Ibrahim Traore's speech to the UN
My name is Captain Ibrahim Traore, President of Burkina Faso. Today I speak not only on behalf of the 22 million souls in my country, but also on behalf of a continent whose stories have been distorted, whose pain has been ignored and whose dignity has been repeatedly sold on the altar of foreign interests.
Africa is not a beggar. Africa is not a battlefield. Africa is not your guinea pig, your puppet, your warehouse of raw materials. Africa does not rise to kneel, but to stand on its feet. Even today, in front of this great assembly of nations, I say: Africa will not kneel.
About the false generosity of global politics
For decades, you have sent us aid with one hand, while extracting our life-blood with the other. You build wells in our villages, while your corporations drained our rivers. You donated vaccines, but you patented cure medicines. You talk about climate action, yet you continued to fund those who burn our forests and drain our lakes.
What kind of generosity is that? The one that feeds the mouth but silences the voice. The kind that keeps a person alive long enough to keep him dependent. We are not blind to this hypocrisy. Let me be clear - we are not ungrateful for sincere humanitarian aid, but we reject a world order that disguises exploitation as partnership. We reject financial institutions that lend with one hand and take sovereignty with the other.
Africa no longer wants mercy - we want justice. We want control over our own destiny.
About colonial chains and their modern descendants.
Our wounds did not begin with us. They were inherited legacy of an imperial building madness that saw us not as human beings, but as cheap cargo, as labor. My ancestors were not consulted when maps were drawn with rulers and compasses in Berlin. The borders of Burkina Faso, like many African countries, were not carved by our ancestors, but by people who never set foot on our soil, who knew nothing about our languages, our tribes or our spirits.
Today, colonialism has a new face - it wears suits, organizes forums, signs treaties in Geneva, Paris and Washington. But it still takes without consent, It still dictates instead of dialogue, still remains silent instead of listening. If you want to talk about peace, let's start by unlearning the arrogance of the idea that only you can teach peace.
On the exploitation of resources and the myth of development
They call us "developing countries" - as if centuries of theft did not set us back, as if gold from our lands, diamonds from our rivers, oil under our feet, did not build the skyscrapers in which this assembly now sits.
Let's be clear: Burkina Faso is rich. Africa is rich - in minerals, culture, wisdom and youth. But you have taught us to measure wealth by GDP and exports. You call it development when a foreign company owns 90% of the gold mines in our land. You call it progress when your security forces guard the cobalt mines but not the schools for our children. That's not progress - this is piracy with legal documents.
From now on, we will define development in our own words - development that puts children in classrooms, not minerals on cargo ships. Development that respects the land, the people and the soul of the nation.
On sovereignty and interference
Why is it that when an African nation makes independent choices we are called unstable ?
why is it that when we seek military cooperation outside the colonial sphere we are labeled as a threat?
Burkina Faso has decided to take the path of sovereignty that is not a threat to peace It is a declaration of adulthood. We are no longer under your guardianship. We are no longer your junior partners in diplomacy We are a free people.
If a nation chooses partners that respect it rather than exploit it, that is not rebellion, that is wisdom
Let it be known no foreign power will dictate the alliances of Burkina Faso. We will build relations based on mutual respect not historical guilt or present day intimidations, fight on terrorism and manufactured wars.
You ask why there is violence in the Sahel. You ask why our youth take up arms. But you do not ask who benefits when our minds are guarded by private mercenaries while our villages are left vulnerable.
You do not ask how weapons arrive in deserts that produce no steel You do not ask why peacekeeping never seems to end the war.
The truth is many of the so-called solutions to African security problems are merely business models. Endless conflict has become a market and African suffering has become a subscription-based service.
Burkina Faso has decided to break that cycle We will fight terror but not with dependency. We will secure our nation not with foreign dictates but with national dignity.
On migration and human dignity
We do not want our youth drowning in the Mediterranean. We do not want our brightest minds fleeing to countries that once called us savages. We do not want remittances. We want reasons for our
people to stay. Why do our youth flee?, not because we lack duty but because we are made to lack opportunity. Not because we hate our land but because our land is treated as someone else's property.
Migration is not a crisis. It is a symptom; Of wars we did not start, Of loans we did not need, Of a world order that tells our youth their only value lies outside their own homes. The solution is not border fences. The solution is justice for saving on Africa's place in the world. Africa is not a mistake to be fixed. Africa is not a failed continent . Africa is the womb of the world, the cradle of civilization the keeper of tomorrow's hope.
We have been made invisible in global decisions that affect us deeply. At the UN Security Council Africa with 54 sovereign nations has no permanent seat. What justice is this ? you call this balance? we call it betrayal. You speak of democracy yet uphold a global structure where the powerful few veto the dreams of the many. We will no longer whisper in rooms where we deserve to speak with full voice aid on faith and spiritual dignity.
We are a spiritual people. Before your cathedrals, our ancestors sang to the sky. Before your missionaries, we knew the language of the rivers and the laws of the sacred forest. Christianity came, Islam came, and we received them not as slaves but as seekers. But now we ask will the church and the mosque stand with us, truly with us when all people are displaced by greed, mosque as globalization? will your pulpit echo our cries or only repeat the songs of the powerful faith too must be decolonized. They must walk with the poor not the privileged.
On unity among African nations
This is not a speech from one country. This is the stirring of a continent. You see Mali Niger and Burkina Faso forming a new bond. You fear our unity whilst , because it threatens the myth that Africa can only rise under your supervision
We are uniting not to wage war but to wage dignity to pool our courage, to share strength to protect each other when the world turns its back.
Pan-Africanism is not a dream. It is our lifeline and we will build it stone by stone heart by heart with or without your approval. Tend to the youth of Africa , To the young boy selling oranges by the roadside, To the girl who walks 10 kilometers to attend school, To the child whose only choice is a stone but who dreams of stars. You are the reason we fight. Do not believe the lie that your continent is cursed. You are the blessing. Do not envy foreign passports. Be proud of your name, your land, your roots. The world may not applaud you now but the future will speak your name and honor.
We will not kneel. I do not come to declare war. I come to declare
will. So we will not kneel to fear. We will not kneel to foreign banks. We will not kneel to outdated empires masquerading as friends. Africa is not asking for a seat at your table. We are building our own a table where no child eats last. Where no nation is silenced because it lacks nuclear arms, where justice is not filtered through the lens of race or history but breath is shared.
This is our vision and this is our vow .
Let the world hear it today and always.
Africa will not kneel
Thank you
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