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Home › Burkina Faso       February 24, 2020

Burkina Faso: Stopping the Spiral of Violence

Feb 24, 2020 | International Crisis Group

The proliferation of armed groups and the expanding footprint of jihadist groups fueled violence in Burkina Faso in 2019. The government should adopt a more integrated approach to security and tackle the crisis in rural areas by resolving land disputes.

What’s new? In Burkina Faso, violence is intensifying as a result of a multifaceted rural crisis. Armed groups are proliferating, including bandits, jihadists and self-defence movements. In 2019, Burkina Faso suffered more jihadist attacks than any other Sahelian country.

Why does it matter? The country is locked in a perilous downward spiral. Jihadists are gaining ground by exploiting rural communities’ frustrations. In turn, the government’s largely military response often entails abuses by security forces and self-defence groups that fuel local, community-based violence that provides a fertile recruiting ground for diverse armed groups.

What should be done? The government should limit both its use of force and the role of self-defence groups in its counter-insurgency efforts, and develop a more integrated approach to security. In the longer term, resolving land disputes that often drive local conflicts is a priority in tackling the crisis in the Burkina countryside.

Executive Summary
In Burkina Faso, violence is escalating amid a governance crisis across rural areas. Jihadists returning from neighbouring Mali, most of whom are Burkinabè, gained a foothold in 2016 by exploiting the frustration and anger of rural communities. Self-defence groups that villagers began forming in 2014 have fuelled local community-based violence, especially since 2019 in the Centre-Nord and Soum regions. The state’s recent call for volunteers to fight militants could amplify this phenomenon. The government’s largely military response, including the use of self-defence groups over which it exercises limited control, has often led to abuses that pushes those targeted into jihadists’ arms. To stop the downward spiral, the authorities should limit the role of vigilantes in counter-insurgency efforts, introduce better checks to guard against abuses and develop an integrated approach to security. In the longer term, resolving land disputes that often underpin rural conflicts is a priority.

The Burkina countryside is undergoing a multifaceted crisis.

The state’s response thus far has fallen short and even contributed to the deteriorating security environment. The authorities have been too quick to blame the former ruling elites’ supposed manoeuvrings for the crisis and too slow to recognise its endogenous nature and sheer scale. Unprepared to deal with the challenge, they have largely resorted to military force, with some limited support from French troops. Counter-terrorism operations have often generated abuse against civilians and led to the killing rather than arrest of suspects. The authorities have reportedly thwarted several attacks since December 2019, but overall have not curbed the threat. Their response has pushed those who feel unjustly victimised by state violence, particularly within the Fulani ethnic group, to join jihadist groups.

To compensate for the security forces’ shortcomings, particularly in terms of territorial coverage, the Burkina authorities have encouraged the establishment of community-based self-defence groups and, more recently, announced they would recruit “homeland defence volunteers”. Such measures could prove counterproductive if the arming of civilians, which is always difficult to supervise, aggravates local divisions and gives rise to further violence.

The Burkinabè authorities should integrate military action into a more comprehensive approach aimed at addressing the political roots of the crisis.

The attempt to reconcile security and development through the Sahel Emergency Plan (Plan d’urgence Sahel, PUS), launched by the government in 2017 to boost economic and social development in the area, in itself is unlikely to be sufficient or address the political causes of Burkina Faso’s insurgencies. Yet thus far neither the government nor the country’s international partners have offered any alternatives.

The Burkinabè authorities should integrate military action into a more comprehensive approach aimed at addressing the political roots of the crisis. The state could safeguard social cohesion in the countryside, which currently risks being torn apart, by combating the stigmatisation of certain communities, promoting local conflict resolution – including community-based peace making and negotiation with some militants – and by demonstrating the value of its presence.

The Burkinabè authorities have tended to underestimate the threat. For many years, they considered the problem to be rooted exclusively in Libya and then Mali. They also claimed that it was abetted by networks close to the country’s ousted president, Blaise Compaoré, who has been exiled in Côte d’Ivoire since 2014. The former ruling clique certainly did act as intermediaries with these jihadist groups, which protected it in return.In that period, however, the small jihadist groups specialised in kidnappings, a far cry from today’s rebellions that are spreading across the sub-region. In August 2014, after Compaoré had committed Burkina Faso to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the jihadists began launching attacks on the Burkinabè peacekeeping contingent.

Faced with outbreaks of violence across an unprecedentedly wide geographical area, the authorities have only just become aware that Burkinabè fighters form the nucleus of jihadist groups, which are therefore an endogenous rather than an external phenomenon. The authorities continue to believe, however, that there has been meddling behind the scenes, particularly in the run-up to the 2020 presidential and legislative elections.

The jihadist threat is more the consequence of the country’s problems than the cause. This report examines how the multifaceted crisis in Burkina Faso’s rural areas has contributed to the spread of armed conflict. It continues Crisis Group’s series of reports on Burkina Faso and the evolution of jihadist movements in the central Sahel region. The analysis is based on interviews conducted between July and October 2019 with government officials, politicians, civil society representatives, members of the security forces and Koglweogo self-defence groups, experts, diplomats and Burkina Faso’s various international partners.

