In the early hours of a night in 1987, one of Africa’s youngest leaders, President Thomas Sankara, was murdered and quietly and quickly buried in a shallow grave. He was only 37 years old.
But first who is Thomas Sankara?
Born Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara on 21 December 1949 in Yako French Upper Volta. He was the third of ten children to Joseph and Marguerite Sankara.
In his teens, the bright Sankara an excellent student in mathematics and French defied his parents' wish to become a catholic priest and opted for the military that was very popular at the time.
So, at age 17, he took the military entrance exams, passed, and joined the Kadiogo military academy. He met Adama Touré, the academy's director who taught history and geography and was known for having progressive ideas.
Adama Toure invited a few of his brightest and more political students, among them Sankara, to join informal discussions about imperialism, neocolonialism, socialism, and communism, the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, the liberation movements in Africa, and similar topics outside of the classroom. Here Sankara was systematically exposed to a revolutionary perspective on Upper Volta and the world.
At age 20 Sankara went on for further military studies at the military academy of Antsirabe in Madagascar, from which he graduated as a junior officer in 1973.
The Antsirabe academy is credit for exposing him to a wide range of study areas including agriculture on how to raise crop yields and better the lives of farmers. Later years, these two themes helped him in his revolutionary acts and philosophies that are spread across the world to date.
He returned to Upper Volta and fought in the border war with Mali where he earned fame for his heroic performance.
In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year, he met Blaise Compaoré in Morocco
Aside from his academic and extracurricular political activities, Sankara also pursued his passion for music and played the guitar. He played in a band named "Tout-à-Coup Jazz" and rode a motorcycle. He loved bicycles and Motorcycles.
SANKARA
JOINS GOVERNMENT, BUT HE WAS DIFFERENT!
Guys, this is a very interesting read having in mind the following;
a. Upper Volta is modern-day Burkina Faso,
b. When Blaise Campaore met Sankara.
In 1981, Sankara was appointed Minister of Information in Saye Zerbo's military government. Here is uprightness was noticed and astonished many. He uses bicycles to work every day, instead of driving in a car. While his predecessors censored journalists and newspapers, he encouraged investigative journalism and allowed the media to print whatever it found. MAKOSA!
This led to publications of government scandals by both privately-owned and state-owned newspapers. He was forced to resign on 12 April 1982 and joined the opposition due to pressure from the government.
In November 1982 a coup brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, the government in which Sankara became a Prime Minister in January 1983.
As a Prime Minister, he only served for four months before he was dismissed on May 17th because he pushed the regime of President Ouédraogo for more progressive reforms.
He was later arrested, a very unpopular decision that created discomfort among younger officers in the military regime leading to his friend Blaise Compaoré to lead another coup.
President Thomas Sankara
Sankara's friend Blaise Compaoré and the disgruntled younger military officers executed a coup d'état making Sankara the President on 4 August 1983 at the age of 33. This coup d'état was supported by Libya.
President Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and Ghana's military leader Jerry Rawlings. As President, his policy was oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, averting famine, and making education and health real priorities.
On the first anniversary of his accession in 1984, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning "the land of upright people" in Moré and Dyula, the two major languages of the country. He also gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem.
THE SANKARA PHILOSOPHY: He Who Feeds You Controls You!
Taking the reigns of presidency Sankara was very different from the rest. He saw himself as a reformist, a change agent, and true to his word, within 4 years of his presidency the turnaround was clear.
He is credited with laying the foundation for Burkina Faso’s ambitious drive for democratic, social, and economic change. His main vision to eliminate corruption and end the French dominance. He told his people - "He who controls you, feeds you" in reference to the foreign aid.
He was a pan Africanist and his political agenda was clear to see, but so was his vision in other sectors including health, environmental conservation, education, women empowerment, and much more with the achievements highlighted below.
1. Government Cars: He sold off the government’s fleet of Mercedes cars, replaced them with the ordinary Renault 5, which was then the cheapest car in Burkina Faso. The Renault became the official service car for all government officers and ministers.
2. Salaries: He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.
3. His Salary and Benefit: As a President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge, and a broken freezer.
4. Composer of the national anthem: Sankara might be the only leader worldwide to have written their country’s national anthem. As An accomplished guitarist, the president composed the anthem and gave it its tune.
