Africa is rising, the days of colonialism are finished: This is the call being echoed around the world, from the masses of Burkina Faso and countries across Africa to Jamaica, Haiti and the whole Caribbean, to Paris, London and New York City. Millions of people have answered the call to defend Ibrahim Traoré, president of Burkina Faso, as well as the anti-imperialist governments of Mali and Niger — the three countries that make up the Alliance of Sahel States.

The mass mobilizations were reactions to Marine Gen. Michael Langley’s disparaging remarks. Langley, who commands the U.S. empire’s military wing operating in Africa — AFRICOM — slandered Traoré by accusing him of misusing Burkina Faso’s gold reserves by spending it on personal security instead of spending it to uplift the people of Burkina Faso. 

This statement’s irony caught the attention of the African diaspora. Traoré’s popularity stems from Traoré’s perseverance to uplift not only the people of his country but also African people as a whole. As much as nearly any leader on the planet, Traoré has shown that it is U.S. and French imperialism that have kept Burkina Faso in poverty.

And these same forces demonize President Traoré for clearing a new path forward. It is also ironic to criticize Traoré’s need for personal security when U.S. and French imperialists have placed a target on his back. They have facilitated multiple coup and assassination attempts since he became president.

Recent gains in Burkina Faso

Traoré’s presidency in many ways follows in the footsteps of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary Pan-Africanist and Marxist leader of Burkina Faso who was assassinated as part of a pro-imperialist coup in 1987. Like Sankara’s government, Traoré’s administration has made huge leaps of progress in health care, education, infrastructure and economic restructuring. This progress has allowed the people of Burkina Faso to begin reaping the benefits of their own resources, rather than being an extraction point for U.S. and European corporations.

Under Traoré, Burkina Faso has moved to nationalize its gold mines, previously held by London-based companies. His government also expelled French troops from the country in 2023. He has criticized France for protecting and facilitating terrorist groups in order to destabilize African countries, as well as installing puppet regimes loyal to French colonialism.

In March of 2025, President Traoré announced a five-year plan to construct at least 55 modern communal hospitals. Just this year alone, the government will begin construction on 20 medical centers, two hemodialysis units, five resuscitation units and a heart institute. At the end of 2024, Traoré announced the opening of the country’s first locally funded factory, which is a tomato processing plant. 

These advances are major steps towards Burkina Faso developing its own economic sovereignty and breaking the chains of colonial dependency on foreign investment.

Traoré, alongside Malian President Assimi Goïta and President of Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani, heads the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), an anti-colonial alliance that has moved to reclaim the member nations from colonialism. AES opposes ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States], a bloc of African countries whose governments are still subservient to U.S. and West European imperialist powers. 

In 2023, ECOWAS, under the Nigerian government’s leadership, threatened a military invasion of Niger. The invasion’s goal was to remove Niger’s anti-imperialist leaders and replace them with another comprador state. French and U.S. imperialism requested Nigeria’s action.

African countries both within and outside of the Sahel lined up in support of the new government in Niger, while the people of Niger opposed the invasion. This thwarted the invasion plan.

National self-sufficiency

Traoré’s bold economic policies oriented around national self-sufficiency, combined with revolutionary condemnations of the worldwide imperialist capitalist system, have made him a hero to African people and oppressed people around the world. So has his organizing a bloc of countries to regionally oppose colonialism. These acts have also made him the number one enemy of the imperialist ruling class.

Traoré walks in the footsteps of leaders of our class like Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrummah and Che Guevara. The people of Burkina Faso have declared: “We will never let you do to Ibrahim Traoré what you have done to Thomas Sankara! It will never ever happen again!”

It is up to anti-imperialists around the world to see that the Burkinese people are not alone in defending the sovereignty of their country. For the Pan-African movement as well as the multinational working class, for all oppressed people fighting against colonialism, the front lines of the global class war have opened in Africa, in West Asia and in Palestine. We must answer the call for solidarity.

Hands off Ibrahim Traoré! 

Hands off Africa! 

Abolish AFRICOM!