II. Post-insurgency Challenges for a Weakened State

The Burkinabé state’s authority is under extreme pressure, partly due to the gradual disintegration of the political system put in place by Compaoré (1987-2014). Following the popular uprising that ousted him from power in 2014, a section of the population is challenging – not for the first time – the legitimacy of the country’s elites and its institutions. Although it is perceived as an essentially urban phenomenon, this insurgency has also laid bare internal divisions in rural Burkina, helping jihadist groups gain a foothold in these areas. These groups initially appeared to pose a threat from across the border in Mali, but they have now found a new breeding ground in Burkina Faso.

The 2014 uprising may have brought an end to Compaoré’s rule, but the political class and its methods of governance remain largely unchanged.

The 2014 uprising remains incomplete, according to some. It may have brought an end to Compaoré’s rule, but the political class and its methods of governance remain largely unchanged. Most of today’s government officials already held their positions under Compaoré, whose semi-authoritarian power structure left little room for opposition. The uprising signalled a strong repudiation of the political elites in Burkina Faso, and those currently in government have failed to dispel this sentiment.According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), an NGO that collects and analyses data about armed conflict, Burkina Faso has seen 442 protests and strikes since November 2015, compared to 244 such incidents between 2000 and 2013. Public-sector unions in urban areas are constantly active, putting the government under sustained pressure. Although President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was elected with 53 per cent of the vote at the end of 2015, his honeymoon seems to be almost over. Citizens are increasingly frustrated with the government and official institutions.

The October 2014 insurgency also had a generational component. The young people who spearheaded the movement still identify themselves as guardians of “the spirit of the insurgency”. This association with the Sankarist tradition gives greater resonance to their protests. Although these young people struggle to maintain unity, they no longer accept being excluded from decision-making and apply relentless pressure on the ruling class.

President Compaoré controlled the countryside through a web of personal alliances, enabling him to neutralise threats to his authority and to defuse underlying community-based tensions. Different sectors of the local elite – elected officials and members of the ruling party at the time, the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), traditional chiefs, and economic actors – preserved the political status quo by alternately repressing and co-opting dissidents, in direct contact with the central authorities. While it was accompanied by investments in rural infrastructure, this strategy maintained the illusion of social cohesion and rural stability. In March 2012, the exclusion of key government figures (suspected of overshadowing the president’s younger brother) weakened these networks and diminished the state’s capacity to ease tensions in outlying areas.

The 2014 uprising undermined this system and further fragmented the state’s presence in rural areas. In November 2014, special delegations replaced the municipal and regional councils that were instrumental in managing land-related issues. The insurgency brought to the surface festering rural discontent with the state and its local representatives (71 per cent of the country’s population live in rural areas). People openly accuse these government representatives and even some traditional and municipal authorities of exploiting their positions, and sometimes colluding in the buying and selling of land. Increasingly sidelined, these important figures who used to control access to land and resolve land disputes at a local and state level are now less able to act as arbiters.The emergence of the Koglweogo self-defence groups at the same time has further eroded their influence. State authority in the countryside is dwindling just as tensions are becoming increasingly violent.

The government often chooses to ignore that the country’s problems are home-grown.

III. Conflicts in Rural Areas
Tensions were latent in Burkina Faso’s rural areas when the uprising began in 2014. Land disputes have evolved into full-scale conflicts that could escalate into community-based violence. The Koglweogo and other civilian self-defence groups are progressively taking over the state’s law-and-order role outside the towns, upsetting local equilibriums and creating new problems.

A. Disputes over Access to Land
Competition over land and natural resources in Burkina Faso has escalated to unprecedented levels owing to several factors: population growth that is causing internal migration of farmers; a changing climate that is degrading soils in some parts of the country; in places, poorly planned land development using irrigation; and land speculation.

The privatisation of protected areas and hunting reserves met with resistance in eastern Burkina in the 1990s. There was also widespread opposition to the increasingly restricted access to these lands after the 1997 Forestry Law was passed. This privatisation has sometimes led to the eviction of local communities, or else limited their access to these important spaces. This policy has been detrimental to the livelihoods of farmers, herders, fishermen and hunters alike; many hunters have become poachers, and some of all these people have turned to banditry. Jihadist groups have taken advantage of this situation by promising to restore locals’ access to these lands.

In Burkina’s Sahel, West and Centre-North regions, and to a lesser extent in the eastern part of the country, the increasing migration of farmers has intensified land pressures, especially among the Mossi (Burkina Faso’s main ethnic group) from the Yatenga province (North region) and from the Plateau-Central region. In the early twentieth century, indigenous communities needed labour and were willing to let migrants work their lands, but in recent decades this migration has caused spiralling tensions. Indigenous populations question previous agreements when they see land values rise. The 2009 Rural Land Law has worsened this situation by undermining these populations’ property rights and by encouraging private land sales. For example, the law assigns land to migrant farmers who have occupied it continuously for 30 years, prompting some owners to recover their lands. In both rural and urban areas, municipal authorities commit abuses when handling land subdivisions, leading to expropriations that in turn stir up animosity.

