-ice-suit-yunseo-chung.html

https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-university-associate-mahmoud-khalil-arrested-dhs/story?id=120800223

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-citizenship-interview/

MACKLEMORE DEFENDS DETAINED PALESTINIAN MAHMOUD KHALIL

On 22 March, rapper and activist Macklemore (@macklemore on Instagram) spoke out in support of the people of Palestine and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate, Syrian-born Palestinian activist and US permanent resident, who US authorities illegally arrested and detained over his pro-Palestine organising. The US State Department recently announced immigrants and those seeking visas would be rejected and deported for espousing supposed anti-Semitic viewpoints.

At an event called ‘Free Mahmoud!Free Palestine!’ at The People's Forum (@peoplesforumnyc on Instagram) in New York, the artist took listeners on a journey of what it was like for him, learning about the true history of Palestine, the systemic injustices and the fear of losing out on a livelihood for the possibility of being labelled 'anti-Semitic.’ However, he overcame that fear after he could no longer be silent in the face of Palestine’s oppression.

Continued……. It's been nearly 77 years after the 1948 Nakba, when Z*onist settler-colonial forces forced about 800,000 Palestinians off their land to establish the state of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, Israel k*lled over 15,000 Palestinians through more than 70 massacres that destroyed 531 villages.

Many experts, including the UN, say Palestinians in Gaza live in the ‘world’s largest open-air prison.' Human-rights monitoring organisations have referred to Israel as an apartheid state, with Palestinians facing movement limitations, calorie and water restrictions, executions, arbitrary arrests, s*xual violence and other abuses. 

Macklemore reminded the world that the history of Palestine did not begin on 7 October 2023 and that US tax dollars that continue to fund Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians make those who choose to remain silent complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 

Video credit: @btnewsroom (X)

Sources

https://peoplesforum.org/events/fight-for-our-rights-free-mahmoud/

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2024/05/remembering-the-nakba-a-70-year-struggle-for-justice/

https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948

https://www.asawinstanley.com/2010/10/our-dreams/

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190420-why-zionism-has-always-been-a-racist-ideology/

https://www.ejiltalk.org/beyond-discrimination-apartheid-is-a-colonial-project-and-zionism-is-a-form-of-racism/

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/israel-palestine/israeli-apartheid-the-legacy-of-the-ongoing-nakba-at-75

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts