On October 11, the judicial process began in Burkina Faso against those implicated in the murder of Thomas Sankara, a charismatic revolutionary and president of the country between 1983 and 1987. One of the accused is his successor, Blaise Compaoré, who will be tried in absentia because he was He has been in Côte d’Ivoire since the massive protests that took place in Burkina in 2014 after he tried to change the Constitution to extend his term.
One day after it started, the trial was postponed two weeks. However, if completed, it will close the story of an assassination.
Nicknamed ‘the African Che,’ Sankara remains a crucial figure in Burkina Faso politics and is still the source of fierce disputes in that country’s society.
Way to power
Born in 1949 into the family of a military man, Sankara saw the declaration of the independence of Upper Volta – that’s what this former French colony was called then – when he was 10 years old. After finishing his military training, at the age of 19 he entered the Army.
He became politicized during a mission to Madagascar, where he witnessed a popular uprising and became familiar with the works of Marx and Lenin. Upon returning to Upper Volta, he began to gain popularity among the population and military circles unhappy with corruption and the country’s political and economic dependence.
By the early 1980s, Sankara was well known in the capital, Ouagadougou. As regimes changed, he was arrested several times, then promoted to the position of Minister of Information, and subsequently arrested again, to become Prime Minister in the military government of Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo in January 1983. But already months later he was again placed under house arrest.
In this situation, Compaoré and the officials ideologically related to Sankara drew up a plan of revolt. The August 4, 1983, the Ouagadougou garrison overthrew the Ouedraogo government, and Sankara was appointed president of the National Revolutionary Committee.
‘The country of men of integrity’
In 1980, Upper Volta was one of the poorest countries in the world. The average income of your 7 million inhabitants were from $ 210 per year. Less than 10% of the population lived in cities and the adult literacy rate was 11%. Only 18% of children attended primary school and a tiny 3% attended secondary school, pick up historian Ernest Harsch.
All these problems did not deter the revolutionary, who was only 33 years old when he came to power. The reform program initiated by Sankara envisioned the multidimensional modernization of a long-back country.
One of the measures he implemented was the land distribution of wealthy landowners among the peasants. Also, in an attempt to reverse the desertification of the Sahel, the Government of Sankara planted more than 10 million trees. As a result, in three years agricultural productivity increased from 1,700 to 3,800 kilograms per hectare and the nation achieved food self-sufficiency, indicates the Panafrican Review magazine. Soon, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in cotton.
At the same time, large infrastructural projects were carried out. All regions of the country were interconnected with a road and rail network, and several brick factories for the construction of houses.
The health system was also developed. In the framework of a massive campaign, 2 million children Burkinabe were vaccinated against polio, meningitis and measles in less than two weeks. As a result, infant mortality fell by around 20 to 14%. In the field of education, a national campaign increased the literacy rate in the country up to 73%.
Likewise, Burkina Faso made a leap in terms of women’s rights. The revolutionary government prohibited the ancient customs of female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy, encouraging women to work and join the Armed Forces. In addition, several women were appointed to high political positions.
The changes also reached the nomenclature, and the country itself changed its name by decision of Sankara, so that the August 4, 1984 the Upper Volta was renamed Burkina Faso, which means ‘Country of men of integrity’ in the Moré language.
“The debt is a reconquest of Africa”
The fight against the political and economic dependency of the country was at the center of Sankara’s politics. The revolutionary considered the debt as the most important mechanism of imperialism in its current stage of development.
“We believe that debt must be viewed from the point of view of its origins. The origins of debt stem from the origins of colonialism. Those who lend us money are those who had colonized us before. […] In its current form, that is, controlled by imperialism, the debt is a skillfully managed reconquest of Africa, with the aim of subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. A) Yes, each of us becomes a financial slave“Sankara told the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa in 1987.
The reality was that from the 1970s on, African countries had been accumulating loans that financial organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund granted even to regimes that clearly would not pay them back, such as Mobutu’s in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, between 1982 and 1990 the continent’s debt doubled, reaching $ 270 million.
For Sankara, this situation meant that the population “could relax at home and borrow money from neo-colonialists, but it should take into account that they and their children would have to repay the loans with interest“, explained to the portal This Is Africa his former advisor, Fidèle Kientega. As a result, the revolutionary regime refused to pay the credits accumulated by previous governments and ask for new loans, opting to rely on its own resources.
