We Reject Human Rights Watch Bias And Libellous Report Against Burkina Faso

The dawn of the Sahel Revolution has led to remarkable advances in defeating terrorism, poverty alleviation, regional integration and unity, and a reassertion of sovereignty and true independence. France and the United States and their allies have been antagonistic toward the Sahel Revolution, and have concurrently pursued a covert foreign policy, aimed at destabilising the Sahel States of Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger, and murdering their leaders, as they did to past progressive leaders across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean nations.

So why has international instruments like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other Organisations and the corporate media so desperately wanting to interpret the foreign policies of France and US, toward Africa? This affinity for imperialist and neo-colonial-driven agendas are not limited to the Sahel or Africa. Human Rights Watch behaves like any organic intellectual in the imperialist hegemony, fiddling around the edges and adjusting details. It plays approximately the same game as the European-based Cultic Empire.

It is not the policy of the New African Charter International (NACI) to argue that Human Rights Watch is not among the recognized non-governmental organizations in the forefront of the global advocacy for promotion of human rights. But despite its claims to be an advocate of international human rights law, Human Rights Watch ill-intended mistakes and biased judgement and methodology applied on African issues are too numerous and too serious to ignore.

More precisely, Human Rights Watch repeatedly focuses on vilifying the leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger, while ignoring rapid development in the social and economic sectors that is taking place in those progressive African countries. The US-based NGO has also ignored the fact that the ongoing terrorism war was imposed on the Sahel region by those foreign powers that initiated and spearheaded the genocide campaign in Libya, notably NATO members-states led by France, the US and Britain. As a result, it routinely judges the African continent in a manner that promotes colonial and imperialist-driven agendas, and discredits governments seeking sovereignty and total independence from foreign manipulative mechanism. It is this bias that lies at the root of the spurious attacks on the progressive and visionary governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger, by Human Rights Watch.

On 12th May, 2025 Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report publication titled: “Burkina Faso: Army Directs Ethnic Massacres.” The US-based NGO assumed that the Burkinabe military coordinated the massacres of more than 130 civilians, most of whom were Fulani speaking people living in the west of Burkina Faso. Mass killings of civilians by government security forces, militias, and Islamist armed groups amount to war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes, Human Rights Watch stated in the report.

The sad part of the report is that, no Human Rights Watch official or representative was present in where the said crime was assumed to be committed. No gainsaying the fact that recently, there were terrorist attacks on security bases in northern Burkina Faso, killing a large number of soldiers, and another in the south of the country that led to the massacre of civilians. Other military bases have been targeted as well, including also police and market places in the Sahel nation. The Djibo military base has suffered serious attacks by terrorist forces under the Al-Qaeda and its affiliate outfits. Many soldiers and civilians as well have been killed, and wounded in that security base.

Day-in-and-day-out terrorist forces are unleashing mayhem and heinous attacks in the Sahel region. There are attacks recorded in the South of Burkina Faso, killing scores of security men and women, and civilians in Bousgou, Salemboare and Yonde villages near the borders with the Republic of Togo. While these attacks are being clinically executed, there have been arrests of foreign mercenaries of European nationalities hired to advance the genocide campaign in the Sahel region. Recently in Nigeria, a British mercenary soldier was arrested and investigated for arms trafficking to West Africa.

These are facts, which the Human Rights Watch cannot dispute, but instead sit in well-dressed air-conditioned board rooms in New York and rely on hearsay to gather information, which it uses to spoon-feed the international community, as the truth and reality in the Sahel region.

The title of the May 12, 2025 report and its contents assert that the alleged massacre of Fulani people in Burkina Faso took place in March of this year, and was directed by the Burkinabe military. The fact is that the HRW and other western NGOs, and the corporate media are hell-bent on an intensive campaigned designed to promote international capitalist system in the Sahel region. As detailed in this latest report, the publication is fundamentally flawed, using lies, distortions, omissions, and egregious double standards to construct a fraudulent and libellous narrative of Burkinabe military attacks on the Fulani civilian population. The report adds Human Rights Watch’s obsessive campaign to single out the progressive governments of the Sahel region for destruction.

Having stated the above, the New African Charter International takes a very strong exception to the biased, baseless, misleading, racist and hate-filled human rights report on Burkina Faso, which has been disseminated worldwide by US-based Human Rights Watch. The report should be seen here as nothing but selective, colonial and imperialist-driven, ill-intentioned and reminiscent of the game played in Libya, to kill Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, to destroy Libya, to unleash genocide wounds and loot natural resources and wealth of the North African nation. The question now is what really the intent in bringing out such a tendentious report that seeks to build a false narrative against Burkina Faso and other nations of the Sahel?

