r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 23h ago

Biotechnology Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8
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u/mulligan 20h ago
  1. Military dictator is bad
  2. Hiring the Wagner group, also bad

But you make it seem like expelling French forces is also bad, why?

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u/LiechWaffle 20h ago

Because they asked help from France to get rid of the jihadists. But they couldn’t do it so Russian propaganda made people starting to believe the French were on the side of the terrorists and that’s how Wagner took their place. So yes bad

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u/jofra6 16h ago edited 16h ago

There is evidence* that Russia was clandestinely aiding said jihadist groups, in multiple West African countries that have had coups d'état, aiding governmental opposition that then conveniently took power and hired Wagner to "help" secure their countries.

  • See Popular Front episode "Investigating PMC Wagner's Mission in Africa".

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u/Nachooolo 20h ago edited 20h ago

More mixed. The French there were not as an occupation force, but to help the Burkina Faso goverment with the insurgency.

Of course, they were also there to impose French neo-colonial interest. But they were far better at fighting the jihadists than the Russians.

And the Russians aren't there pro bono either. So they replaced a neo-colonial power that was good at fighting the insurgency with another neo-colonial power that is bad at fighting the insurgency.

And, alongside this. This change happened because a coup changed a semi-democratic, corrupt government to a corrupt military dictatorship.*

*Edit: The coup that dissolved the goverment was done by Damiba. Traore did another coup months afterwards and replaced Damiba as the dictator.

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u/Moifaso 17h ago

Of course, they were also there to impose French neo-colonial interest.

In this case, the "neocolonial interest" was "we would like to not have ex colonies fall to jihadists and flood us with refugees"

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u/EconomicRegret 12h ago

No. France and its corporations have tons of economic/business interests and investments in Burkina Faso, in the Sahel, and West Africa in general, e.g. mining (gold, uranium, etc.), banking, agriculture,, industry, etc. And these terrorists are threatening their interests.

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u/Moifaso 11h ago edited 11h ago

Trade between BK and France is in the few hundreds of millions. That's a drop in the bucket. Like all the Sahel countries it's a desperately poor place with very few productive sectors. France doesn't even have that big a stake in the big industries - almost all foreign owned mining is British, Canadian, Australian, or Chinese owned.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/burkina-faso-completes-nationalisation-five-gold-mining-assets-2025-06-12/

Bottom line is that economic links do exist, but they're minor when compared to the cost of aid and a military intervention. BK and the other Sahel states are landlocked, very poor, and mostly trade with neighbors. Their value to France (and the value of their security) comes from cultural/diaspora connections, and from the significant number of French citizens live or have family there.

We're talking about countries with already very significant migrant/refugee flows to France. If a 2013 ISIS situation were to unfold in the Sahel, France would really feel it. That's the big concern, not the .3% of France's trade that passes through the region.

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u/Chucknastical 1h ago

is in the few hundreds of millions

I don't know squat about the area but just want to point out trade between France and its former colonies is not the point. It's who owns the capital.

Burkina Faso may trade with countries other than France but it's possible French nationals and interests ultimately control the capital behind those industries.

It all winds up in offshore accounts anyway so it's not like it would show up in France's GDP numbers. Doesn't mean a French billionaire isn't living off the countries resources.

Case in point, what Wagner and Putin are doing there now.

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u/EconomicRegret 11h ago

No. France and its corporations have tons of economic/business interests and investments in Burkina Faso, in the Sahel, and West Africa in general

If Burkina Faso fell in the hands of terrorists, also France's interest would be threatened, all over west Africa and in the Sahel.

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u/Moifaso 11h ago

If Burkina Faso fell in the hands of terrorists, also France's interest would be threatened, all over west Africa and in the Sahel.

You're just repeating yourself. I'm saying the region isn't particularly relevant to France in terms of trade volume or capital flows.

Certainly not enough to justify billions a year in military assistance and aid on purely economic grounds.

Again, these are some of the poorest countries in the world. They are resource rich but even those existing resource operations are small in scope - and again, mostly owned by other countries.

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u/EconomicRegret 10h ago

Sure, that's why France was all over it. Just out of the goodness of its heart. And that's why Russia stole it away. Because it too wants to give aid and military help for free and do good.

Do you also believe colonialism was all about saving indigenous people's souls through Jesus and prayer, and also about the civilizing mission to uplift the indigenous people? And that slavery was actually good for them?

LMAO.

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u/Moifaso 6h ago

This kind of false cynicism just needs to stop lol. It's not "out of the goodness of their hearts" just because it's not the most stereotypical colonial motivation you can imagine. A dude with "Economic" in his name ought to now that not everything is zero sum.

France has a vested interest in not being flooded with refugees, having jihadists abroad radicalize diaspora in France, and having citizens killed and oppressed abroad. It's generally in everyone's best interest to not have your neighborhood taken over by Al Qaeda.

Do you also believe colonialism was all about saving indigenous people's souls through Jesus and prayer, and also about the civilizing mission to uplift the indigenous people? And that slavery was actually good for them?

