Thomas Sankara: A tribute

 "Africa and the world are yet to recover from Sankara’s assassination. Just as we have yet to recover from the loss of Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Eduardo Mondlane, Amilcar Cabral, Steve Biko, Samora Machel, and most recently John Garang, to name only a few. While malevolent forces have not used the same methods to eliminate each of these great pan-Africanists, they have been guided by the same motive: to keep Africa in chains."

– Antonio de Figueiredo, February 2008 (via African artists)

Few have earned the status of being my roles models, though i have quite a number of them who have very unique qualities that i individually admire and try to emulate; from my great father to the Great Mao of china to Fidel of Cuban, Hitler of Germany and even Obama of the "world". Each of them is unique and well known and remembered for a certain quality, but non is remembered for sincere uprightness and integrity like the young and ambitious Captain of Burkina Faso formally called The Republic of Upper Volta, Captain Thomas Sankara.

Thomas Sankara is one in a long lineage of African sons and daughters whose ideas and actions have left an indelible mark on the history of the continent. He was however killed by his brothers in arms with the belief that they could defeat the great example he set for progressive youth across the continent. Unfortunately for his murderers they couldn't have been more wrong with their belief as a week to the faithful day of his assassination, in a historic speech marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of another great revolutionary, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Thomas declared that "ideas cannot be killed, ideas never die". Indeed, the history of humanity is replete with martyrs and heroes whose ideas and actions have survived the dawn of time and have inspired future generations. The ideas, belief and sacrifice of Thomas Sankara has made him a martyr that is larger than life.

This is the reason why over two decades of his dead, Thomas Sankara continues to be in the minds and heart of the few that struggle to end the domination and enslavement of the African Continent. The power of Sankara's revolutionary ideas and popularity cannot be unconnected to the continuous reflection of African's who are frustrated with corrupt leaders and rotten leadership styles that is incapable of setting the continent with all its rich resources of both human and natural abundance in the pairs of western and Asian continents. Sankara’s popularity is also deeply rooted in the profound sincerity of his commitment to serving his people, his devotion to the cause of the emancipation of the Burkinabés and all African peoples. His charisma, honesty and integrity made him a hero for the ‘wretched of the Earth,’ to coin a phrase from Frantz Fanon, who was greatly admired by Sankara.

As Africa looks desperately for leaders of integrity and vision, the life and ideals of the late Thomas Sankara seem more and more relevant and exemplary with the passage of time. Above all, however, the greatness of Sankara lies within the ideas and values he embodied during his brief time on the African and international stage. Indeed, if Sankara arouses as much fervor today as he did two decades ago, it is because he embodied and defended causes that still resonate today among the millions of oppressed in Africa and around the world. Sankara was a genuine revolutionary and a great visionary who had the courage to take on the most difficult challenges and who held great ambitions for his country and Africa. Most of the ideas or causes he defended two decades ago are still at the heart of the struggle for the economic, social and political emancipation of peoples around the world. He was an environmentalist ahead of his time in a so-called ‘poor’ country that was supposed to have other more pressing priorities than the environment.

Sankara was one of the first heads of State, perhaps the only one in his time, to condemn female excision, a position that reflected his unwavering commitment to the emancipation of women and the struggle against all forms of discrimination against women. He was a relentless advocate of gender equality and the recognition of the role of women in all spheres of economic and social life. In his famous speech of 2 October 1983, he stated: ‘We cannot transform society while maintaining domination and discrimination against women who constitute over half of the population.’ His unrelenting struggle against corruption, long before the World Bank and the IMF picked up on this issue, made Sankara an enemy of all corrupt presidents on the continent and of the international capitalist mafia for whom corruption is a tool for conquering markets and pillaging the resources of the global South.

Sankara rejected the inevitability of ‘poverty,’ and was one of the first proponents of food security. He achieved the spectacular feat of making his country food self-sufficient within four years, through sensible agricultural policy and, above all, the mobilisation of the Burkinabé peasantry. He understood that a country that could not feed itself ran the risk of losing its independence and sovereignty. In July 1987, Sankara, close on the heels of Fidel Castro two years earlier, called on African countries to form a powerful front against their continent’s illegitimate and immoral debt and to collectively refuse to pay it.

Once again, he understood before others that the debt was a form of modern enslavement for Africa; a major cause of poverty and deep suffering for African populations. Sankara famously stated: ‘If we do not pay the debt, our lenders will not die. However, if we do pay it, we will die…’ On the international stage, Sankara was the first African head of State, indeed the first in the world, to denounce the UN Security Council’s right of veto and to condemn the lack of democracy within the United Nations system as well as the hypocrisy that characterized international relations. Today, all of these ideas have become self- evident truths and are at the heart of popular resistance movements, including the World Social Forum that has become one of the most powerful major rallying points.

Captain Thomas Sankara is the lion king that should be remembered by all and who value the ideas and values that he stood for and died for this values should particularly be upheld by the youth of the African continent since it has become obvious that the current generation of leaders are hell bent on throwing the continent back to colonial rule. Thomas Sankara is a role model, a teacher, inspiration and a benchmark to all of us that strive to see a better, progressive and more united Africa that should be strong enough to be heard and respected.

Long Live Sankara, Long Live Africa and long live the cause of the good.

Source: Because I am involved

Who Really Killed Thomas Sankara?

As the Charles Taylor trial continues, African historian Carina Ray looks at the possibility that Taylor was complicit in Sankara's assassination.