Land disputes are creating intercommunal tensions. Indigenous groups complain about the financial and political clout of the new arrivals.And indeed, other communities often give the Mossi privileged access to government and therefore important political leverage. The increasing demographic weight of migrant Mossi communities offers them special influence over the election of mayors, municipal councillors and village chiefs, particularly in many districts of the Centre-North and West regions, where they are relative newcomers. In areas where elective offices are instrumental in access to land, the growing influence of non-indigenous people is creating community-based tensions, which have nevertheless remained local for the time being.

Burkinabè pastoralists, meanwhile, are facing major difficulties. Security forces are extorting herders, who are struggling to assert their rights over pastoral lands. They are particularly affected by the shrinking size of these lands due to agricultural developments and land speculation; by dwindling feed and water supplies; by obstruction of seasonal migration routes; and by the non-application of legislation, in particular the 2020 Pastoral Law. Before the 2014 crisis, 49 per cent of the conflicts reported in Burkina Faso were between farmers and herders. This situation has spawned a number of self-defence groups. In 2012, the Rouga set up a union of “herder representatives” to protect herds in eastern Burkina.

A woman walks back home to Baraboule, northern Burkina Faso. CRISISGROUP /Sadou Sidibé

In some pastoral zones these conflicts have escalated to a community level since 2015, pitting Fulani herders against sedentary groups. As a result of these tensions, local authorities chased Gourmantché and Mossi farmers away from pastoral lands in Kounkounfouanou (Kabonga commune) in 2015. Their steady return has fuelled resentment among Fulani herders. Similar disputes have arisen around Fada N’Gourma in eastern Burkina, and in Barani in the Boucle du Mouhoun region. They are widening social rifts, particularly in the Sahel, East and Boucle du Mouhoun regions.

Mining has also caused frequent clashes across Burkina Faso, often between miners and local residents. For many years, Compaoré’s associates controlled artisanal gold mining, which directly or indirectly provides a source of income for around two million people. This sector, which began to disintegrate after 2014, is now attracting new players, even state actors, who covet this resource and some of whom have armed groups at their disposal to seize control of the artisanal mining sites. The Koglweogo self-defence forces in particular are filling the security void left by the state.

B. The Koglweogo: New Lords of the Bush
Rural areas have become increasingly dangerous over the course of the 2000s throughout Burkina Faso, particularly in the East and Centre-North regions where many cattle rustling gangs and highway robbers are active. Banditry is now so widespread that certain main roads, notably in the eastern region, are no longer used. Some locals claim that they can look after their own security.

Communities responded to the state’s weakness by taking it upon themselves to fight crime by forming a self-defence group called Koglweogo.

The challenge of rural banditry has caught the state off guard. The security forces (the army and gendarmerie) are ill-equipped to deal with the problem, and rampant corruption in the security and judicial sectors has also reduced the effectiveness of law enforcement operations that previously were led by the Presidential Security Regiment (Régiment de la sécurité présidentielle, RSP). The 2011 riots also weakened the state’s ability to fight crime. Aware of these limitations, authorities have encouraged the implementation of community policing strategies since 2003, which evolved into local security initiatives in 2010, tasked with passing on information to police and the gendarmerie. Red tape, budgetary limitations, and the 2014 popular uprising combined to stall this project, however. The people of Bogandé (East region) protested in March 2014, calling for re-establishment of local security committees as a liaison between the security forces and the population.

Communities responded to the state’s weakness by taking it upon themselves to fight crime by forming a self-defence group called Koglweogo (“guardians of the bush” in the local Mossi language) in 2014. In the villages, these vigilante groups do not constitute a unified movement but exist alongside local structures. The authority held by the national leader and founder of the first Koglweogo group in Kombissiri (Centre-South region) remains limited. Nevertheless, close ties exist between these structures that are expanding through a system of patronage between neighbouring villages. They have now spread across the Centre, Plateau-Central, Centre-North, Centre-East and East regions, with the support of traditional local authorities. According to some estimates, Burkina Faso had 4,500 Koglweogo groups in 2018, with a total membership of around 45,000. The Koglweogo, who are generally armed with hunting rifles, have gained the support of most local people by restoring security. Their brutal punishments of suspected criminals often meet with indifference or even approval from a population keen to find effective forms of mob justice.

These former “guardians” have become “lords of the bush”.

Bandits and self-defence groups are two faces of the same security crisis in many rural parts of the country.

IV. Jihadism in Burkina: A Endogenous Phenomenon
Burkina Faso has become the main theatre for jihadist operations in the Sahel. Some members of government remain convinced that the former ruling elite has had a hand in creating this situation. But even were this claim to hold some truth, the principal cause of the crisis is to be found elsewhere. Jihadist groups have exploited the multifaceted crisis of rural Burkina in order to expand their presence. A fractured countryside has allowed them to recruit fighters from among the victims of land disputes and highway banditry.

