Burkina Faso’s transitional Prime Minister, Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem de Tambela, on Monday reaffirmed his country’s commitment to relying on its own forces in the fight against terrorism, rejecting any idea of accepting foreign troops on Burkinabe soil.
Trade Union Action Unit
Responding to the call of the Trade Union Action Unit (UAS), thousands of workers took part in a march, this Monday in Ouagadougou, to demand better living and working conditions as well as the return of security in the localities plagued by terrorism.
As every year, on the occasion of Labor Day, the workers of Burkina Faso submitted to the head of government a platform of demands relating, among other things, to the fight against terrorism, measures against the high cost of living and the respect and enlargement individual and collective freedoms.
Taking the floor, the head of the Burkinabè government, Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem de Tambela, explained that “if the territory disappears, no right can remain: whether it is the right to employment, the right to create a business, the right of expression, everything will disappear”.
“We hope to be able to do more to mesh the whole territory with the sons of the land who will take care of their own security for their own advantage”, he said, justifying the recruitment of 50,000 volunteer combatants for the defense of the homeland (VDP, army auxiliaries).
On the question of foreign troops, Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem de Tambela wanted to be reassuring. “Our Wagner (the Russian paramilitary group) is the VDP (Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland). We believe that it is up to the population to defend their territory. It is up to the nation to defend itself. And we at no time will it occur to us to accept foreign troops here, ”he said.
And to add: “I tell you that if you learn that the foreign troops are there, everyone must abandon their pen, their trowel, their nut to go and fight to drive these foreign troops out there”.
After having obtained in January the withdrawal of the 400 soldiers of the French special forces stationed since 2009 in the north-eastern outskirts of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in March asked the French authorities to make arrangements for the “definitive departure” of all French military personnel serving in Burkinabe military administrations.
The Burkinabè government has decreed “the order of general mobilization and warning” in order to “give a legal and legal framework to all the actions” undertaken by the State in the context of the fight against terrorism.
In a statement dated April 14, 2023, the European Union, through the spokesperson for its head of diplomacy Josep Borrell, Nabila Massrali, declared that it had taken note of the adoption of the decree on general mobilization in Burkina Faso and demanded that human rights be respected.
In a statement sent to Anadolu on Monday, the spokesperson for the Burkinabè government, Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo, reassured the European Union and the international community as a whole that the decree on general mobilization and warning takes into account the protection of the intangible rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Burkina Faso and the international conventions to which the country is a party.
This article is originally published on afriquemedia.tv
