Introduction
This article examines self-defense movements in Burkina Faso, particularly with regard to the interplay of political pragmatics and cultural representation in public debate. In these movements, leadership is very much concerned with performing tradition and, by extension, representing the popular and the grassroots, while at the same time being in the midst of political processes, party politics, and the Burkinabe state. In particular, these two different self-defense movements—the dozos and the koglweogos—articulate tradition and politics with respect to locally organized self-defense.
Self-defense movements in West Africa and elsewhere have grown since the 1990s, often in collusion either with democratization processes, which have transformed previous authoritarian regimes into democratically-elected governments, or with political conflict, which has sometimes led to violence and war. This growth is to a large extent related to political and economic liberalizations, which have caused a void left by the withdrawal of state authority. The fundamental question that self-defense movements address is how to strengthen security and safety in local communities when the state fails to do so. In many West African countries, theft, banditry, rebellion, terrorism, and violence all pose major challenges to citizens in local communities. In the perceived absence of the state—or at least due to the failure of the state to provide security and safety to its citizens—local defense groups have emerged. Research on self-defense groups and vigilante movements in West Africa (e.g., Förster Reference Förster2013; Hagberg Reference Hagberg2004a, Reference Hagberg2006; Hagberg & Ouattara Reference Hagberg2010; Hellweg Reference Heitz-Tokpa2004, Reference Hellweg2011; Kirsch & Grätz Reference Kedzierska-Manzon2010; Leach 2004; Muana 1997; Pratten 2006, Reference Ouattara2008; Richards Reference Pratten1996) has shown that such movements tend to draw their legitimacy from local tradition and culture, in skillful combination with regional and national politics and the postcolonial state. This comparative study of self-defense movements in Burkina Faso highlights an important dimension of political rivalry and antagonism between the movements under study: the dozos and the koglweogos.
Leaders of these movements discursively seek to distance themselves from the dirt of politics, so as to emerge as culturally and morally uncorrupted. Yet while they portray themselves as apolitical, positioning themselves outside of party politics, such portrayals coexist with their entanglement in national political processes. Some leaders directly support party politics, most often the party in power. Until October 2014, most leaders supported Blaise Compaoré’s Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (CDP). However, since late 2015, many at least tacitly pay allegiance to Roch Marc Christian Kaboré’s Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP). Others rely more indirectly on political big men who support the self-defense movements financially, materially, and morally. To emerge as leaders of self-defense movements, support from big men well-placed in the Burkinabe state seems to be necessary. Moreover, to promote their respective movements’ goals, they are “performing tradition”—initiation rituals, traditional clothing, moral values, customary chieftaincy, etc.—while “doing politics”—asserting authority, advancing political goals, debating in public space, accessing media, and so forth. Performing tradition while doing politics represents ways of grounding socio-political and security concerns in local society and culture. Security is particularly interesting in this respect, because security is at the same time performed to show off in public, while also hidden and secret to be efficient and bring results. The central argument developed throughout is that the alleged “community values” and “traditional legitimacy” referred to are part and parcel of “party politics” and “state-making,” simultaneously representing the political capture and the cultural legitimacy of the self-defense movements.
This article makes a comparative analysis of the dozos and the koglweogos movements as two very different, yet structurally similar, expressions of security concerns and locally organized self-defense. First, it demonstrates how the Burkinabe state has tried to contain such self-defense movements bureaucratically, despite their interdependent relationships with national political actors. Second, it analyzes the emergence of koglweogos, with particular attention paid to public debate and the attempts to control the movement bureaucratically. Third, it describes how dozos and koglweogos seek to assert public authority in “the new Burkina Faso” (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017, Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2018) that is taking shape after the fall of ex-president Blaise Compaoré in October 2014, notably the conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos that was publicly enacted in late 2016 and early 2017. Leaders of these self-defense movements perform tradition and assert community values and morality while at the same time maintaining connections to party politics with strong links to the Burkinabe state. Here, tradition is used as an emic notion, that is, the ways in which the movements’ leaders refer to “tradition”; past behavior and practice defined as “traditional” does not necessarily imply an empirically validated and scholarly accepted connection with the past. Instead, tradition is subject to inventions in line with the seminal work on the invention of tradition by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (1983). For instance, dozo movements claim legacy to dozoya (“what dozos do,” or “the way of the dozos”), including the cult of Sanene and Konontron (Cissé Reference Chouli1964, 1994), though actual dozos’ behavior and practice are better understood in relation to present-day cultural and political processes.Footnote 1 Performing tradition is here a question of claiming the legacy of dozoya by demonstrating its relevance for addressing contemporary challenges. As with tradition, politics is here used as a broad notion defined locally. In Burkina Faso, politics is the dirty business of exercising power, for instance, in the Jula language, doing politics (ka politiki ke) simultaneously translates into “lying” and “cheating.” At the same time, the exercise of legitimate power is not necessarily a problem, and since the fall of Compaoré there has been an urge to infuse politics with new meaning, toward a political morality of being “upright” (burkindi in Mooré) (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017). The ambiguity of “performing tradition, while doing politics” requires the leaders to balance community, culture, and tradition, with political party involvement and state connections. Given that both tradition and politics must be performed, this article explores the very framing of tradition and politics with respect to the dozos and koglweogos self-defense movements.
