Interim President of Burkina Faso Capt. Ibrahim Traoré gave a powerful anti-imperialist speech at the summit meeting with the leaders of Mali and Niger, where the three signed an agreement to create the Confederation of Sahel States on July 6. Traoré said Africa has suffered for too long under the rule of the imperialists, who “have only one cliché in mind: ‘Africa is the empire of slaves.’” He added that “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.” These imperialists have ruled the Sahel countries through what he called the “Slaves of the Salon,” who wanted “to live like the master, 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…. We have asked this master to leave the place. Why don’t they want to leave?”
He then accused the imperialists of sending agents into the Sahel “to carry out barbaric cowardly attacks against our people” hoping they would revolt against the government. “We will no longer allow this. People are awake and people are fighting today, not for ourselves but for future generations.”