Since the dawn of the African revolution in the Sahel region, under the wise and visionary leadership of Presidents Asimi Goita (Mali), Ibrahim Traore (Burkina Faso) and Abdourahamane Tchiani (Republic of Niger), the corporate NGOs and media have gone wild to promote anti-African agenda, to incite ethnic violence and possible foreign military intervention in the region. The three Sahel leaders have been selected for red-tagging and target for online harassment and vilification. In Burkina Faso in particular, the issue is now assassination bid on the life of President Ibrahim Traore.

NACI agrees that the ongoing terrorist war in the Sahel or in any parts of the world should be a major concern, we are disappointed that the US-based NGO has failed to mention in all of its reports on the Sahel about the root causes of the ongoing terrorism in the region. The truth is that, violence between farmers and herders has a long history in West Africa. For Human Rights Watch to assume that the Burkinabe military is coordinating an ethnic genocide against Fulani civilians is fundamentally flaw, fallacious and violates Burkina Faso’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is a sham and figment of imagination.

Human Rights Watch should understand that, Africans can no longer afford to witness another genocide on the continent. The 1994 Rwandan ethnic genocide is now history, and we do not want a repetition of such despicable act in any parts of Africa. We believe terrorism is the most egregious violation of human rights, and yet the authors of the Human Rights Watch’s report have deliberately decided to bypass the fact that NATO members-states and their allies initiated and are behind the ongoing terrorist war in the Sahel region.

The report clearly reflected the view of France’s former Economy Minister, Hon Thierry Breton, who once said: 'It was Emmanuel Macron’s stupidity that opened the eyes of Africans. One thing is certain if France loses its colonies our children and grandchildren will go to Africa in search of their livelihoods. Immigration will change direction. Macron needs to go or France will suffer. Europe need to unite to fight this new African vision Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries will follow suit. If one of the puschists’ heads falls, the others will abandon the vision. Africa has no history therefore, cannot run the world.’ One only needs to take a look at the comments above to illustrate the ludicrousness of the Human Rights Watch’s report.

The timing of the report puts the credibility of Human Rights Watch at its lowest ebb. We warn the HRW against attempt to dabble into the politics of the Sahel region, and refrain from setting a dangerous precedent in the work of international NGOs across Africa. Despite this report, we would like to assure the international community that no set-up conspiracy theory can distract the Sahel leaders from their responsibility of protecting and defending sovereignty and territorial integrity of the three countries that made up of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which includes Mali, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger. Not even the aggressive rhetoric of France’s former Economy Minister, Thierry Breton can distract the resolved of the Sahel leaders, to bail their region out of the mess left behind by colonial France and its puppets in the region.

Much as the New African Charter International is concerned, the report peddled around by Human Rights Watch does not reflect the actual situation in the Sahel region. It only succeeded in projecting the current situation in a gloomy and negative light with a political intent to justify US and France overt and covert attacks and plots to destabilize Burkina Faso and by extension, to assassinate President Ibrahim Traore.

We want to make it crystal clear that the Human Rights Watch deliberately dodged in its report the commitment of the Government of President Ibrahim Traore, to ensure law and order in areas of Burkina Faso held by Al-Qaeda terrorist outfit and its affiliates. Burkina Faso and the other Sahel nations, Mali and the Republic of Niger are committed to ensuring the fulfilment of their international obligations, and they need no one to inform or remind them of their human rights obligations in their countries. Since the Human Rights Watch believes it operates in more than 100 countries, it should now redirect its mission on peace, development, sovereignty and dignity of Africa, and to refocus on providing support to the Sahel nations in building institutions to protect human rights in the region. It should devote itself to monitoring human rights violations and environmental degradation by some European states against the people of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and Asia regions.

We conclude by demanding the Human Rights Watch, to make a clear and unqualified apology and retraction for its missteps and biased report. We warn the US-based NGO against dispensing allegations without proof; rather than attacking the Burkinabe army for its successes in the frontlines against terrorism actions, we urge the Human Rights Watch to display sincere commitment to fair, ethical and competent reporting about Africa.

God save Africa!

Signed:
Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh
Co-founder and President
The New African Charter International (NACI) and the Sahel Solidarity Campaign Network
(Sas-CaN)

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