Methodologically, this study is based on long-term anthropological research in Burkina Faso, drawing on previous fieldwork among dozos, as well as on current research on socio-political transformations in Burkina Faso.Footnote 2 Yet, given that the koglweogos have only recently become a movement appearing in Burkinabe news headlines, this analysis primarily draws on newspaper debates and public declarations concerning the koglweogos. The comparative study of the dozos and koglweogos movements is therefore geared toward the public debate on security and locally-organized self-defense.
Self-Defense Movements and the Burkinabe State
The local organization of security and protection in villages and neighborhoods is nothing new, but rather forms part of the different legacies of self-defense groups in Burkina Faso. The state has used various strategies to contain such groups, adopting a different approach to the containment of each of the two traditional types of these groups.
First, traditional hunters—the dozos—claim to be descendants of the centuries-old tradition of dozoya on the West African Savannah.Footnote 3 They claim to be the “children” of Sanene and Konontron, the ancestors of dozoya to which a cult is devoted. Such claims by the present-day dozos are an invented tradition in the sense of Hobsbawm and Ranger (Reference Hellweg1983). The historical Mali founded by Sunjata Keïta in the thirteenth century was one in a long series of polities in which dozos played key roles in terms of military strength, hunting, medicine, and local knowledge. In wars waged against colonial armies as well as in colonial wars, dozos constituted the army of the colonized peoples. There are dozos in most villages of western Burkina Faso (Ferrarini Reference Engels2016; Hagberg Reference Förster1998, Reference Hagberg2004a, Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b, Reference Hagberg2006). These dozos claim this historical legacy at the same time as they assert themselves as socio-political actors in present-day society. This is particularly the case with dozo leaders, as is also seen in other West African countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.Footnote 4 Dozo hunters have also been involved in environmental conservation programs (Bassett & Zueli 2000; Hagberg Reference Förster1998, Reference Hagberg2006). In the 1990s, dozos organized into hunters’ movements to ensure protection and security in rural areas. Some of these movements began in Côte d’Ivoire, and they soon became part of the Ivorian political crisis in that they were defined as belonging to “the North,” sometimes as “strangers” in the xenophobic rhetoric in the increasingly divided country (Bassett 2004; Förster Reference Frère and Englebert2010; Hellweg Reference Hellweg2011; Hagberg & Ouattara Reference Hagberg2010). Dozos in Burkina Faso were inspired by these movements in Côte d’Ivoire; the late Tiefing Coulibaly claimed to have “brought” the hunters’ movements to Burkina Faso (Hagberg Reference Förster1998, Reference Hagberg2004a, Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b). It is striking how present-day dozo movements combine claims to the legacy of Sanene and Konontron (Cissé Reference Chouli1964) into which each hunter apprentice is ritually initiated with the daily pragmatics of the postcolonial state that requires that hunters’ associations be registered, have formal membership cards, and so forth. In other words, the dozos are simultaneously acting as a traditional brotherhood and as a socio-political movement, as tradition and culture, and as modernity and politics.
Second, a more recent tradition of self-defense and local protection in Burkina Faso traces its origins to nightly patrols in urban areas (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016:3). In the 1970s and 1980s, there were vigilante committees in Burkina Faso’s second city of Bobo-Dioulasso; young men patrolled nightly to carry out surveillance, at times and locations in which the police and the gendarmerie were not able to protect the local community against banditry. These committees collaborated with the municipality, which thereby gave them a certain legality. Later on, during the so-called Democratic and Popular Revolution led by President Thomas Sankara (1983–1987), the Comités de Défense de la Révolution (CDR) were given extraordinary powers, coupled with a rudimentary military training “to defend the revolution,” as it were, in neighborhoods and villages. The CDR played an important role and represented the regime’s grassroots supporters, a fact which favored mobilization and collective action, along with power abuse and impunity. After the coup d’état in October 1987 that marked the end of the revolution and that brought Blaise Compaoré to power, the CDR members were transformed into Comités Révolutionnaires (CR) before they disappeared with the 1991 Constitution of the Fourth republic. In the 1990s, local security initiatives were developed to counteract banditry. Even private security companies started to operate in the country during that time (Hagberg Reference Hagberg2006). More recently, however, the creation of a neighborhood police force—police de proximité—by presidential decree in 2010 encouraged people’s organization into self-defense groups (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016:3).Footnote 5 The koglweogos movement seems to draw on this more recent tradition of self-defense, while at the same time resembling the dozo mobilization of tradition and culture. In contrast to dozos, koglweogos in northern, central, and eastern parts of Burkina Faso are often linked to the traditional chieftaincy; the village chief may well be the local leader of the koglweogos. But similar to the dozos, the koglweogos movement traces its origins to Côte d’Ivoire. To compare these two strands of the tradition of self-defense—the dozos and the koglweogos—we must look at how the Burkinabe state has sought to contain such locally-grounded initiatives that challenge its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force.