A. Jihadist Groups in Burkina Faso
Long spared jihadist attacks, Burkina Faso now finds itself in the crosshairs, especially since October 2015. Although most activities have been concentrated in Soum since the Nassoumbou attack, which killed twelve soldiers in December 2016, other areas have also been affected: the East, Boucle du Mouhoun, North and Centre-North regions, and the capital Ouagadougou, have all been hit. Jihadists seem to be enlarging their networks, and the growing number of insurgencies has added to the sense that Burkina’s capital is under siege.

Three jihadist groups have been active in Burkinabè territory since 2015-2016: the local group, Ansarul Islam, and two groups from Mali, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, ISWAP) and the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, or JNIM).

Originally founded as an autonomous Burkinabè movement in late 2016, Ansarul Islam later merged with JNIM, a group linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and mainly operating in central and northern Mali. Ansarul Islam is active in Soum and the western part of the Centre-North region (the Bam province and the western part of the Sanmatenga province). In 2017, the movement was weakened by the disappearance of the movement’s leader, Malam Dicko. Malam’s brother Jafar Dicko took over control, but one wing of the movement objected to his autocratic leadership class. In October 2019, messages began to spread on social media networks claiming he had been killed, though many local sources still deny these reports. The group seems to have become a “unit” (markaz) of the brigades (katiba) operating in central Mali: the Katiba Serma from 2017 to 2018, and mainly the Katiba Macina led by Hamadoun Kouffa. JNIM now claims responsibility for Ansarul Islam’s attacks.

JNIM has not only recruited Ansarul Islam fighters active in the Soum region, but it has also been operating in western Burkina since 2016. In 2018, the jihadists opened a second front in eastern Burkina, where the group has claimed responsibility for several attacks, and until recently it seems to have been more active than ISWAP in that area. It is confirmed or highly probable that the groups currently comprising JNIM – Ansar Eddine, Al-Mourabitoun and AQIM – were responsible for the Samorogouan (October 2015), Ouagadougou (January 2016) and Nassoumbou (December 2016) attacks. JNIM has influence in this area due to the presence of a group of Burkinabè fighters from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and from Ansar Eddine in AQIM units in Mali since 2012. Along with the Ansarul Islam units based in Soum, they have been the driving force of the group’s expansion in eastern Burkina.

In Burkina and the wider Sahel region, JNIM and ISWAP are joining forces against France and its allies.

Although the jihadist groups mainly recruit their fighters locally, they maintain close ties to parts of Mali that lay beyond the state’s reach.

For their recruitment drives, jihadists exploit injustices frequently linked to land disputes and coupled with political and community-based issues.

Jihadists also recruit from groups familiar with handling weapons. In Burkina Faso, a country that has seen no rebellions, these people include former soldiers, whether discharged or deserters, and highway robbers. Bandits are increasingly enlisting as jihadists in Burkina and, to various degrees, throughout the Sahel. Some join out of conviction, but many are simply seeking revenge on the state and self-defence groups. Jihadists are keen to tap into the know-how of these groups that were routed by the Koglweogo in 2015 and 2016. In Burkina Faso’s eastern region, many robbers from Bogandé – a hotbed of banditry – have been identified among the jihadist fighters, and one of them, a Gourmantché, was a unit commander. But cooperation between these two types of fighter is not always smooth; they do not have the same agenda or the same sense of discipline.

C. Jihadists: Linking Global and Local Agendas
In 2016, Malian jihadists made an incursion into Burkinabè territory to challenge the French military and to search for new fallback locations.Their ambitions have since grown: Burkina Faso has become a theatre of combat where the aim is to expel government forces from rural areas and to impose Islamic law. This ambition is not necessarily shared by fighters and supporters, however, most of whom are more interested in local issues.

Jihadist leaders in Burkina Faso seek to articulate local grievances with reference to their movement’s global agenda – the imposition of their version of Islam as the sole source of law and governing authority. Jihadist sermons connect the protests against local injustices to religious precepts. Religious leaders from a given group maintain links between local cells and leaders, ensuring that they obey the movement’s rules (particularly with regard to their application of Islamic law and their attitude toward the civilian population). That said, they are willing to relax their discipline in order to accommodate those who join their ranks for more prosaic reasons.

The autonomy enjoyed by Burkina Faso’s jihadist groups gives room for the fighters to satisfy their local (or even personal) interests. These groups are free to pick their fights, provided that they do not directly contravene the jihad’s global principles. Ultimately, they remain under the command of leaders mainly based in Mali when needed for larger-scale operations. This autonomy seems more firmly ingrained in ISWAP than in JNIM. ISWAP’s unit commanders sometimes launch attacks for personal motives of revenge or profit, although these reasons overlap with the jihadist leaders’ aim of expanding their territory. For example, violence targeting Fulsé civilians and elected representatives in Arbinda followed the killing of Gaskindé’s Fulani leader, the nephew of ISWAP’s top commander in Burkina Faso. The desire for revenge complemented the organisation’s intention of expanding its operations in eastern Soum.