To compensate for the absence of foreign funds, Sankara appealed to the population. As a result, a massive volunteer movement was created and the Burkina Faso implemented major projects with their own forces.
“People got the message and were motivated to work harder“says Kientega.
Epersonal example
To a large extent, the speed and success of Sankara’s policies are due to his willingness to set a personal example for his compatriots.
From the beginning, the revolutionary reduced the income of all officials, as well as his own, limiting the presidential salary to 450 dollars.
Likewise, it closed access to unattainable luxuries for the majority of the Burkinabe population for state positions. In particular, officials were prohibited from having air conditioning in offices and traveling first class by plane. The government fleet of Mercedes cars was sold, which was replaced by a fleet of the cheapest car of the moment, the Renault 5.
Despite his great popularity, Sankara was opposed to the creation of the cult of his personality. When asked once why he did not want his portraits to be hung in public places, he replied: “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras”.
“Sankara was ambitious, motivated, and often uncompromising. His presidency offers a glimpse of what happens when a militant activist becomes the leader of a country“, writes Sankara’s biographer, Amber Murray.
“We are afraid of all these countries that threaten”
In full conformity with the path towards modernization and independence for Burkina Faso, the foreign policy of the Sankara government included a confrontation with the imperialist forces in Africa and the construction of a continental consensus.
Thus, when the then French President François Mitterrand arrived in Ouagadougou in November 1986, Sankara did not refrain from openly criticizing him for supporting ‘apartheid’ in South Africa and the cruel guerrillas in Mozambique and Angola. “All those who have allowed them to act as they have will take full responsibility, here and elsewhere, today and forever “, said the Burkinabe leader in an unusual gesture for African rulers of the time. Mitterrand, instead of delivering his speech as planned, answered: “You are a somewhat troublesome man, President Sankara!”
In June the following year, at a meeting of Heads of African Union member states in the Ethiopian capital, the Burkinabe leader criticized the continent’s political elites no less blatantly. “Mr. president, how many heads of state are ready to go to Paris, London or Washington when they are called to a meeting there, but can’t attend a meeting here in Addis Ababa, in Africa? “asked Sankara.
These trends were compounded by friendly relations with the countries of the socialist bloc, which, however, did not make Burkina Faso their satellite. Sankara proved it in 1984 condemning before the UN the invasion of the USSR in Afghanistan. In a interview with The New York Times in 1985, he compared it to the American occupation of the Caribbean island of Grenada, rejecting the dictates of any power: “We are afraid of all these countries that threaten.”
Fatal mistakes
A talented speaker and charismatic leader, Sankara had the support of the majority of the Burkinabe population and a network of activist organizations called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) in honor of the Cuban revolutionary cells that inspired them.
However, throughout the four years in power, the social base of the Burkina Faso revolution diminished. Measures such as the repression of the trade union movement and its replacement by CDR or the government’s conflict with part of the socialist intellectuals, whose most notable representative was Joseph Ki-Zerbo, contributed to this. Meanwhile, the numerically small but influential group of Sankara’s rivals – made up of senior officers and officials, as well as the traditional aristocracy and the middle class– remained latent. In turn, the political system built by the revolutionaries was of vertical, formed by mass organizations that acted as executors and not as generators of initiatives.
As a result, “by 1987 there was no one to defend SankaraThey were all against him, “explains historian and Africanist Alexei Tselunov.
“After failing to crush the strongest trade unionism in that part of Africa, Sankara he was totally isolated“, the expert told MRT.
The October 15, 1987, the coup d’état organized by former associates of Sankara took place. The president was assassinated in his palace, along with various officials, by 12 officers. Blaise Compaoré, the man who led the country, announced that Sankara’s death was the result of a “accident” and introduced the policy of “rectification”, gradually reversing the achievements of its predecessor. In a few years, he returned to request loans from international financial organizations.
The coup plotters were able to stay in power thanks to the mimicry of Sankara’s revolutionary discourse and the lack of initiative in the mass organizations. However, over time the image of the revolutionary became a symbol of opposition to the authoritarian government of Compaoré.
“For the youth, Sankara became the symbol of all good things, without all the bad that undoubtedly took place, “says Tselunov.
After a series of violent protests, that image won out.
“Revolutionaries are individuals who can be assassinated, but ideas cannot be assassinated”Sankara once said. History will show if he was right.
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