On March 27, 2023, an investigation was published on the assassination of children and adolescents in northern Burkina Faso, involving members of the Burkinabè army. A few days later, several journalists who participated in the investigations are targeted by a denigration campaign, relayed by several information sites in Burkina Faso. Their common point: all these media are affiliated with the Pan -African group for trade and investment (GPCI) and were created on the same dates, following the revelations of the investigation. On March 30, just two days after the publication of the investigation and the information raid against journalists, two of them were expelled from the country.
On April 1, the Wadjey's TV Youtube channel published a two -minute video, denouncing and discrediting the work of the survey. The assembly, finely orchestrated, accuses the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) of having provided "important sums of money supposed to pay leaders of the Peule community to make false testimonies".
The message is clear: the press should not or more mingle too close to the Burkinabè affairs.
If the degradation of worried press freedom, the number of sites that have mass produced and relayed content denouncing the work of journalists is alarming. Qualified as a “factory media network” by reporters without borders, these information sites are, in truth, each the work of a single organization: the GPCI.
The GPCI, pearl canvas of lies
GPCI is identified as a propaganda network, mainly based on social networks. Very active in Burkina Faso, he also woven his canvas in Mali, Togo, Morocco and the Central African Republic. Under the cover of a pan -African organization dedicated to trade, the GPCI is made up of a network of false accounts supplied by bots, as well as false information sites resembling real newspapers. Via these different biases, the organization conveys allegedly journalistic content, supported by an active Bots farm, whose aim is to massively disinform the targeted countries.
Harouna Douamba, vassal of Wagnerian influence
Harouna Douamba, the founder of the GPCI, is an Ivorian businessman of Burkinabé origin described by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) as a "lobbyist close to the Wagner galaxy". According to the Investigation Collective All Eyes On Wagner, each of Harouna Douamba's organizations was "funded by Lobaye Invest, the History of the Wagner group in the Central African Republic".
.jpg)
Closely linked to the Russian paramilitary group, it is in particular in the Central African Republic that man participated in pro-Russian propaganda maneuvers from the "information and communication office", a center of influence and manipulation put in place by mercenaries. His activities in the Central African Republic ended in 2022 when he received a sentence of two years in prison and was the subject of an international arrest warrant for defamation.
Overall since 2021, the Ivorian businessman has since witnessed a massive deletion of his Facebook accounts by the META group (Instagram and Facebook). He then faced charges concerning his involvement in the direction of a vast disinformation network for the benefit of the Russians.
At the origin of the GPCI, Anacom
With the GPCI, the man is therefore not at his first try. In 2018, it was through the Anacom media, itself linked to the NGO love our Africa (Ana) (founded by Harouna Douamba in 2011) that he operated disinformation campaigns.
To conduct information manipulation actions, Anacom was based on twenty websites covering West African news, the productions of which were mainly relayed on Facebook. Through her "posts", Harouna Douamba added to pro-Russian propaganda thus vowing allegiance to her patrons.
Today, the links between GPCI and Anacom are no doubt. On their sites, there are the same leaders and infrastructure. After the dismantling of the latter, the GPCI therefore became the new informational Trojan of Harouna Douamba.
A foreign influence operating mode
Based on a network of factory partner structures, GPCI content is taken up and boosted by other organizations; All created by the "bots" of Harouna Douamba.
The YouTube Wadjeys TV channel, a false news channel, is a vector for disseminating propaganda messages from the GPCI. During the revelation of the existence of a video in which Burkinabè armed men would murder children, the Wadjeys TV channel posted a video in reaction. In its content, the chain accuses journalists of having created the video of the armed forces. This video, which has quickly become viral on social networks, is added to the scandal linked to the survey published on March 27.
But, to whom does the media belong to? Where does he emerge? By typing the keyword Wadjeys TV on a search engine, the results refer to a Facebook page and a Twitter account of the same name. On its Facebook page, the media is described as belonging to an information and news company based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. On Twitter, on the other hand, the media displays a location in Ghana. Among its unique subscriptions and subscribers, the GPCI. In parallel, the web TV interacts from time to time with the GPCI on its professional LinkedIn network. Finally, on its website, today deactivated, the Pan -African group for trade and investment takes up and quotes the sentence: "Africa, the cradle of humanity, needs base for its balance and light for its visibility and its development". This same sentence is in the description of the Wadjeys TV Twitter account. Obviously, the GPCI seems intimately linked to the web TV.
Through its immense network of false accounts and information sites, the GPCI also self-promethes. The strategy is simple: create and relay mass information to offer the illusion of an absolute truth.
To grant more credibility to its dummy sites, the GPCI uses domain names with journalistic consonance, such as "info", "news", "express", "mail" or "new", similar to existing regional domain names (such as Lome24.info, Sahe24.info and Burkina24.com). On the other hand, none of these sites have legal notices, and several pages contain errors. Some sites even include pages containing Lorem Ipsum paragraphs.
The decline in the freedom to inform
In April 2023, RSF denounced the group's actions in Burkina Faso. On this subject, Sadibou Marong, director of the Sub -Saharan Africa Bureau of the NGO deplores: "The appearance of denigrating content, with fallacious reasons, local and foreign journalists confirms the decline in the freedom to inform. This campaign that seeks to discredit and intimidate free voices, threatens the work and security of all information professionals. ” RSF denounces in particular the disinformation processes used to intimidate professionals in the service of reliable and free information. In May 2023, Meta proceeded to dismantle the GPCI, qualifying its actions as "secret influence operations".
Today, the original GPCI site is inaccessible. Although its network has been dismantled, Harouna Douamba and its multiple structures prove how difficult it is to get rid of bad grass. Certain substitution pages have already reappeared and the affiliated information sites which have already processed and relayed the information disseminated by the GPCI is always active. Acting as a vassal of the Wagner militia, Harouna Douamba found a way to influence West Africa, almost incognito.