This same autonomy can also prove troublesome for certain jihadist groups since it can provoke violent clashes between communities. On one hand, by allowing their fighters to become involved in these conflicts, jihadists (from ISWAP in particular) satisfy the ambitions of a section of their membership – in this case mainly consisting of Fulanis – who are keen to protect and/or seek revenge on behalf of their community. On the other, by supporting a local group, jihadists are encouraging fitna (tribal divisions) and compromising their project of unifying the community of Muslim believers. Internal disagreements exist over the right path to take. To date, JNIM has been reticent to exploit community-based tensions, unlike ISWAP.

Seen in this context, a primarily military response fails to address the root causes of the problem.

The Former National Assembly, which was set on fire during the insurrections of October 2014.CRISISGROUP/Julie David de Lossy

The 2014 insurgency and its aftermath heightened distrust between politicians and men in uniform, further weakening the security apparatus. After the fall of Compaoré and the coup in September 2015, the government dissolved the RSP, which greatly reduced the country’s military capabilities. With its 1,300 men, this unit accounted for almost 10 per cent of the military; it constituted an elite body and above all the core of an extremely efficient intelligence service, relying not on an institution but on Compaoré’s right-hand man, Gilbert Diendéré. After the mutinies of 2011, senior officers had already been arrested or dismissed and 566 members of the security apparatus had been fired. Today, the Burkinabè army lacks both seasoned soldiers and officers who can occupy intermediate positions.

For the new government, rebuilding an intelligence architecture on the rubble of the RSP constitutes a major challenge. The National Intelligence Agency (Agence nationale du renseignement, ANR) was created in 2015 but faces several obstacles, including rivalries between services and longstanding antagonisms between the police and gendarmerie. The apparatus under construction is struggling to gather intelligence.Human intelligence remains fallible, often reflecting the bias of local informers, and is actually declining as informants are executed by jihadists. Burkinabè forces also tend to consider any individual in contact with jihadists their accomplice, since they are unable to determine their level of involvement. Reconstructing a full network of reliable informants will take years, and to analyse intelligence, a young generation of experts will have to be trained for a new kind of threat.

The 2014-2015 transition sparked ongoing rivalries between the gendarmes and the military. The gendarmes occupy strategic positions around Kaboré; the commander of the Special Intervention Unit of the National Gendarmerie (USIGN) is said to have the president’s ear, and the ANR director is one of his childhood friends. Conversely, the president seems wary of an army that he wishes to “depoliticise”. He proscribed the appointment of military personnel to the rank of minister, including for the defence portfolio. Since 2015, rumours of a coup have been circulating, leading to the arrest of the former minister of security and pillar of the transition, Colonel Auguste Denise Barry, a figure close to former Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, who was second in command of the RSP under Compaoré and is currently in exile in Canada. The army’s discontent is all the stronger since gendarmerie units are the ones entrusted with fighting terrorism.

There appears to be a real risk of mutiny or even a coup.

These military interventions have produced few results. In the East region, Operation Otapuanu repelled and somewhat disrupted jihadist groups. Since September 2019, the long-term deployment of nearly 2,000 men has maintained order in a precarious balance. While the number of large-scale attacks decreased in the region after the end of the operation in April, targeted assassinations, kidnappings and harassment of the population have persisted: between May and November 2019, more than 80 criminal acts were recorded. On 6 November, the attack in Boungou on an escorted convoy belonging to Semafo, a Canadian mining company, demonstrated that jihadist groups are still able to carry out ambitious attacks in rural areas. Far from being an isolated incident, it reflects renewed jihadist activity in the region.

Elsewhere, particularly in the Sahel region, military operations have not reduced the threat and may even have aggravated the situation. In the first eight months of 2019, 416 violent incidents were recorded in the region, causing 927 deaths, compared to 330 violent events in which 287 were killed from 2016 to 2018. Since early 2019, Burkinabè armed forces have allegedly carried out summary executions of individuals suspected of cooperating with jihadists in several localities, notably in Kain and Banh, Titao and Barani. Human rights organisations estimate that at least 200 people have been victims of such executions, and question their links with jihadist groups. In March and April 2019, two other military operations at artisanal gold sites in Tchiembolo and Filio, near Inata, reportedly resulted in dozens of deaths. Other summary executions are said to have taken place in the East region, in the Boucle du Mouhoun or in the North, and, at the end of 2019, in several localities in Soum.Western chanceries are concerned about this phenomenon.

Extrajudicial executions are doubly counterproductive. Authorities lose out on intelligence, feeding the resentment of their relatives.

Authorities recognise that civilians may have been collateral victims of military operations, but formally contest the extent of the abuses denounced by human rights organisations. They specify that all operations stem from precise intelligence and respect the principle of “gradation of force”. Behind the scenes, officials point out that the government, which is “at war with terrorism”, has no option but to use force to deter civilians from collaborating with the enemy and to reassure public opinion with quantifiable results. A significant section of public opinion in the capital also seems convinced that civilian casualties are inevitable.