One important strategy for containment has been the politics of scale as analyzed by Thomas Bassett (2004) in a paper on dozo movements in Côte d’Ivoire. Bassett shows how, in the 1990s, dozos were variously contained in regions and provinces, as well as in the economic capital of Abidjan, following different political conjunctures in the then-prevailing ivoirité politics (Bassett 2004; see also Hagberg & Ouattara Reference Hagberg2010). In Burkina Faso, the hunters’ association Benkadi—a movement led by master-hunter Tiefing Coulibaly—spread rapidly in the mid-1990s. Benkadi allowed two complementary ways of joining the association: initiation through sacrifices, and membership by the payment of yearly contributions (Hagberg Reference Förster1998, Reference Hagberg2004a). “Any man may pay 1,000 FCFA to become a member, but it is the initiation—materialised through sacrifices of 12 cola-nuts and two chickens—that really counts” (Hagberg Reference Förster1998:123). But the legal existence of Benkadi turned out to be problematic, and Benkadi was never officially recognized with a legal certificate established by any Burkinabe public authority. As the dozos explained, no “birth certificate” (wulo sebe) was delivered (Hagberg Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b). While the true reason was that public authorities feared that Benkadi would develop into an armed movement, as traditional hunters had organized themselves in the wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone, the official justification for not delivering the certificate was that the association existed in between the provincial, regional, and national levels. The request had been submitted to the High Commissioner of the Comoé Province, who later transferred it to the Ministry of Territorial Administration (Hagberg Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b). This is how the politics of scale operated in practice; administrative feet dragging and meddling between provincial and national levels efficiently worked against the legal recognition of Benkadi. Things were further complicated in 1996, when the country underwent an administrative reshuffling of provincial boundaries, and 30 provinces became 45. The Comoé Province was divided into Comoé and Léraba Provinces. The late Tiefing Coulibaly stated in 1999, when I interviewed him at his homestead in Dakoro: “Now there is a division into new provinces, but there is no division in the association.” Despite this statement, a new hunter leader of the Comoé Province emerged—Nianyoro Diao—who was a well-known master hunter in the village of Tengrela. Hence, the state’s strategy of using administrative reshuffling to contain the association was successful: the Comoé Province was divided into Léraba and Comoé provinces, and the stronghold of Benkadi in the Léraba province was cut off from the dozos in the new Comoé Province. The reshuffling contributed to the containment of the Benkadi dozos into different provinces.
Another somewhat similar strategy was to make an arms census and register the hunters’ associations. In 1996, the Forestry Office made a deal with Benkadi in the Comoé Province: the association should carry out a census of all weapons and light arms that existed in the area, and the Forestry Office would in turn deliver certificates to all the bearers of arms and weapons registered (Hagberg Reference Förster1998:228). The proliferation of light arms was transferred into administrative control and bureaucratic logic. A more recent national attempt to control the spread of arms through census included the creation of the neighborhood police force in 2010 (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016).
A more politically-oriented strategy was to contain the dozos movements and channel their socio-political aspirations and mobilizing capacities through the CDP, the ruling party of Blaise Compaoré. This was particularly obvious in the case of Mélégué Maurice Traoré, a long-time CDP leader, who was Minister of Higher Education (1992–1997) and President of the National Assembly (1997–2002). Traoré, an initiated dozo, was also a member of Benkadi, led by Tiefing Coulibaly in Dakoro. Upon Tiefing Coulibaly’s death in 2002, Traoré was the organizer of his funeral (sangatigi), which took place by the end of April 2002, just two weeks prior to the legislative elections in 2002 (Hagberg Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b). Traoré’s political co-optation of Tiefing Coulibaly’s death meant that the dozos became a support movement for the CDP and thus for the Burkinabe state. This exemplifies the intersection of self-defense movements and party politics. While, in the end, the political co-optation did not help to advance Traoré’s career—although he was re-elected to National Assembly, he was sidestepped as its President—the compelling implication of a high state representative in the organization of the hunter leader’s funeral was a public validation of the dozos. Coulibaly’s death also led to a fierce leadership struggle between another well-known master hunter and the defunct’s son, and Benkadi soon lost its strength in the Léraba province.
Any state obviously has an interest in controlling local initiatives where citizens arm themselves against perceived threats, such as banditry, terrorism, and theft, which is often labelled as “vigilantism” (cf. Abrams 1998; Kirsch & Grätz Reference Kedzierska-Manzon2010; Pratten Reference Ouattara2008). Yet to understand these movements, the combined analysis of political expressions, patrolling practices, cultural representations, and public discourses is needed. In this vein, the recent emergence of the koglweogos self-defense movements offers a particularly interesting case.
