When Captain Thomas Sankara was assassinated
on October 15, 1987, it was a dark testimony
regime he had instituted in former Upper Volta
which he changed to “Burkina Faso”, meaning
“Fatherland of Upright Men.”
But his countrymen were not so upright as his
childhood friend Captain Blaise Campaore
conspired with local and external forces to kill
him.
Three days before his death, a French journalist
had asked Sankara if he ever feared for his life
and how much trust he had for Campaore, his
second in command and childhood friend.
Sankara had given Campaore visible position and
power in running one of the world’s poorest
countries. Sankara told the reporter that ‘’if
Campaore plots against him, there was nothing
that could save him or frustrate the plot”.
Unknown to Sankara, Campaore was the insider
in the conspiracy between France and Cote
d’Ivoire to stop his’s four year Socialist-Marxist
revolution that was hitting at the root of poverty
and underdevelopment in Burkina Faso and West
Africa as a whole.
Three days later, gun men busted into his
presidential office where he was in a meeting with
his aides. The armed men were later found to
have been trained in Cote Dvoire from where they
moved in to Quagadogou for the operation.
The armed men were later identified to be
members of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic
Front of Liberia (NPFL). Sankara tried to ran
away but he was caught on the staircase and
rained with bullets. That was the end of the
Sankara revolution and the eventual 27 year reign
of Blaise Campaore who became one of the
disastrous examples of leaders in Africa.
Campaore prevented the family of Sankara from
taking his body as he was buried along with other
loyal solders that tried to fight back. Campaore,
the son-in-law of the Felix Houphouet Boigny,
then president of Cote d’Iovire were the strongest
supporters of Mr. Charles Taylor who invaded
Liberia from Nimba country in December 1989.
It is instructive to note that the invasion of
Liberia from the border with Cote d’Ivoire came
two years after the assassination of Thomas
Sankara.
Both Campaore and late Boigny were stoutly
opposed to the military mission of West African
States (ECOMOG) which was set up in 1991 to
put a halt to the barbaric execution of the civil
war in Liberia.
The outcome of the Liberian war which lasted for
13 years shifted attention away from Sankara and
the infamy of Blaise Campaore. Blaise Campaore
met his own waterloo last year when angry
protests by the citizens of Burkina Faso forced
him to abandon his plan to perpetuate himself in
power pressures from the family of Sankara has
forced the new helmsman in Ouagadougou to Mr.
Michael Kafando to order that the body of
Sankara should be exhumed for examination and
to be given a befitting burial.
Kafando has also ordered a full investigation into
the plot that led to the death of Captain Thomas
Sankara who was hailed as Africa’s Che Guevara.
The Sankara Revolution
At 33, Captain Thomas Sankara launched a
revolution to transform Burkina Faso. He launched
nationalisation and land distribution programmes
in the country. He pushed up school enrolment
from 6% to 22% and increased the national
vaccination programme to 2.5 million. Several
health centres were opened while massive
construction of road and rail transport were
embarked upon. Sankara ordered the planting of
10 million trees to combat drought and
desertification in his country. He declared war on
corruption by placing himself on less than $500 a
month. His ministers were on low pay as well.
Low profile was maintained in public life. He
strongly opposed foreign aid.
Under Sankara the government also prioritised
gender equality, working towards the end of
female genital mutilation, forced marriages and
polygamy. The tragedy that robbed ‘Africa’s Che’
from his family may also have preserved his place
among the stars as Sankara is still much revered
across Africa today.
Discontent with the Revolution
Discontent with the revolution set in when he tried
to alter the traditional institutions. Sankara
stripped traditional chiefs of their rights and
privileges. He set up “revolutionary people’s
tribunals” to try former public officials charged
with political crimes. Opposition parties and
unions were banned and media freedoms
curtailed. Striking teachers were fired and
replaced by young people with no experience.
The people became suspicious of his political
philosophy. Sankara was caught off guard when
gunmen burst into his office and gunned him
down along with 12 aides. His body was
unceremoniously dumped in a makeshift grave in
the dead of the night, which quickly became a
shrine for thousands of people who filed past it to
pay their respects. There has been popular
feelings that the new regime should give Sankara
a decent burial.
Exiled Compaoré, has always denied involvement
in the killing, insisting that the “facts are known”
and he has “nothing to hide”.
But whatever the outcome of the exhumation, a
deeper, more troubling mystery will remain:
whether Thomas Sankara’s revolution would have
survived.
Fear of Domino effect
Watchers of international politics have argued
that Sankara led one of the most creative and
radical reforms in Africa from 1983 to 1987. There
were fears that the success of his revolution
might be followed in the other African countries.
Many believed that this led to his early death
which France was suspected to have spearheaded
using Houphouet Boigny as the arrow head.
In 1985 Sankara said”‘I would like to leave behind
me the conviction that if we maintain a certain
amount of caution and organization we deserve
victory… You cannot carry out fundamental
change without a certain amount of madness. In
this case, it comes from nonconformity, the
courage to turn your back on the old formulas,
the courage to invent the future. It took the
madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act
with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of
those madmen. We must dare to invent the
future.’
Legacy of an incorruptible man
A major anti-corruption drive began in 1987. The
tribunal showed Captain Thomas Sankara to have
a salary of only $450 a month and his most
valuable possessions to be a car, four bikes, three
guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer. He was the
world’s poorest president.
Sankara refused to use the air conditioning in his
office on the grounds that such luxury was not
available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes.
When asked why he had let it be known that he
did not want his portrait hung in public places, as
is the norm for other African leaders (and as
Blaise Compaoré does now), Sankara said ‘There
are seven million Thomas Sankaras’.
Landmarks of Sankara revolution
Feb 1984 Tribute payments to and obligatory
labour for the traditional village chiefs are
outlawed.
4 Aug 1984 All land and mineral wealth are
nationalized. The country’s name is changed from
the colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, words
from two different local languages meaning ‘Land
of the Incorruptible’.
22 Sept 1984 A day of solidarity: men are
encouraged to go to market and prepare meals to
experience for themselves the conditions faced by
women.
Oct 1984 The rural poll tax is abolished.
Nov 1984 ‘Vaccination Commando’. In 15 days
2.5 million children are immunized against
meningitis, yellow fever and measles.
3 Dec 1984 Top civil servants and military officers
are required to give one month’s pay and other
civil servants to give half a month to help fund
social development projects.
31 Dec 1984 All domestic rents are suspended for
1985 and a massive public housing construction
program begins.
1 Jan 1985 Launch of a campaign to plant 10
million trees to slow the Sahara’s advance.
4 Aug 1985 An all-women parade marks the
anniversary of the Revolution.
10 Sep 1985 The mounting hostility of the
region’s conservative regimes is revealed at a
meeting in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire.
Feb-Apr 1986 ‘Alpha Commando’. A literacy
campaign in nine indigenous languages involves
35,000 people.
End of 1986 A UN-assisted program brings river
blindness under control.
15 Oct 1987 Sankara is assassinated in a coup
d’état along with 12 aides.
Culled from Vanguard
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