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Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara
Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was the leader
of Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) from 1983 to 1987. While noted for his
personal charisma and praised for promoting health and women's rights, he also antagonised
many vested interests in the country.[2] He was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led
by Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987, sometimes believed to have been at the instruction of
France.
Contents
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• 1 Early life
• 2 Military career
• 3 Government posts
• 4 President
• 5 Abolition of chiefs' privileges
• 6 Women's rights
• 7 Second Agacher strip war
• 8 Assassination
• 9 Writings by Thomas Sankara
• 10 Quotes
• 11 Notes and references
• 12 Further reading
• 13 External links
His father fought in the French army during World War II and was detained by the Nazis.
Sankara's family wanted him to become a Catholic priest. According to some sources,[4] he never
lost his Catholic faith despite his Marxist tendencies. Fittingly for a country with a large Muslim
population, he was also familiar with the Qur'an.
He became a popular figure in the capital of Ouagadougou. The fact that he was a decent
guitarist (he played in a band named "Tout-à-Coup Jazz") and liked motorbikes may have
contributed to his charisma.
In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year he met
Blaise Compaoré in Morocco. During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo a group of young
officers formed a secret organisation "Communist Officers' Group" (Regroupement des officiers
communistes, or ROC) the best-known members being Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary
Lingani, Compaoré and Sankara.
[edit] President
A coup d'état organised by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on August 4, 1983,[5] at the
age of 33. The coup d'état was supported by Libya which was, at the time, on the verge of war
with France in Chad[6] (see History of Chad).
Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba and Ghana's
military leader, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings. As President, he promoted the "Democratic and
Popular Revolution" (Révolution démocratique et populaire, or RDP).
In 1984, on the first anniversary of his accession, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning
"the land of upright people" in Mossi and Djula, the two major languages of the country. He also
gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem (Une Seule Nuit).
Sankara had some original initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some
international media attention to the Burkinabé revolution:
• He sold most of the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the
cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers;
• He formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
• In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned
supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).
[edit] Assassination
On October 15, 1987 Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a coup d'état organised by
his former colleague, Compaoré. Deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one
of the reasons given by Compaoré for his action. Prince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord
allied to Charles Taylor, told Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that it was
engineered by Charles Taylor.[7] After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead,
some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days.
Sankara was quickly buried in an unmarked grave. A week prior to his death Sankara addressed
people and said that "while revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill
ideas."
"It's really a pity that there are observers who view political events like comic strips. There has to
be a Zorro, there has to be a star. No, the problem of Upper Volta is more serious than that. It
was a grave mistake to have looked for a man, a star, at all costs, to the point of creating one, that
is, to the point of attributing the ownership of the event to captain Sankara, who must have been
the brains, etc."
"That is the hidden side of November 7 revealed. Mysteries still remain under the cover. History
will perhaps be able to speak about it at greater length and to assign responsibilities more
clearly."
"As for our relationship with the political class, what relations would you have liked us to
weave? We explained face to face, directly with the leaders, the former leaders of the former
political parties because, for us, these parties do not exist any more, they have been dissolved.
And that is very clear. The relationship that we have with them is simply the relationship we
have with voltaic citizens, or, if they so wish, the relationship between revolutionaries, if they
wish to become revolutionaries. Beyond that, nothing remains but the relationship between
revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries."
"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."
1985
Source: (Excerpt from interviews with Swiss Journalist Jean-Philippe Rapp, translated from
Sankara: Un nouveau pouvoir africain by Jean Ziegler. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions Pierre-
Marcel Favre, 1986. Used by permission in following source:) Sankara, Thomas. Thomas
Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87. trans. Samantha Anderson. New York:
Pathfinder, 1988. pp. 141-144.