The Emergence of Koglweogos
The koglweogos represent an emergent self-defense movement whose leaders have sought to assert public authority in “the new Burkina Faso” after the fall of Blaise Compaoré (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Ouattara, Kirsch and Grätz2015, Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017, Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2018). The focus here is on the public debate with respect to this movement that has mushroomed in many parts of Burkina Faso over the last years. The term koglweogo in Mooré is a combination of the terms kogle (‘to guard’) and weogo (‘the bush’).Footnote 6 The term thus involves the sum of measures and strategies undertaken to secure community life in rural areas (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017:59). Yet koglweogos have existed for around fifteen years in northern parts of Burkina Faso. They emerged in the year 2000, but grew exponentially in 2016, due to increased insecurity in the country at large (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016:3). The most reliable version of Koglweogos’ origins holds that it was started in the village of Namissima in the Yatenga Province by El Hadj Ouédraogo Sidiki, while the Association Koglweogo du Département de Namissiguima, officially recognized in 2005, was the first legally-recognized association of koglweogos (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016:2). El Hadj Ouédraogo, who had lived in Côte d’Ivoire, had been inspired by the way people in coffee and cacao plantations organized in local self-defense groups so as to combat theft in the absence of the state’s security forces. Yet, as stated above, the koglweogos also draw inspiration from the grassroots revolutionary committees (CDR) of the 1980s. In this vein, the Minister of Security until February 2018, Simon Compaoré, who was involved in the CDR in the 1980s and later became the Mayor of Ouagadougou (1995–2012), was often accused of “acting like the koglweogos” when he mobilized youth groups in the neighborhoods of the capital. Well-known for his blatant power speech and youth mobilization in Ouagadougou, Compaoré has been repeatedly accused of utilizing violence to settle political issues.Footnote 7
Currently Rassamkandé Naaba—the traditional chief of the village of Rassamkandé in Bazéga Province—is the national president of the koglweogos. Rassamkandé Naaba seems to be recognized by all koglweogos associations and movements, even though, unsurprisingly, there are signs of competition between different leaders. In order for a koglweogos group to be created, the national president has to accept the request, and the local leader is named koglweogo naaba (“chief of the koglweogos” in Mooré). To become a koglweogo, one must be committed and honest. The initiates swear on the Qur’an and the Bible; the traditional chief (naaba) of the locality is also involved, lending legitimacy to the initiation both by religious and traditional authorities (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016).
The efficiency of the koglweogos in combating criminality is generally recognized in Burkinabe public debate. This is due to their knowledge of the locality and its environment, and to the strength of their networks. They carry modern arms and knives, and they use cell phones to communicate among themselves. But koglweogos’ efficiency has a price. People caught by the koglweogos have to undergo heavy sanctions, including beatings, huge fines—for example, a stolen egg is charged for FCFA15,000 (USD25), and a head of cattle for FCFA300,000 (USD500)—detention, and forcing the villain to swear an oath on the Qur’an or the Bible (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016).Footnote 8 There is a strong sense of morality connected to the koglweogos. In a newspaper interview, one leader stated that the villains are often members of the community: “Those who steal and kill us are our children, the members of the community, and only shame and punishment can make them change” (Mutations, March 2016).Footnote 9
The spread of the koglweogos has led to a heated public debate. Some consider them as representing an emerging militia, because they violate human rights (with their use of beatings and detentions), and assert authority to punish villains. Others welcome the support that these groups bring to reduce insecurity in the countryside when the state seems to be incapable of protecting people and property. The overall fear of many observers is that these groups will develop into something else, that self-defense movements may transform into armed militias (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017:59–60).
Boukary “Le Lion” Kaboré—a retired colonel of the Burkinabe army, a fervent ally of the late president Thomas Sankara and a presidential candidate for Parti pour l’unité nationale et le développement (PUND) in 2005 and in 2010—is one of the leaders of koglweogos. On June 22, 2016, Kaboré was enthroned chef de guerre (“warlord”) in a general assembly in Kombissiri (Burkinaonline June 23, 2016). He took the combat name Wibga (“Sparrowhawk”) to be the head of Wibsé, that is, those koglweogos in charge of hunting thieves. In an interview just after his official installation as leader, Kaboré declared that beating up the thieves is the koglweogos’ method for eradicating theft (Lefaso.net June 25, 2016).
Public debate over the koglweogos was breaking news in Burkina Faso throughout 2016 and in early 2017. On August 27, 2016, the then Minister of Security, Simon Compaoré, went to Zorgho to recover arms that the koglweogos had confiscated from bandits. Some interpreted this as an official recognition, as it represented a de facto collaboration between koglweogos and the Defense and Security Forces. In October 2016, the government decreed that the neighborhood police (police de proximité) should organize the koglweogos into an armed corps under the Ministry of Security (Burkina24 October 5, 2016). Many thought that this was a wise move to contain koglweogos under state law. Yet Boukary “Le Lion” Kaboré rejected this idea, maintaining that the koglweogos preferred to be placed directly under the President of Burkina Faso (Omegabf.net November 13, 2016).
