Burkina Faso's junta has made it crystal clear — democracy is off the table, and the people have no say in the matter. Captain Ibrahim Traore dissolved political parties, silenced dissent and extended his own rule by five years, breaking every promise made after the 2022 coup. This is authoritarian consolidation dressed up as pragmatism, and the world should call it exactly that.
Traore's junta isn't just killing democracy — it's killing civilians at twice the rate of the jihadists it claims to be fighting. Human Rights Watch documented over 1,200 civilian deaths attributed to government forces, including ethnic cleansing of Fulani communities that amounts to war crimes. A regime this brutal has zero moral standing to lecture anyone about what governance is "for" them.
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