very interesting, i hadn't heard of that before but it makes sense.

I think it's fucked if you do and fucked if you don't in their case. Obviously criminalizing gay people is backwards and wrong and this isn't a solution but if we can unpack this for a moment I think we can get at the reasoning.

Right now Africa faces a big problem in the form of ISIS and other "moderate rebel" islamist or similar extremist groups funded by, aided by, created by, controlled by, doing the work of the west to destabilize governments to prevent any power centers against the west forming and to leave much of the continent open to pillaging if they can topple governments and install some corrupt warlords like Syria in place instead.

Made worse, Ukraine's intelligence services (created and bred by the CIA for maximum ghoulishness and highly experienced in assassinations, use of drones, clandestine cross border operations due to their war with Russia) are actively aiding and abetting these groups in highly sophisticated ways including sending special forces, drones, training rebels on use of drones, delivering weapons, and delivering US/eyes derived intelligence to allow them to pull off spectacular attacks against Russian military advisors and equipment they've bought which they need in the fight against these groups and probably in future to attempt to topple governments and plunge regions into instability.

So from their viewpoint they have an islamist insurgency that feeds like fire feeds on gasoline on perceived un-islamic progressive stuff like gay people getting rights, not being subjected to religious law, not being ostracized, living normal lives from people who buy into that kind of thinking and belief system which is unfortunately a lot. Things like gay people having rights openly is used to whip up a lot of people on the sidelines and convince them oh this goes against god, oh this will bring disaster to the country, oh gay people want to have sex with you and willremoved you, other cheap propaganda and radicalize them into sympathy for or participation with these groups.

On the other hand they have maybe a small amount of gay people that are open enough that they can be found and recruited by the CIA. Of the two one seems at the surface a much more manageable problem while the other more pressing and immediate.

Add in the west's history of rainbow washing imperialism and it's not surprising what choice they made. One can hope they try to educate the population on these matters but the fact is it will be a steep uphill battle met with fierce western backed (often through gulf states) organized resistance to any choice they make.

The west has essentially created this situation of a rock and a hard place and one path appears much easier.

(Though I admit to not being educated on just how much LGBTQ+ rights are being used as a wedge in these countries if at all and/or for stirring up sympathy for rebel groups so maybe this isn't right and it's just prejudice of the leadership)

i agree with that, it could be a unifier for the majority of people (not saying this with any comment or assumptions about the people of burkina faso) but even still there will be large amounts of people who are hurt in the periphery, many people who may even currently support the criminalization of homosexuality. kinda how a lot of people in the US support ICE but then their sister’s husband gets disappeared and suddenly they’re not so happy about it anymore. with laws targeting queerness you tend to get a lot of that