The debate soon came to focus on local realities and republican values, introducing a divide between people living in rural areas and urbanites. In early January 2017, the civil society movement Balai Citoyen (“Citizen Broom”) that was key to the fall of Compaoré in October 2014 (Chouli 2015; Engels Reference Cissé2015; Frère & Englebert Reference Ferrarini2015; Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Ouattara, Kirsch and Grätz2015, Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017; Harsch Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017), made a declaration in which the movement reiterated its position vis-à-vis the koglweogos:
The movement [Balai Citoyen] acknowledges strong support from the public for these self-defense structures, despite the unacceptable abuses and the risks of political recuperation and infiltrations by extremist forces. For Balai Citoyen, this is not the time to position oneself as pro or anti-koglweogos, but to address the necessary and indispensable monitoring of them so that they serve the Republic. It is critical that the public authorities engage in a frank and fertile dialogue with these groups with the support of civil society organizations so that, first, one can identify their domains of intervention and competence, and second, that the state can adopt a true national security policy with an efficient territorial coverage and the appropriate resources for the armed forces to allow them to fulfil, with honor and dignity, the sovereign missions of the state, which is the sole proprietor of legitimate violence. (Burkina24 January 7, 2017)
The Balai Citoyen wanted to promote the rule of law, while at the same time pressing public authorities to address increasing insecurities. In fact, insecurities such as terrorist attacks, banditry, and theft changed things quite dramatically, and the koglweogos asserted their authority whenever possible. For instance, the koglweogo leader Moussa Thiombiano, alias “Django,” commented on the terrorist attacks that killed twelve soldiers in the village of Nassoumbou in the Soum Province in December 2016:
These repetitive attacks in our country are due to the lack of collaboration. I think that, after the drama that we have lived, there will be a frank collaboration in which we will coordinate together with good intelligence at the right moment. […] For example, according to me, from Matiakouali to the Nigerien border, we should have people who do the intelligence, who do not need a uniform, but who are peasants that one could call indicators. Then, when they see a face that is not Burkinabe, that resembles a suspect, the person will be denounced. (Lefaso.net December 23, 2016)
Thus, this koglweogo leader called for a better communication with the Defense and Security Forces that would, in turn, constitute an expansion of the koglweogos’ mission.
The emergence of the koglweogos took place amid a context of growing insecurities and of shaky one-year political transition. Hence, the koglweogos’ expansion must be understood within the context of the dramatic socio-political transformations which Burkina Faso has undergone in recent years (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017). After the fall of Blaise Compaoré in October 2014, and the failed coup d’état led by the ex-president’s right-hand general Gilbert Diendéré in September 2015, Burkina Faso has experienced multiple insecurities, including three spectacular terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou and frequent armed attacks in its northern regions. Although a thorough analysis of the country’s security situation after the fall of Compaoré is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to note that the koglweogos’ expansion must be related to the social and political changes and the accompanying increase in insecurities in the country.
The Relationship Between Dozos and Koglweogos
The rapid expansion of koglweogos in 2016 initially focused on the possibility of providing these self-defense groups with a legal mandate within the Republic, in order to prevent human rights abuse and to address security concerns undermining the rule of law (Sanou Reference Richards2016). By the end of 2016, one particular debate concerned the relationship between the koglweogos and the dozos. As previously discussed, in contrast to the koglweogos, who make claims to local relevance, the dozos also claim the legacy of dozoya (Cissé Reference Chouli1964, 1994; Hagberg Reference Hagberg2004a, Reference Hagberg, Latouche, Laurent, Servais and Singleton2004b; Hellweg Reference Hellweg2011; Kedzierska-Manzon Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger2014). This signals historical continuity for the dozos, while on the other hand, the koglweogos address the interests and stakes of today.
A heated, publicly-mediated rivalry emerged between koglweogos and dozos. The background for this disagreement was that dozo leaders protested the expansion of koglweogos into western Burkina Faso, into the regions where dozos had traditionally prevailed. Blaise Sanon, a dozo leader, questioned the ways in which the koglweogos challenged state authority. He clarified: “We are not against the koglweogos, but of their way of doing things. If they change behavior we may collaborate” (Le Pays December 6, 2016). Siaka Karambiri, another dozo leader, was even more explicit:
We categorically refuse to install any self-defence group in western Burkina Faso, other than the dozos. You will never see a dozo challenge the orders of the Republic that serve the public authorities and the politicians. (Le Pays, December 28, 2016)
The relationship between koglweogos and dozos soon turned conflictual when Boukary “Le Lion” Kaboré was not allowed to install the koglweogos in the village of Makognandougou. On November 21, 2016, Kaboré met with the traditional chief of Bobos Madarè, after which the chief declared:
The koglweogos are not compatible with our customs here. I have attentively listened to Boukary Kaboré nicknamed the Lion. He talked about securing people and property. I am not against this. This role is played by the dozos that work in symbiosis with the loyal defense and security forces. Thus, once again, we are against the installation of koglweogos and I invite the Lion to drop the bullet. (L’Express du Faso November 24, 2016).