In January 2008, after much delay, the trial of former Liberian president, Charles Ghankay Taylor, is scheduled to begin at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Taylor faces an 11-count indictment for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other violations of international humanitarian law. These charges stem from his involvement in the atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s armed conflict dating back to 1996, and more specifically his support of the main rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), headed by Foday Sankoh. The brutality of the war and its direct toll on the civilian population are most visible today in the thousands of amputees throughout Sierra Leone whose limbs were hacked off in a bid to stifle civilian resistance through fear. While Taylor’s path of destruction arguably came to its apex during the war in Sierra Leone, his history prior to that also deserves our scrutiny since we know his much longer record of wanton destabilization in West Africa is precisely what allowed him to wield so much power within the RUF.

In particular, Taylor’s return to West Africa from the United States in 1985 and the events that followed deserve our attention. Taylor arrived in Ghana after escaping from a prison in Boston, Massachusetts where he was being held pending extradition to Liberia on embezzlement charges levied against him by the Doe regime. Ghanaian authorities eventually jailed Taylor twice for his increasingly subversive activities. By 1987, however, he had arrived in Burkina Faso. The approximate timing of his appearance in the country coincided with the assassination of President Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, on 15 October 1987.

While it is commonly accepted that Burkina Faso’s current head of state, Blaise Compaore, ordered Sankara’s assassination after their once close relationship soured, for years people have also been linking Taylor to the assassination. In 1993 Liberian economist, S. Byron Tarr, published an article in the respected academic journal, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, on the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group’s (ECOMOG) intervention in the Liberian civil war (1989-1996). Therein Tarr gave the most detailed account to date of Taylor’s movements prior to Sankara’s assassination. According to Tarr, in 1987 Taylor approached the Burkinabe embassy in Accra to ask for assistance in overthrowing the Doe regime in Liberia. The Burkinabe ambassador to Ghana, Madam Mamouna Ouattara, a Compaore loyalist, appears to have solicited Compaore’s assistance in getting the Ghanaian authorities to release Taylor into Burkinabe custody. This was facilitated by the fact that Ghana neither wanted to hand Taylor over to the Americans nor to Doe, and so Rawlings apparently released him to Compaore who had come to Accra as part of a mediation process Rawlings had undertaken to resolve the mounting disagreements between Sankara and Compaore. Tarr, notes that “Not long after Taylor was delivered to Compaore, Sankara was murdered.” In exchange for Taylor’s assistance in carrying out Sankara’s assassination, Tarr suggests that Compaore provided assistance to Taylor who was in the process of organizing the guerilla war that would eventually lead to the overthrow of the Doe regime. Crucially, Compaore is believed to have introduced Taylor to Libyan president, Muammar Qaddafi. Taylor and his recruits subsequently traveled to Libya where they underwent guerrilla training and formed a strategic alliance with Qaddafi who supported his desire to overthrow the Doe regime. The training he gained there was critical to his ability to launch the Liberian civil war in 1989 from his base in Ivory Coast. This general version of events has been echoed more recently in articles that have appeared in several other forums, including the Liberian Democratic Future’s (LDF) on-line newsmagazine, The Perspective, and The Liberian Mandingo Association of New York’s website.

It must be pointed out, however, that this version of events has been called into question. Ghanaian political scientist Eboe Hutchful who serves as the executive director of the Accra-based NGO, African Security Dialogue and Research, has suggested that his Ghanaian informants dispute the idea that Ghana released Taylor to Compaore; rather they contend that he was taken to the Ivorian border and released there. From Ivory Coast he is said to have made his way to Burkina Faso, “where the Libyans introduced him to Compaore,” rather than the other way around. Moreover, Hutchful suggests that Sankara may have already been killed by the time the Ghanaian authorities released Taylor.

The striking aspect of each of these sources is that they treat Taylor’s possible involvement in Sankara’s assassination as a side note. To date, the question of what role he played in organizing and carrying out Sankara’s murder has not been the focal point of investigation.

In March 2006 the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Sankara’s family has “the right to know the circumstances of his death.” Any attempt to shed light on these circumstances, therefore, must seriously consider whether Taylor was involved in the assassination, and if so, to what extent and under whose direction.

Source:  pambazuka

Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara's 'Against debt' speech 1987

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanist theorist, and communist President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Viewed as a charismatic, and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as "...Africa's Che Guevara."

Sankara seized power in a 1983 popularly supported coup at the age of 33, with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the former French colonial power.He immediately launched "the most ambitious program for social and economic change ever attempted on the African continent." To symbolize this new autonomy and rebirth, he even renamed the country from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("Land of Upright Men"). His foreign policies were centered around anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the IMF and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. Other components of his national agenda included planting over ten million trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel, doubling wheat production by redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents, and establishing an ambitious road and rail construction program to "tie the nation together." Moreover, his commitment to women's rights led him to outlaw female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.

In order to achieve this radical transformation of society, he increasingly exerted authoritarian control over the nation, eventually banning unions and a free press, which he believed could stand in the way of his plans and be manipulated by powerful outside influences To counter his opposition in towns and workplaces around the country, he also tried corrupt officials, counter-revolutionaries (and) "lazy workers" in peoples revolutionary tribunals. Additionally, as an admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR's).

His revolutionary programs for African self-reliance as a defiant alternative to the neo-liberal development strategies imposed by the West, made him an icon to many of Africa's poor, and despite his excesses, Sankara remained popular with most of his country's impoverished citizens. However his policies alienated and antagonised the vested interests of an array of groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class, the tribal leaders whom he stripped of the long-held traditional right to forced labour and tribute payments, and the foreign financial interests in France and their ally the Ivory Coast. As a result, he was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by the French-backed Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987. A week before his execution he declared that, "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas".

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