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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. With a potent combination of personal charisma and a social organization with some participatory democracy, his government undertook major initiatives to fight corruption and improve education, agriculture, and the status of women. His revolutionary program provoked strong opposition from traditional leaders and the country's numerically small but powerful middle class. Added to friction between radical and more conservative members of the ruling junta, these factors led to his downfall and assassination in a bloody ''coup d'état'' on October 15, 1987.
Early life
Thomas Sankara was the son of Marguerite Sankara (died March 6, 2000) and Sambo Joseph Sankara (1919 – August 4, 2006), a gendarme.[2]
Born into a Roman Catholic family, "Thom'Sank" was a Silmi-Mossi, an ethnic group that originated with marriage between Mossi men and women of the pastoralist Fulani people, the Silmi-Mossi are among the least advantaged in the Mossi caste system. He attended primary school in Gaoua and high school in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second city.
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,[3] 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.
Military career
After basic military training in secondary school in 1966, Sankara began his military career at the age of 19, and a year later he was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabe where he witnessed popular uprisings in 1971 and 1972. Returning to Upper Volta in 1972, in 1974 he fought in a border war between Upper Volta and Mali.
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.
Government posts
Sankara was appointed Secretary of State for Information in the military government in September 1981, journeying to his first cabinet meeting on a bicycle, but he resigned on April 21, 1982 in opposition to what he saw as the regime's anti-labour drift, declaring "Misfortune to those who gag the people!" (''"Malheur à ceux qui baillonnent le peuple!"'')
After another coup (November 7, 1982) brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, Sankara became prime minister in January 1983, but he was dismissed (May 17) and placed under house arrest after a visit by the French president's son and African affairs adviser Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani were also placed under arrest; this caused a popular uprising.
President
A ''coup d'état'' organised by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on August 4(1), 1983, 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(2) (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).
The ideology of the Revolution was defined by Sankara as anti-imperialist in a speech of October 2, 1983, the ''Discours d'orientation politique'' (DOP), written by his close associate Valère Somé. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, averting famine, and making education and health real priorities.
Abolition of chiefs' privileges
The government suppressed many of the powers held by tribal chiefs such as their right to receive tribute payment and obligatory labour. The CDRs (''Comités de Défense de la Révolution''), were formed as popular mass organizations and armed. In some areas they deteriorated into gangs of armed thugs. Sankara's government also initiated a form of military conscription with the SERNAPO (''Service National et Populaire''). Both were a counterweight to the power of the army.
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'').
Women's rights
Sankara's government included a large number of women. Improving women's status was one of Sankara's explicit goals, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government banned female genital cutting, condemned polygamy, and promoted contraception. The Burkinabé government was also the first African government to publicly recognize that AIDS is a major threat to Africa.
Sankara had a high sense of advertising; he had some spectacular initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some attention from the international press on 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).
Second Agacher strip war
In 1985 Burkina Faso organised a general population census. During the census some Fula camps in Mali were visited by mistake by Burkinabé census agents. The Malian government claimed that it was an act of sovereignty on the Agacher strip and on Christmas Day 1985, tensions with Mali erupted in a war that lasted five days and killed about 100 people (most victims were civilians killed by a bomb dropped on the marketplace in Ouahigouya by a Malian MIG-21 plane). The conflict is known as the "Christmas war" in Burkina Faso.
Assassination
On October 15, 1987 Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a ''coup d'état'' organised by his former colleague Blaise Compaoré. Deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one of the reasons given by Compaoré for his action. 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."
'''Notes :'''
# The date may have been chosen for a symbolic purpose as the 194th anniversary of the Abolition of Feudal Privileges in France, but there is no evidence.
# Chad was at war with Libya. France was providing air support to Chad. According to some witnesses some French troops were involved in ground operations.
Writings by Thomas Sankara
★ ''L'émancipation des femmes et la lutte de libération de l'Afrique'' (''Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle''), available in English, French, Spanish, and Persian, Pathfinder Press.
★ ''We Are Heirs of the World's Revolutions'', a 76-page pamphlet of Sankara's speeches, Pathfinder Press.
★ ''Thomas Sankara Speaks, the Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-87'', a 338-page collection of Sankara's speeches, Pathfinder Press (www.pathfinderpress.com).
Quotes
"We hope and believe that the best way of limiting the usurpation of power by individuals, military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge. Between fractions, between clans, plots and coups d'etats can be perpetrated. Against the people, a durable coup d'etat cannot be perpetrated. Therefore, the best way of preventing the army from confiscating power for itself and for itself alone is to make this power shared by the voltaic people from the outset. That's what we are aiming for.."
August 21, 1983 press conference.
Source:
"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."
August 21, 1983 press conference.
Source:
"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."
August 21, 1983 press conference.
Source:
"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."
August 21, 1983 press conference.
Source:
"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.
Writings about Thomas Sankara
★ ''Biographie de Thomas Sankara : La Patrie ou la Mort...'', de Bruno Jaffré ISBN : 2-7384-5836-X • 1997 268 pages
★ '' Les années Sankara de la révolution à la Rectification'', de Bruno Jaffré ISBN : 2-7384-5967-6 • 1989 new edition in 1997 336 pages
★ '' Le président Thomas SANKARA, Chef de la Révolution Burkinabe: 1983-1987 Portrait'' de Alfred Yambanga SAWADOGO,
ISBN 2-7475-0588-X Ed. L'Harmattan,Mars 2001
★ '' Thomas SANKARA,"OSER INVENTER L'AVENIR" La parole de Sankara'' de DAVID GAKUNZI
ISBN 2-7384-0761-7 Ed. PATHFINDER et HARMATTAN, Janvier 2005
★ "THOMAS SANKARA, L'ESPOIR ASSASSINE" de Valere SOME
ISBN 2-7384-0568-1 Ed. L'Harmattan , Janvier 2005
See also
History of Burkina Faso
External links
★ http://www.thomassankara.org/
★ http://www.mathaba.net/www/black/sankara.shtml
★ Thomas Sankara WebSite
★ http://www.afrik.com/article6258.html
★ http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200308041051.html
★ http://www.togoforum.com/Ap/ap1015022.htm
Notes
1. Defining the scope of “adequate and effective remedies” under the ''International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Sankara v. Burkina Faso'' 1159/2003
2. [1] [2]
3. Bruno Jaffré
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