5. Stopped foreign aid: He put an end to foreign aid to his country, saying it was a means by the first world to control poor nations. This, however, did not come without a plan. He went ahead to reclaim land from the feudal landlords and distributed it directly to the peasants.
6. Wheat production: During his reign the production of wheat in the country rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient
7. Health superman: He oversaw the vaccination of 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles in a matter of weeks.
8. Women empowerment: He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and polygamy in support of Women’s rights. Hefty fines and punishments were put in place to ensure women’s rights were protected. He also appointed women to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education.
9. Women-only presidential guard: Being a motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard. The women traveled with him wherever he went across the country.
10. No portrait in public places and government offices: He declined to have his portrait hung in public places and government offices as is the norm with African leaders. His argument was that there were millions of Sankara’s out there who also wanted their portraits on walls, but did not hang them.
11. He 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.
12. He was a staunch campaigner for the unity of Africa. He urged other leaders on the continent to stop receiving foreign aid, saying it was a way of neo-colonizing them.
THOMAS SANKARA IS KILLED: Burkina Faso Mourns! Blaise Campaore, his friend from the military academy days is involved. BETRAYAL!
Three months before his death, he received a detailed letter as documented in Valerie Some's memoir. The letter explained to Sankara he was going to get killed as his government was divided.
He invited Valerie for a guitar session where he explained to him that he was ready to die. More than ever, he has to choose the people over himself and if a brother like Compaoré chooses to kill him then he prefers to die still in harmony with everything he promised the people.
Let it be known, that despite, Sankara nominating Compaoré as the Minister of state their relationship went south, for Blaise wanted the presidency and was not happy with Sankara's success.
The last days of Sankara's Murder
a. October 8th: Sankara inaugurated the Che Guevara Road in Burkina with Camillo Guevara (Ché's son).
b. On October 10th, 1987, the first anti-apartheid Pan-African summit took place in Ouagadougou Sankara welcomed 29 countries, and forty Civil society organizations Sankara share some of Burkina's failures to free from imperialism and demand more solidarity from other counties.
c. October 11th to 14th: Sankara lead a meeting of ministers where Blaise Compaoré is intentionally absent Thursday, October 15th, 1987 Sankara spent his day at his office, and around 3pm he left to go meet his member secretary at their usual sports venue.
d. Thursday afternoon was a sports day in Burkina Faso. Around 16:30, a car with Compaoré's men walked into where Sankara was and started shooting. At that moment, Sankara told his comrades to stay put as he walked toward them saying take me, I am all you need to kill.
e. Unfortunately the killers would not hesitate to brutally kill Sankara and 13 people who were with him.
f. Burkina Faso went in two days of Silence. Nobody knew what to do next especially the people. Blaise Compaoré would appear on TV on October 17th claiming that it was either him or Sankara. Saying Sankara wanted to kill him.
g. Sankara was buried in an unmarked grave as compaoré's regime denied Sankara's family the permission to exhume Sankara's corpse for 27years. And anyone who protested against Sankara's death was jailed.
Sankara’s wife, Mariam was persecuted she didn't get to see where her husband was buried subjected to a house arrest right after, wasn't allowed to go anywhere and no one was allowed to come to mourn with her.
In Décember 1987, Mariame tried to send her kids to Bamako so they can have a proper childhood, the regime refused to give her travel documents.
On January 21st, 1988, a national notice was sent on every border that the widow of Sankara must not be allowed to leave the country.
In February 1988, the police arrested Sankara's brother Pascal accusing him of hiding a suitcase of money in collaboration with Mariame. The brother was tortured while Mariane was kept under house arrest.
However, the international community and allies of Sankara lobbied for Mariame's freedom, and on June 21st, 1988, she was able to leave Burkina Faso to Libreville, Gabon under the warm welcome of President Omar Bongo.
Blaise Campaore would later deny being responsible for Sankara's death even though his men killed him He said "It wasn't my orders"
He would later flee to Ivory Coast, he is wanted in Burkina Faso for Sankara's murder!
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