Extrajudicial executions are doubly counterproductive. Authorities lose out on intelligence by executing suspects rather than interrogating them, which also feeds the resentment of their relatives, some of whom are then tempted to join the jihadists. Burkinabè forces often assess the degree an individual’s militancy based on his real or supposed connections with jihadists. Yet many villages under jihadist threat have no other option but to submit to their authority. This conflation works like a self-fulfilling prophecy: those close to the identified individuals end up going to jihadists for protection or revenge. Since the beginning of 2019, the scale of the violence perpetrated by the army against civilians (often Fulani) has prompted entire villages to side with the jihadists. A prominent figure from the Sahel region sums up the situation as follows: “Operation Ndofu (‘uprooting’ in Mossi) did not uproot jihadism, but sowed it instead”.

The army’s abuses appear to be sustained by problems in the justice system, notably prison congestion and backlogs in courts responsible for trying suspects. Last March, over 700 individuals suspected of belonging to a terrorist group were being detained in prisons across the country.The courts have tried no such detainee since 2015, while the counter-terrorism division, created in 2017 and in charge of most of these cases, is only now operational. With merely 24 people on its staff, it cannot absorb such a large number of cases. In this context, part of the security apparatus seems to consider it illusory to rely on the rule of law. This state of mind opens the way for summary executions, which the authorities deem to be acts of war, in defiance of the Geneva Conventions.

C. The Danger of Relying on Self-defence Groups
On 7 November 2019, President Kaboré called for the mobilisation of “volunteers for the defence of Faso” to fight “terrorists”. This project sounded like an avowal by defence and security forces of their inability to secure the territory on their own. The law adopted on 21 January 2020 provides that all volunteers hired as “back-up for the defence of their village or sector of residence” receive training lasting fourteen days, without specifying the nature of the weaponry they will have access to. It also stipulates that they must “obey military authority”. This appeal harks back to the citizen involvement during the Sankarist revolution, an important phase in Burkina Faso’s history. It also responds to the desire of part of the population to fight terrorism.

In Mali as in Niger, the use of non-state armed groups against jihadists has never been an effective tool in the fight against insurgency.

The Koglweogo, who recruit mainly from among the Fulse and Mossi, have upset the balance between communities in the Centre-North. By taking on police and security prerogatives, they either wilfully or unwittingly became accomplices in settling scores, often concerning land disputes and to the detriment of the Fulani community. In 2017, the Koglweogo of Boulsa (Centre-North) became engaged in fighting terrorism to the overt indifference of authorities. The Fulani community then became their primary targets and sought the protection of the Rouga, Fulani groups charged with protecting herds, who were in turn perceived by the Koglweogo as “jihadists in disguise”. Thus, the counter-terrorism project merged with the settling of personal and, by extension, communal scores.

This climate of mutual distrust and strong stigmatisation of the Fulani set the scene for two massacres. On the night of 31 December 2018 to 1 January 2019, unidentified gunmen killed six people in Yirgou, including the Mossi village chief and his son. In retaliation, and supported by the largely Mossi population, the Koglweogo killed between one hundred and two hundred Fulani civilians. In March, a second massacre was perpetrated by Fulse individuals against the Fulani in Arbinda (Soum), bordering the Centre-North.

The massacres perpetrated by the Koglweogo with the support of some local communities produce the same effect as the atrocities committed by defence and security forces: the Fulani approach jihadists to exact revenge or seek protection. In some cases, the atrocities that the Fulani have suffered have finally brought them over to the jihadists’ line of thought. The latter have largely profited from the deteriorating situation in the Centre-Nord to extend their influence. Several dozen Koglweogo were also killed, and many others fled the fighting or the justice system.

The call for “volunteers” raises fears that similar scenarios could occur in other regions of Burkina Faso. This call is resonating within existing local security initiatives, in particular the Koglweogo, who are overwhelmingly Mossi. By taking part in counter-terrorism operations for which they are not trained, the Koglweogo risk targeting simple civilians whom they conflate with jihadists, in particular those from the Fulani community. They are also at risk of becoming the victims of growing violence against civilians displayed by the local branch of ISIS. The leader of the political opposition has even evoked the risk of “civil war”. This prospect cannot be discounted when the Fulani community is the second largest in the country (8.4 per cent of the population) and when violence targeting civilians is on the rise. In 2019, 934 civilians were killed by armed groups, compared to 157 from 2015 to 2018.

The president’s announcement – likely precipitated by the attack in Boungou – pre-empted the necessary efforts to define methods for supervising volunteers.

The president’s announcement – likely precipitated by the attack in Boungou, which shocked the country – pre-empted the necessary efforts to define methods for supervising volunteers. In the following days, abuses of Fulani civilians started being reported in the North, Centre-North and East regions. On 15 October, the former secretary general of the CDRs warned of the danger of self-defence groups lacking oversight. There is an urgent need to halt a potential escalation of violence from which nobody stands to gain.