Like I said, you're just following stereotypes here instead of practicing any sort of critical thought.

Try to substantiate your claims beyond saying "economic connections exist" and "colonialism happened and it was bad". I can easily show you proof that Wagner was getting paid directly with cash and with mines and mineral rights for their Sahel operations. With France the money was quite clearly flowing the other way.

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u/FIuffyAlpaca 59m ago

Lol someone drank the Russian propaganda

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u/TransBrandi 18h ago

So it's basically a Far Cry 4 type situation. (Everyone sucks, just some suck a bit less than others)

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u/dionysus2523 17h ago

No, an imperfect situation was made measurably and demonstrably worse.

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u/TransBrandi 14h ago

I mean, that sort of is the point of Far Cry 4? The dictator at the beginning is probably the lesser of the other evils.

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u/Swahhillie 13h ago

Didn't play fc4 but I don't think France is a good match to the dictator in that. France wasn't the lesser evil there. That's the BF government itself.

Troare swapped competent, enlightened self interest for incompetent, myopic greed. Why? Because populism is playing politics on easy mode.

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u/MrAngryBeards 20h ago

Obviously African countries are too late to claim any form of sovereignty /s

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u/Schiano_Fingerbanger 17h ago

Replacing French troops with Wagner mercs is not a gain in Burkinabé sovereignty 🤦‍♂️

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u/Fireproofspider 14h ago

By definition it is. Mercenaries are paid by the burkinabé government. French troops weren't

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u/MrAngryBeards 15h ago

I get your point and I'm not gonna go defending some paramilitary entity, but it's obvious to me that getting rid of western influence is of great importance to Traoré. Meaning, while they can't count on their own forces, gambling on a new ally seems reasonable and not at all a defeatist/sellout move. Nothing is black and white, and trying to reclaim a country that has been abused for so long will likely involve some questionable decisions. In this case, the questionable trade-off I'd argue definitely results in a net positive in terms of sovereignty.

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u/TomDRV 20h ago

I don't know much about it but It's probably because whatever the geopolitical and realpolitik motivations they have to be there (may not be altruistic), they are at the end of the day a professional army attempting to protect locals and kill terrorists.

The wagner group is most definitely not. I think they're more concerned with defending resource mines in return for favourable export deals for russia to due the resources.

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u/Hour-Anteater9223 20h ago

You should watch the CGP grey YouTube video rules for rulers

I think it will be helpful in understanding how authoritarians who do not have democratic systems must still provide value to their constituents “keys to power”.

TLDR when a dictator is “replaced”, the new dictator has to allocated the state capture to benefit their keys to power (ie wagner, or other military backers) in a manner that justifies those backers leaving the previous dictator.

Unless it’s a scenario where a commodity can be extracted at a more intense level, like RSF and Al-mehti’s gold mines, the size of the wealth dictatorships can siphon off these developing nations rarely grows faster than the need to reallocate state capture to their supports who are more important than random citizens, hence frequent coups and non responsive government to the constituents.

If you throw out the French who are obviously flawed(central currency control etc, but once again we could argue that’s to prevent access to resources like that state capture we previously described, CERTAINLY at minimum paternalistic…)

Yet Burkina Faso will still need for such a role to fight the Islamic rebels trying to overthrow the country. It’s very likely the “cost” of that support presently provided by Wagner has been 1. Less successful 2. More expensive 3. But the French are gone. So to some, worth it if every aspect of their life is measurably worse, which should leave any sane person thinking was it actually worth? But Im not going to speak for the average Burkina Faso person, but neither is a dictator such as Torare

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u/blacmagick 20h ago

Because colonialism is good and developing countries shouldn't have national sovereignty, obviously.

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u/AccomplishedFail2247 20h ago

So they invited the fucking Wagner group in?

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u/blacmagick 20h ago

Yes, inviting a foreign group or country in by choice = national sovereignty.

A foreign country refusing to leave, maintains control over your currency, influencing your country's policies and politicians =/= national sovereignty.

This isn't hard.

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u/Single_Quail_4585 20h ago

The french were invited by the previous government though...

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u/boozewald 20h ago

You should look up Thomas Sankara.

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u/blacmagick 20h ago edited 20h ago

"Invited" is a strange way to say "invaded", and "previous government" is a funny way to reference people who lived in 1896.

People really need to learn their history before they decide to regurgitate false information online. And the worst part is this is SO FUCKING EASY TO VERIFY. Am I losing my mind, or are people actually this fucking stupid.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 18h ago

Am I losing my mind, or are people actually this fucking stupid.

Yes

They saw Wagner group and just assume anything related to Russia must be the bad guys. Completely unaware what France has been doing in Africa in the modern day.

It's barely known in America how evil France is in Africa, much less American actions there too. I've yet to meet a single person who knows that we have been at war in 5+African countries since the 00s.

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u/meneldal2 15h ago

In recent years France hasn't been showing up to Africa uninvited and when asked to leave they do.

I don't think you can trust Russians to leave if you ask them to.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 15h ago

No they're just economically screwing over all of their old colonial countries still to this day.

