ABSTRACT
Until 1983 Burkina's foreign relations evolved for the most part unaffected by its successive domestic political crises and changes of leadership. The 1960-1983 period formed therefore a diplomatic whole marked by limited pretensions, moderate conservatism, and the ambiguous agency of French and Ivorian interests. The 1983 revolution brought as much radicalism to foreign as to domestic policy. This chapter reviews the three distinct periods of Burkina's diplomacy. It addresses the specific issues of relations with France and Libya. The boldness and radicalism of Thomas Sankara's foreign policy contributed much to putting his country on the map in the early 1980s. West African nations, especially those within a same-language group, typically entertain close relations with one another. Burkina's relationship with France has been intense and steady but also occasionally difficult and forever tainted by the experience of colonization. In September 1994, in a move to further ingratiate itself with Paris, Burkina agreed to host twenty Algerian Islamist deportees from France.
