THE military junta that seized power in Burkina Faso less than two years ago announced a law Wednesday criminalizing homosexuality.
“Henceforth homosexuality and associated practices will be punished by the law,” Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayalawas quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
It makes the West African nation the latest of the continent’s 54 countries to follow a trend in banning same-sex relations. There are now only 21 African nations that do not explicitly prohibit same-sex relations. Uganda imposed the continent’s most severe laws in May.
Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, came out as a lesbian in a post on her Instagram account last week, posting a photo of her kissing her girlfriend and saying: “I’m crazy about you and want the world to know.”
“There are plenty of people in the same situation as me who suffer because of who they are,” she said.
“If I can give them hope, help them feel less alone, if I can send love, I’m happy.”
Her father has been president of Cameroon since 1982 and has not changed the country’s anti-LGBTQ laws, which have been in place since before he was sworn in.
Brenda Biya told the French newspaper Le Parisien her parents were unaware of her sexuality and that she made the post without their knowledge, adding they had since asked her to delete it. She does not live in the country.
Disinformation in Africa’s coup belt
General Michael Langley, Commander of the U.S. Military’s Africa Command, voiced concern in a phone briefing with journalists at the end of June about the rapid slide of West Africa, a volatile region plagued by security and misinformation challenges, away from democratic values.
“There’s a strong link between the scope of disinformation and instability,” Langley said.
“Getting the truth out there to counter disinformation is essential… Disinformation campaigns have directly driven deadly violence, promoted and validated military coups, and also cowed civil society members into silence.”
The volatility Langley was referring to has been apparent across what’s become known as Africa’s coup belt.
First, there was Mali, where a military coup toppled the government in August 2021. Then Burkina Faso fell to military rulers in a September 2022 coup. Niger’s government was overthrown by generals in July 2023.
Common history, and a new alliance
The three countries have a considerable amount in common.
They are still governed by military coup leaders. None has held elections since the uprisings. All three share common borders, a common French colonial history — and rising anti-Western sentiment, both in their leadership and their populations.
The three nations also face the same threats of violent extremism: Armed groups including ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates have been fighting to gain territory in recent years in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
Perhaps from these commonalities, an alliance was born: The Alliance of Sahel States was formed in September 2024 in the wake of these three countries asserting their independence from former colonial ruler France.
They all left the regional ECOWAS bloc of nations and, in September, they signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter, the first of a few agreements that amount to a new defense pact between them.
The three coup leaders declared their new partnership a tool to form alliances with other countries that have not yet “exploited” their own resources. Some took that as a nod, if not an invitation, to nations such as Russia and Iran, where anti-Western sentiment has also been stoked by leaders for years. — CBSNews