With the appointment of Zéphrin Diabré to the post of Minister in charge of National Reconciliation and Social Cohesion, the government wants to forget the conflicts.
Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, re-elected president of Burkina Faso in November 2020, has pledged to make the national reconciliation project the priority of his mandate in a country plagued by conflict. Burkina Faso, plagued since 2015 by a proliferation of armed groups and jihadist movements, which led to an escalation of violence in 2019, hopes to draw a line on its past. But the site is gigantic. THEhe state of insecurity has caused the massive displacement of populations from the rural world to the cities and dragged the country into an unprecedented spiral of violence.
With the rise of self-defense militias and armed groups, Burkina Faso has entered a wave of violence that is difficult to curb. So, how to reconcile the population? PFor President Kaboré, this national reconciliation will require the appointment of a minister in charge of setting up a process of reconciliation.
The president set the course, saying that “national reconciliation cannot do without blood crimes, economic and political crimes”. For the minister in charge of the question, it is a question of "preparing regional consultations to listen to the actors, their complaints and their resentments, and to imagine solutions which can be put in place locally". Then, it will be necessary "to organize a national forum, with all the social forces". A process that is debated in Burkina, where people want to honor the victims without forgiving.
The regime in place wants to turn the page. The victims of the 2014 uprising and the 2015 coup d'état are demanding justice. For them, the truth cannot be sacrificed on the altar of reconciliation and forgiveness. Against a backdrop of community crisis, customary figures emerge, trying to play reconciliators.
This is the case of Jean-Pierre Ligdi Kaboré, alias Wemba Ligdi, Mossi customary chief of the working-class district of Wemtenga in Ouagadougou, and former chef, whose mission is to settle personal, intra or inter-community conflicts. Very solicited, with a voice that carries, he listens and finds an amicable settlement. This tradition of mediation brings local communities into dialogue, and could ultimately be more effective for a peaceful settlement of the Burkinabè conflict, than the appointment of a minister who is supposed to settle everything.