Imagine being so uninformed you think France is a good guy in Africa.

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u/meneldal2 14h ago

But I'm not talking about the economy I'm talking about military presence.

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u/conquer69 12h ago

nd just assume anything related to Russia must be the bad guys.

That is the correct assumption all the time. Russia is a fascist state and Wagner is composed of literal nazis.

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u/Nachooolo 20h ago edited 20h ago

Do you think that a military dictatorship backed by Russia has national sovereignty?

This is like saying that Franco's Autarky was Spain having national sovereignty...

The French were (and still are) neo-colonial. BUt it is downright absurd to think that Traore is the defender of Burkina Faso independence.

He's just another dictator selling his country to a foreign power.

It's just that now that power is Russia. And that Russia is doing a horrible job at keeping the jihadists at bay.

This is not a binary conflict. France and Traore can be bad at the same time.

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u/blacmagick 20h ago

How is he bad exactly? Can you give some concrete reasons? Poeple seem to see that he's taken help from Russia and think that simply by association, that makes him bad. When the reality is far more that the West has done nothing to help them gain independence from France, so who else are they going to turn to? People would have complained just as much if they'd gotten help from China, which realistically would be the only other option.

He's brought in machinery so that his people can have the means to work, has redistributed previously foreign privately owned land to his people, and nationalized industries, like gold, that were producing massive profits for foreign private companies.

I can't see how anyone would think these things are bad unless you think developing countries should exist only as a means for the West to get rich.

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u/Nachooolo 19h ago edited 19h ago

Well. For starters. The jihadist insurgency has intensified since the Fernch left and now 40% of the territory is under jihadist control.

That alone paints the man in a horrible light. But, for some reason, you seem to ignore that.

Besides that. Burkina Faso has sold the gold mining rights to Russia this same year. This is a very common neo-colonial tactic by Russia and Wagner, owning other gold mines throughout Africa as a way to fund the Russian state and military since the sacntions caused by their invasion of Ukraine.

This gold mining doens't only lead to the economic explotation of Africa, but also violence itself. Wagner owning gold mines in Sudan is one of the reasons why the Sudanese Civil War erupted, as Wagner and the RSF had some deep links.

I can't see how anyone would think these things are bad unless you think developing countries should exist only as a means for the West to get rich.

You seem to be the one who thinks that Burkina Faso is going to be exploited no matter what. As you yourself think that the only other option besides being exploited by Russia is to either be exploited by France or by China (while also ignoring that China would probably still be a better option than Russia, seeing that Russia also comes alongside the brutalisation of the local population by Wagner/Africa Corps).

You are not anti-colonial. You're doing apologia for the neo-colonial exploitation of Burkina Faso by Russia. All because Russia isn't "the West."

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u/UrToesRDelicious 19h ago

What's frustrating is that I'm very anti-imperialist, but I have guys like this on my side.

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u/blacmagick 18h ago edited 18h ago

If you think Traore is bad, we're not on the same side, and you're not anti-imperialist. His government was literally formed on anti-imperialism and people in this comment section are basically saying "no, not like that".

Anti-imperialist movements are rarely perfect. Concessions need to be made because the West will sanction these countries into the dirt. If you only support actual anti-imperialist movements if they're done the "right way," then you wouldn't support the vast majority of them throughout history.

"I support anti-imperialism, but only if it's done the right way."

"I support women's rights, but they're too aggressive with their advocacy."

I support he civil rights movement, but their protests are too disruptive."

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u/UrToesRDelicious 16h ago

"I support anti-imperialism, but only if it's done the right way."

Correct, because causing measurably more harm to your people under the banner of anti-imperialism is the very logic that fascists use, just under a different banner.

You can't ignore the material conditions of people today for some idealized version of the future. I will not join hands with harmful dictators, and sum the harm they cause up as anti-imperialist imperfections all because we share part of an ideology.

Fuck your purity test.

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u/blacmagick 11h ago

"Fuck your purity test" says the guy stating he won't support anti imperialism if it's not being done the right way.

Also, "Immeasurable harm" is hilarious. The actual people in Burkina Faso dont see it that way. He has broad support across Africa for a reason.

Fuck your "I'm an anti-imperialist" bullshit while opposing actual anti-imperialism where the people who live there support it. Unless you somehow think you have a better idea of what best for the people of Burkina Faso over the people actually living there.

"I'm an anti-imperialist, but I'd preferred if Burkina Faso had stayed a French colony". Fuck outta here.

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u/blacmagick 19h ago

Striking a deal with a foreign country to export your national resources is incredibly different from a foreign country essentially owning your resources as a result of a direct invasion and over a century of colonisation. The two aren't even comparable. Unless you're arguing that Russia being voluntarily granted the rights to these mines is as bad as France having taken them by force and refusing to relinquish them.

It's the difference between inviting someone into your house and them breaking in. Your only concern seems to be that someone is in the house, not how they got in.

Striking a deal with a foreign country is not always imperialism. It may turn out that way and it may not. This isn't to say I like the Wagner deal, but let's not pretend like voluntarily selling resources is as bad as being occupied.