Yet, as early as March 2016, Yacouba Drabo, a dozo leader, had defined the difference between the koglweogos and the dozos:
It is simple. The dozo brotherhood is well organized, well structured. The dozos have a master, a guide and they are initiated; this is not the case for the koglweogos. What is missing is the initiation, the training, and that is really something important. (Notre Temps, March 21, 2016)
In this debate, dozo leaders thus stated that dozos know how to act and how to follow state law. In addition, they know the secrets of initiation. According to the leaders, the koglweogos do not act appropriately and, in addition, they challenge state law. In November 2016, dozo leaders met with the Ministry of Security Simon Compaoré, as tension had become so strong. Rumors flourished, and many dozos thought that the government wanted to tacitly install the koglweogos in western Burkina. Minister Compaoré nevertheless stated that the government was not involved. “The koglweogos are not a creation of the state,” he said (Burkina24 November 29, 2016).
In early 2017, the tension mounted again after an incident in which koglweogos had tortured two men involved in a conflict related to a “woman affair.” The traditional chief of Bobos Madarè made a public statement:
We have made it clear to the government that we do not want the koglweogos in the zone and despite this, it [the government] has left individuals who claim to be koglweogos, to settle and we keep them responsible of what will follow. (Burkina24 January 4, 2017)
The conflictual relationship between koglweogos and dozos illustrates how the expansion of the former challenged the authority of the latter in western Burkina Faso. For dozos, it was a concern that the koglweogos sought to settle in a region where there is already a tradition of the dozo self-defense movement. This tension also articulates the cultural divide between Mande traditions, to which dozos belong, and traditions of the Mossi Plateau, where the koglweogos have evolved in just the last fifteen years. The koglweogos challenge state law, whereas the dozos say that they defend republican values. Yet endorsement of state law by the dozos is also a way to strategically assert authority and inscribe oneself into republican values.
This conflictual relationship between the two factions has a lot to do with power. The dozos are challenged in their fields of competence, in their regions, and in their cultural values. The koglweogos may well prevail in other parts of Burkina Faso, but not in regions where dozos are present. In an article published in the online newspaper Lefaso.net, a certain Oumar Ouédraogo discusses the problem of division and disintegration amongst the Burkinabe:
The mission in the Hauts-Bassins [region that is parts of western Burkina Faso] of the Minister of Security Simon Compaoré will not settle the core of the problem that this situation underlines: the geographical cleavage is palpable from now onwards. Today, the idea of a “big West” and a “big East” is accepted. Suffice to refer to some public discussions to grasp the size of the situation. (Lefaso.net January 10, 2017)
The statement made by Oumar Ouédraogo pinpoints one dimension that was largely downplayed in public. The cultural and geographical divide is underpinning the conflictual relationship between koglweogos and dozos. This divide is framed within the more general Mossi dominance of Burkina Faso, where ethnicity and religion are sometimes played out in politics, and even more so in terms of access to jobs and assets (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017:59).Footnote 10 Hence, dozo leaders reacted to Mossi expansion more generally. Given that the Mossi constitute half of Burkina Faso’s population, the conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos is also visible in a more general frustration with the way Mossi tend to co-opt power in the whole country.
Mossi societies are strictly hierarchical kingdoms, whereas segmentary lineage societies tend to prevail in western Burkina Faso, which is more influenced by the Mande cultural area. The koglweogos are also part of this Mossi hierarchy, as many leaders are traditional chiefs (naaba), and embody the power (naam) of the chief in addition to the power of koglweogos. In contrast, dozo leaders are rarely traditional village chiefs, and even if they were, the chief’s power and authority are far more limited there compared to the Mossi societies. So, the conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos that broke out in late 2016 and early 2017 touches upon multiple dimensions of Burkinabe social and political life, including ethnicity, power, tradition, and social organization.
The dozos are well-organized and well-structured, the leaders argue, whereas the koglweogos are less structured, because they do not initiate new members the way dozo master-hunters do. One clear difference between dozos and koglweogos pertains to the name and the knowledge of the leader. In the case of koglweogos, they often take a nom de guerre, such as Django (alluding to the hero of the Italian Western movie “Django” in 1966), or Rassamkandé Naaba (“the chief of Rassamkandé village”). Django is known as a former thief, who nowadays combats villains.Footnote 11 Another koglweogo leader is Boukary “Le Lion” Kaboré, a former army officer and commander of Bataillon d’Intervention Aéroporté (BIA) in Koudougou. “Le Lion” was a legendary revolutionary commanding officer who, in October 1987, resisted the coup d’état that killed Sankara and brought Compaoré to power. Kaboré mysteriously succeeded in escaping on a motorbike; he crossed the border to Ghana, where he remained in exile for a long time. Later on, he unsuccessfully attempted a political career, starting his own party, and was twice a presidential candidate, subsequently retiring to a village in western Burkina Faso.