D. The (Complex) Construction of the Security-Development Nexus

Both the government and its international partners present the “security-development nexus” as the cornerstone of their response to the crisis in Burkina Faso. So far, this approach has struggled to produce concrete results and is based on a vision that reduces security to a military response, neglecting the political dimension of the crisis.

The Sahel Emergency Plan (Plan d’urgence pour le Sahel, PUS), adopted in July 2017, is the authorities’ main non-military response. The government designed it as a matter of urgency, basing it on a socio-economic pillar and a governance pillar that includes security issues. This plan essentially incorporates the guidelines of the National Program for Economic and Social Development (Plan national de développement économique et social, PNDES), designed in peacetime, applying them only to the Nord and Sahel regions. A coordinating unit reporting to the Ministry of Finance ensures the coordination of PUS projects and programs (that often predate the PUS), but with simplified procurement procedures to speed up their implementation.

The PUS remains poorly adapted to an unstable security environment that requires flexibility and responsiveness. Its implementation is hampered by excessive bureaucracy, since the actions of nine ministries must be coordinated. It has also suffered from a deteriorating security situation: only 51 per cent of planned activities were carried out in 2018, and 49 per cent in 2017. In addition, jihadists have destroyed infrastructure (schools and wells) built within the framework of the PUS, as they symbolise the state’s return, which they deem unacceptable. Its hasty launch led to communication problems with local authorities and beneficiaries. Authorities recognise that this action does not suffice, without knowing how to improve upon it.

The violence is part of more complex governance crises in rural areas, where local conflicts over access to resources are worsening.

According to PUS advocates, poverty and underdevelopment are the root cause of violence. This precept explains why priority is given to developing basic infrastructure. In reality, however, the violence is part of more complex governance crises in rural areas, where local conflicts over access to resources are worsening. Building infrastructure is not only insufficient in the face of these challenges, but it may even prove counterproductive in some cases. Digging a well in an area disputed between farmers and herders can thus lead to conflicts over its use if no one consults the populations beforehand.

The authorities also have a narrow concept of security, essentially based on military tools. Operation Otapuanu, launched in March 2019, is a good example. As part of its civil-military component, military doctors treated civilians and state services issued several thousand identity documents to those who lacked them. But the operation did not give rise to dialogue between the army and the populations. Nor did it jump-start labour-intensive or income-generating projects, which could have helped restore confidence within local communities. Military authorities recognise that the operation was planned as a matter of urgency and without involving the technical ministries or partners who could have capitalised on its success.

It seems that some government officials are becoming aware of the limits of a military-focused approach, but the authorities are sending mixed signals. The national security policy being drafted under the Ministry of Security’s leadership must outline an approach that is centred on securing the population rather than just the state. Such an approach to security involves preventing conflict and addressing the weaknesses that fuel violence as a priority. But authorities seem divided as to how to achieve this balancing act, all the more since the 2020 electoral agenda and the unstable situation are pushing the MPP’s hardline wing toward a military escalation. Rivalries between the Defence and Security Ministries also complicate the design and implementation of such an integrated approach.

Without a consensus between state actors, the dialogue option seems inconceivable in the short term.

To contain the jihadist threat, they will have to prevent the local community-based violence that nourishes it.

Political actors of all stripes should refrain from hiring men with guns, either directly or indirectly, in the run-up to and during the 2020 presidential election. The government and the opposition should open discussions on the subject, and both should pledge not to use such actors for electoral purposes.

B. A More Effective and Proportionate Military Response

In parallel, authorities should devise a more effective and more proportionate military response, consisting of the following: improving conditions for front-line troops; building a more reliable intelligence system to better distinguish civilians from insurgents; and investing in the judicial system to reduce summary executions.

A woman crosses the dam in Ouagadougou as she returns home on her motorbike, in October 2017.CRISISGROUP/Julie David de Lossy

The excessive use of force during counter-insurgency operations is not inevitable in the Sahel. It is largely linked to the conditions in which troops are fighting. The politicisation of the armed forces and the fear of a mutiny among their ranks dissuade the government from enhancing the resources of a service that has long suffered from insufficient training and equipment. Soldiers therefore operate in fear, which is conducive to abuses. Improving the living and operating conditions of troops at the front (with better equipment, shorter shifts, increased food rations and bonuses, psychosocial monitoring, provision of interpreters and medical evacuations) would limit the risk of abuses, as would improved training, an area in which the country’s partners could play a significant role. The deployment of European missions – now under discussion in the EU – within the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) would be useful provided that lessons are learned from the limitations of such efforts in neighbouring Mali and Niger.

The propensity for abuse is also linked to the difficulty the military faces in distinguishing civilians from insurgents. A more reliable intelligence system would reduce the risk of error. The creation of the National Intelligence Council, provided for by Act 026/2018 on general intelligence regulation in Burkina Faso, is a first step toward improving communication between services and cross-checking data. Such cooperation requires overcoming rivalries between the police, army and gendarmerie. Burkinabè authorities would also like their better-equipped international partners to share information, starting with France and the U.S., which could indeed help address shortcomings in this area. This contribution would not, however, exempt Burkinabè authorities from improving their own intelligence measures.

