Ibrahim Traoré Delivers A Call for African Liberation and Self-Determination At The 1st AES Summit
The president of Burkina Faso, president Captain Ibrahim Traoré, delivered a powerful speech at the 1st summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). I am going to publish the speech in its entirely here but wanted to highlight the main points for the lazy.
Africa has been systematically exploited and continues to suffer under continued imperialism that continues to this day despite the so-called independence of African countries. This has been done through local (African) elites - our current leaders - who are similar to "house negroes" serving their imperialist masters. While looting Africans of its resources, the elites and the imperialists hide behind "democracy" and "human rights" yet we very well know that does not and has not worked in African. As Africans, we must realise that the only way out of this is to fight and never stop fighting until true independence and freedom is achieved.
Now here is the speech in full:
This continent has suffered so much and continues to suffer because of imperialists. These imperialists have only one cliché in mind: "Africa is the empire of slaves." This is how they see Africa. For them, Africans belong to them, our lands belong to them, our subsoil belongs to them. They have never been able to change the logic until today. This is deplorable, but how do they proceed? Unfortunately, it is since the 1960s that these 6,000 acres of independence have been given to Africa. They have just placed local valets at the head, according to them, of their subprefecture to be able to continue to feed them. These local valets, which we are going to call today the slaves of the salon, have other goals. They want to live like the master, to satisfy the master, and to do everything that the master dictates to them. They steal, they plunder our states, they bring everything to the master, and their wealth is kept with the master. They do everything to live like the master and always satisfy him. Do you know who these slaves of the salon are? Well, we are going to explain to you what they are. They are individuals who have no dignity, who have no morals, who have no personality. But the master slave has always known how to identify these individuals. They are always ready to betray their brother to satisfy the master.
They have betrayed us since independence, and others continue to betray us to the benefit of their master. These individuals continue, against all odds, to help the master plunder Africa. They like to say it every year in their economic polls: "Burkina is the poorest country, Mali is the poorest country." We are ranked among the last. Very well, if we are as poor as they say, but when the time has come to take responsibility, we have asked this master to leave the place. Why don't they want to leave? When we take the case of Niger, for more than 40 years, some countries have been exploiting uranium to produce energy at home. From Ottawa to Paris, the streets are illuminated; it is the light, but in Niger, it is the darkness that has served us. When you go to our states, our soils are full of precious metals such as gold, but often there is not even the slightest road accessible to reach the areas where they exploit gold, even less certain basic social services.
This is why we have decided to revolt and take the fate of our countries into our own hands. There are many other examples, but when we decided so, we were approached by some salon slaves to pass on the message of their master because they had created this kind of polymer chain that rises to the heads of our states to serve them, and we came to break the chain, and it is inconceivable for them. They approached us and asked us to enter their ranks to make the elite leave that must lead Africa because they have an elite formed and formatted that must follow that is embedded in this chain. We refuse to enter their ranks, and then the hostilities began. They have sent several mercenaries and trainers to our area. The agents have descended into the Sahel to carry out barbaric, cowardly attacks against our people, hoping to revolt them. In addition to these attacks on the ground, the attacks on communication, manipulation, and disinformation are full in their ranks, but the people of there have understood, and we will never be able to be manipulated again. They know where they come from, they know what they are doing, and they know where they are going. We will no longer allow this; people are awake, and people are fighting today, not for ourselves but for future generations.
And thank you all for the fight that is this will never make us cry. We will not tremble; we will fight. We will fight for real independence, for our freedom, because to scare the people of the AES, these individuals have only three terms in their mouths: democracy, freedom, human rights. Yes, you, of course, their local values are only elected in a democratic, free, and transparent process according to their values. What is more normal than we want to impose this on ourselves because it is they who dictate the rules. Very well, we have decided to take responsibility. Do you know why? On June 26, 2023, when Niger decided to turn the page, the slaves of the salon and their masters got on the big horses. They put their local values forward and decided to wage a war against the Nigerien people. So we said anyone who dares to take up arms against Niger will face us because we will wage a merciless war until the last drop of blood for anyone who dares to attack our states. This word, this decision we made yesterday, is current today, will be current tomorrow, and forever. Thus, we acquired the AES on September 16th, 2023, in a mutual defense architecture, but we felt it necessary to extend and therefore enlarge the AES architecture. What brings us together today must allow us to go to other areas in addition to defense, including finance and economy, infrastructure, health, education—in short, I pass.
So I hope that this moment will be for us a story that we will write for the AES, but especially for Africa and for the whole world. May God illuminate each and every one of us, may God inspire us in these tasks that are entrusted to us, and above all, that when we do all our work, that we have in mind only one thing: the supreme interest of our people. On this, we pray once again, good God, that he accompanies us all in our different tasks, that he protects our fighters who, thanks to them, allow us to sit here and exchange about the future of our states. So be grateful once again, Nigerien people, be united, and united people of the AES. The homeland or death.