Dozos leaders are recruited from among the master hunters, even though they are not necessarily the most knowledgeable dozos.Footnote 12 In any case, a person aspiring to become a dozo leader must have the power and knowledge of a master hunter. The only example I can recall among dozos that comes close to the koglweogos’ enrolling of a retired army officer in a key leadership position is the former dozo leader in Banfora, who was a retired police officer with a relatively junior status in the dozoya brotherhood. The reason for this was that the Benkadi hunters’ association needed a leader who could read and write in French so as to facilitate collaboration with public authorities in this regional city.
Yet there are similarities as well between dozo and koglweogo leadership too. The wish to display power and knowledge is universal. At important meetings, dozos show off in order to demonstrate their skills. And koglweogos seek to show their efficiency and skills in tracking down bandits. But dozos also seek to show responsibility, as demonstrated in the public debate above. Till Förster narrates an interesting example of his impression of the management of dozo hunters in Côte d’Ivoire: “The hunters held huge meetings and displayed their arms in all the major cities under rebel domination, but they always aimed to show that they were responsible, even savvy, actors in the political space they occupied” (Förster Reference Förster2013:25).
Another similarity between the two is the movements’ proximity to party politics and, by extension, to the Burkinabe state. Dozos have a long history of being involved in politics, including the CDP (until 2014) and nowadays in the MPP (since 2015); they are often “bought” to be part of the party machine, as are many other traditional and religious authorities. Today, koglweogos are generally considered to be protected by some politicians (especially MPP), which would explain how they can prevail despite their documented human rights violations.Footnote 13
In June 2016, the then Minister of Security Simon Compaoré publicly asked the koglweogos to conform to a Republican approach and to avoid “kidnappings, physical abuse, humiliating and degrading treatment, forced contributions, fines and group movements with a conspicuous carrying of firearms or knives” (AIB June 13, 2016). Yet on June 25, 2016, violent confrontations took place between koglweogos and the youth of the Zongo neighborhood of Ouagadougou. The youth chased the koglweogos, and some were even interrogated and kept in custody by the police. Two days later, young men pretending to be residents of the Zongo neighborhood barricaded the National Road 1 to Bobo-Dioulasso, demanding the liberation of the jailed koglweogos (Burkina24 June 28, 2016). Strained tensions prevailed in the neighborhood as a result. In January 2017, risks of violent confrontations between dozos and koglweogos were ventured in public debate, because the governmental decree on October 5, 2016—to integrate the koglweogos into the local police force organization—was delayed in its implementation (aOuaga January 23, 2017).
Many observers discussed the problem of self-defense movements and republican values. The conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos, and its implication for national unity, was highlighted by journalist Oumar Ouédraogo. Local self-defense groups might start fighting each other, especially with “the incident of Sapouy (tension between the koglweogos and the Defense and Security Forces), Léo in the Sissili Province (where individuals who claim they belong to the koglweogos of Boutourou arrested and held a Catechist because he refused to pay contributions to the self-defense group)” (Lefaso.net January 10, 2017). In May 2017, this was exactly what happened in the Ténado municipality of Sanguié Province. Forty koglweogos attacked people of the village of Tialgo in order to force villagers to pay heavy fines (FCFA810,000, approximately USD1,350) for the alleged theft of goats by young Tialgo men. These koglweogos attacked the villagers, resulting in five deaths—two villagers and three koglweogos—and some ten wounded (Le Pays May 22, 2017; Omegabf.net May 20, 2017). As a direct consequence of this violent conflict, any activity of the koglweogos was forbidden by the High-Commissioner of the Sanguié Province.
Discussion
The central question is how, discursively and practically, these two self-defense movements—the dozos and the koglweogos—combine local grounding and legitimacy at the grassroots with involvement in regional and national politics. While they perform tradition and assert community values, they are simultaneously enacting politics with strong links to the Burkinabe state. The alleged “community values” should be understood with caution, because the links to party politics, notably the ruling party (CDP until 2014, MPP since late 2015), is both a way for the state to capture the movement and a way for the leaders to strengthen their movements’ legitimacies. This study has sought to discuss past developments of dozos, comparing those with the recent emergence of koglweogos. The debate on dozos as defenders of republican values in contrast to the koglweogos echoes the ways in which the dozo association Benkadi was contained by the Burkinabe state in the 1990s and early 2000s. And the conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos should not obscure the fact that both movements are involved in addressing people’s widely perceived and daily experienced insecurities.