To prevent summary executions from becoming an integral part of the counter-insurgency strategy, it is crucial to place the penal system at the heart of the state’s response. By bringing alleged terrorists to justice, the specialised anti-terrorism division also helps tackle prison overcrowding. Its means are clearly insufficient, given the large number of cases and the difficulty of investigating in high-risk zones. The government should considerably increase the resources of this division, both for investigating offices and the judicial police. International partners should come together in support of this new division and the country’s special anti-terrorism unit (Brigade spéciale des investigations antiterroristes, BSIAT), which plays an essential role in conducting investigations that allow for a fair trial. With a similar context and staffing figures, Niger was able to ease its prison overcrowding thanks to such backing.

Authorities should finally increase control over deployed units, even if they must do so with tact and caution given recurring discontent among troops. By concretely improving conditions on the front, the government could gain leverage to demand exemplary behaviour from its soldiers. International partners could help in this area. Thus, the UN compliance framework – of which the G5 Sahel Joint Force is part and which is struggling to obtain the authorisation of Burkina Faso’s authorities for its implementation – supports this effort to strengthen transparency and accountability among deployed units. With the help of partners, these internal control mechanisms, which for the moment only benefit Joint Force battalions, could be applied to all troops engaged in counter-insurgency operations. Training paralegals and supporting early warning mechanisms in local communities could also limit the risk of abuse by defence and security forces.

C. In the Medium Term: Redeploying the State and Regaining the Confidence of Populations

Although essential, the use of force cannot be the only response to the crisis facing the country. Beyond the counterproductive effects of certain military operations, the Burkinabè forces’ limited human and material resources mean that other solutions must be considered. The security response would be much more effective as part of a more comprehensive and integrated approach, including prevention, mitigation and stabilisation efforts. The use of force should, for example, give way to mediation when dealing with primarily land- or community-based conflicts. More specifically, in order to re-establish good relations with communities in areas where the central authority is disputed, the state will have to demonstrate its usefulness.

The possibility of a dialogue with jihadist groups should at least be considered in the medium term.

Multilateral and bilateral partners must follow and support the guidelines set by the state and not replace them.

The HACP’s limits should also be taken into account when creating a similar institution in Burkina Faso. The HACP is struggling to monitor the results of its actions on the ground. It bears the marks of its president’s personal positions; at times, he has irritated certain communities with his words or actions. To lead this body, Burkinabè authorities will have to choose the most inclusive and least divisive figure they can find, both at the community and political level.

D. In the Longer Term: Solving the Rural Crises
In the longer term, Burkina Faso must tackle the structural issues that facilitate jihadist recruitment, and more broadly the various forms of violence in rural areas.

The state should act as a legitimate mediator and peacefully arbitrate land disputes.

The governance of peripheral zones – and especially nomadic areas – should also include specific policies that respond to the concerns of local communities. The government would thus demonstrate that it considers the locals to be full citizens in their own right. For example, with regard to bilingual schooling, the French-Arabic bilingual primary education support project (Projet d’appui à l’enseignement primaire bilingue franco-arabe, PREFA), under way in several regions including the North, could serve as an educational model in these areas. PREFA schools, run by the Ministry of National Education and Literacy, have high enrolment rates and have thus far been spared by jihadist groups. Mobile court hearings, provided for in Burkinabè law but very rarely held, could be organised in the most isolated areas that lack courthouses, particularly in the Sahel region.

To strengthen the sense of belonging of nomadic populations and better protect them, the state could continue to distribute identity documents, as it has been doing since early 2019, to populations that tend to avoid public administration, which they often see as synonymous with predation. Finally, it should correct the extreme under-representation of Fulani nomads within the administration – both local and national – and in particular among Defence and Security Forces, for example through positive discrimination policies.

VII. Conclusion
The deterioration of the security situation in Burkina Faso is extremely worrying. While authorities are gradually losing their control over certain rural areas, jihadist-type insurgencies are spreading into them and could even, in the long term, turn the country into a corridor toward the coastal states to the south.

The counter-insurgency struggle too often fuels local community-based violence; with inadequate state supervision, the volunteers or local security forces that it intends to mobilise could further aggravate this violence. While Burkina Faso is at a turning point in its history, most of its leaders are preoccupied with short-term politics and in particular the 2020 elections.

Authorities are faced with a three-fold challenge: to pursue military efforts while limiting violence against civilians; to regain the trust of communities and redeploy the state in rural areas; and to adapt their responses to local contexts by combining prevention, crisis management and stabilisation measures. Reconciling short-, medium- and long-term actions and finding the right balance between the use of force and the protection of communities pose major challenges. To overcome them, authorities and international partners must rapidly adopt a new approach.

Dakar/Brussels, 24 February 2020

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