This was Captain Ibrahim Traore’s 2nd face-to-face meeting with reporters since taking office in September 2022.
“We don’t negotiate with terrorists. it is out of the question,” Captain Ibrahim Traore told reporters in an interview broadcast Thursday on national television.
He said the only option on the table is to fight them. “Not a single portion of the territory will be left,” the transitional president insisted.
He said the talks with the jihadist groups that allowed the 2020 elections to be held were “a humiliation for the army.”
“Some soldiers were ordered to stay in the barracks. This broke the trust between the people and the army because the soldiers did not go into contact with the enemy despite the calls for help,” Captain Traore added.
Thanks to the financial compensation they received, Ibrahim Traore explained, the jihadist groups were able to acquire advanced telecommunications equipment to communicate with each other.
For him, this is the reason why they destroyed the pillars of the cell phone networks.
“We have been taunted (…) this is what negotiating gives (…) we will fight,” Captain Traore said, reiterating his preference for the all-security approach, unlike his predecessor.
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, who led the January 2022 coup against Roch Marc Christian Kabore, had initiated negotiations with non-state armed groups. And according to the government at that time, this overture had led to the liberation of the Djibo-Ouagadougou road.
DS/ac/fss/APA