Yet dozos and koglweogos have more ambitious plans than protecting local people and property in rural villages. Security is increasingly challenged in Burkina Faso—be it political violence, terrorist attacks, violent conflict, arms traffic, or banditry—and dozos and koglweogos are navigating simultaneously between the state and local communities. One example concerns the actions of dozos in the midst of the coup d’état perpetrated by the ex-President’s Security Forces in September 2015 (Hagberg Reference Hagberg2015). On September 22, 2015, dozo leaders appeared at the Place Tiefo Amoro, the epicenter of the popular resistance in Bobo-Dioulasso (Hagberg Reference Hagberg2015). Dozo leader Issouf Barro of the Union Nationale des Dozos du Burkina informed the public that his organization was mobilized to support the loyalist army against the coupists. According to Barro, 5,000 dozos were ready to “confront General Gilbert Diendéré and his Conseil National pour la Démocratie” (Lefaso.net September 22, 2015). A second example is the readiness of the koglweogos to combat terrorists in northern Burkina Faso, as the leader Moussa Thiombiano, alias “Django,” said in an interview in December 2016: “These repetitive terrorist attacks in our country are due to a lack of collaboration” (Lefaso.net December 23, 2016).
Beyond the observation that dozos and koglweogos are performing tradition while doing politics, we might say that they are making their particular claims to tradition “real” by performing it. The dozos claim the legacy of dozoya, whereas the koglweogos perform tradition in dressing and acting, despite the fact that the movement is a recent phenomenon. While it is true that many recognize the importance of these movements for the sake of security, these organizations also challenge the state and its monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.
There is an ambiguity about individual political actors’ involvement with these movements. The example of Maurice Mélégué Traoré and his involvement in dozoya/Benkadi while being a powerful actor and a leader loyal to Compaoré’s CDP is striking. Many koglweogos are at least tacitly supported by actors within today’s ruling party MPP. Some are considered to be close to the Minister of Security (2015–18) Simon Compaoré himself, who was involved in the CDRs in the 1980s, and who later, as Mayor of Ouagadougou, mobilized the youth in the capital. The koglweogo leader Boukary “Le Lion” Kaboré exemplifies the involvement of koglweogos in the Burkinabe state, or at least in the core of the country’s political history. “Le Lion” is a particular figure, not always taken very seriously in public debate, but still recognized to have courageously resisted the coup d’état in 1987. In the current political climate, his public comeback inscribes itself in the context of Sankara revival in the “new Burkina Faso” (Hagberg et al. Reference Hagberg, Kibora, Ouattara and Konkobo2017).
The movements articulate culture and politics simultaneously, but yet differently. The identification of leaders performing tradition while doing politics seems to be valid in other West African countries as well (Hellweg Reference Hellweg2011; Kedzierska-Manzon Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger2014). The case of Côte d’Ivoire is striking. For instance, the government of President Ouattara is indebted to the dozos for its access to power. Today dozos not only occupy a spatial niche (the rural areas and the forest) but also mark their public presence: “By parading through the heart of the town, the dozos’ performativity marked their skills and strength in numbers, and subtly encroached upon the urban space generally attributed to the state” (Heitz-Tokpa Reference Harsch2019).
The conflictual relationship between dozos and koglweogos is multi-layered and offers insights into the social and political fabric of Burkina Faso. Dozos believe that koglweogos should not be allowed to operate in western Burkina Faso, because they would be doing the same work that dozos already do. For dozos, the koglweogos movement of Mossi origin represents an expansion that could potentially overrule their authority; they appear to take on dozos’ practices and aesthetics without having the knowledge, skills, and traditions of dozoya.
Another argument advanced by the dozos is that koglweogos do not embrace republican values. This position ironically echoes the debate about the late Tiefing Coulibaly’s Benkadi in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That association was not officially recognized by the Burkinabe state, as there were fears that it could eventually develop into a militia. In other words, regardless of colorful, exotic, and traditional outfits, as well as the elements of performing tradition—the initiation swearing on the Qur’an and the Bible “invented” by the koglweogos—these movements must be analyzed in the ambiguous position at the interface of local, national, and international socio-political and cultural contexts.
These self-defense movements must not only be locally and traditionally legitimate, but they must also show that they are responsible, even savvy, actors in the political space they occupy (Förster Reference Förster2013:25). The alleged “community values” referred to are part and parcel of “national party politics,” and performing tradition is part of “doing politics,” which taken together represent the political containment and the cultural legitimacy of the self-defense movements. While dozos have carved out such a position for themselves in Burkinabe public space, koglweogos have still a long way to go. But, it must be recalled, the emergence of koglweogos also coincides with a weakened state and a Sahel region in socio-political crisis. Therefore, the multiple insecurities perceived and experienced by citizens and public authorities alike may well have opened up a politico-administrative-legal space for recognizing self-defense movements in Burkina Faso.
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this article benefitted from the thorough review by my colleagues Till Förster and Ludovic Kibora, to whom I am indebted. Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to discuss the emergence of koglweogos with Patrice Kouraogo and Amado Kaboré of the Institut des Sciences des Sociétés, who recently did fieldwork on the Koglweogos self-defense movement (Kouraogo et al. Reference Kirsch and Grätz2016). The Editors of African Studies Review as well as three anonymous reviewers gave valuable feedback and productive criticism concerning this article.
