Burkina: ‘The creation of VDPs constitutes a community response in the fight against terrorism’ (teacher-researcher)

The VDP constitute an endogenous response that the Burkinabè community gave in reaction to the abuses of terrorist groups, this is the opinion of Dr Missa Millogo, teacher-researcher in Contemporary History, point of a view which contrasts with certain accusations which accompanied the creation of the VDP in Burkina Faso. Treated as militias, mercenaries or even outlaws, the VDP rather respond to the community's need to attack itself and in an organized manner the terrorist groups which attack them, in the opinion of the Teacher-Researcher in Contemporary History Dr Missa Millogo speaking last Tuesday August 6 in Bobo-Dioulasso, during a public conference. 'The creation of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), who have been fighting for several years alongside the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), constitutes a community response in the fight against terrorism in Burkina Faso,' declared Dr. Missa Millogo also Head of the History Department of the Nazi Boni University of Bobo-Dioulasso He l ed a communication on the theme "the role of inter-religious and inter-community dialogues in the prevention and fight against violent extremism", within the Koubawé university campus in Bobo-Dioulasso It was within the framework of a public conference on strengthening the capacities of pupils, students and trainees with a view to their effective contribution to the fight against violent extremism for an effective contribution to social cohesion in Burkina Faso. The conference was organized by the Association for Religious Tolerance and Intercommunity Dialogue (ATR/DI). Dr Missa Millogo indicated that the creation of VDPs, particularly at the communal level, constitutes a form of recognition of communities and above all reveals an imperative need to involve them in resolving the nation's challenges, the most urgent of which today remains the struggle against terrorism. 'In a village, the members of a community know each other, if you give them their own security, they can organize themselves because they know who is a foreigner, and who does what, they know who is a thief or a terrorist. That's why if they take their own security, they can achieve it. We must decentralize the fight, we must empower the lowest level of the community, namely the family,' he recommended. Indeed, the VDP were created in January 2020 as auxiliaries of the FDS serving voluntarily the security interests of their village or their area of ??residence. As soon as he came to power on September 30, 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré increased the workforce by launching the recruitment of 35,000 municipal VDPs and 15,000 nationals. Dr. Millogo emphasized that a community is a group united by a common conscience and whose members have the same vital interests. He regretted that ethnic and religious communities are not formally recognized by the constitution at this stage of the construction of the nation-state due to demonization, intellectual stigmatization and political instrumentalization. A serious and cold analysis shows that the commu nities constitute the real foundation of the country and the first identity reference unlike the parties which are in reality political fictions, he estimated. The Teacher-Researcher affirmed that informally, communities since the colonial period have structured and punctuated the territorial and political administrative organization. At the start of the conference, the president of ATR/DI, Issaka Sourwema defined the concepts of radicalization and violent extremism and presented their harmful consequences on society. The conference is part of the implementation of the 'education for citizenship and social cohesion project among traditional, customary and religious actors in the thirteen regions of Burkina Faso'. The project is a sub-component of the 'Civic Space' project which is implemented by a consortium of civil society organizations led by the Geneva Center for Security Sector Governance (DCAF). Source : Burkina Information Agency