The Pan-Africanism Working Group in Germany expresses solidarity with the people of Burkina Faso following the successful revolt against Blaise Compaore.

The uprising of the masses in Burkina Faso proves Western arms and support doesn't guranatee unrestrained tyrannical control

The popular uprising that toppled the Compaore regime last week echoed the revolution by Sankara on August 4, 1983. In the 27 years since Sankara’s assassination, the country’s mineral wealth and other resources have benefited only a small elite and transnational corporations based in the imperialist states of the West.

In this short but bold message to mark 27 years since the assassination of revolutionary President Thomas Sankara on October 15, his widow outlines some of the challenges facing Burkinabes under the failed Compaore regime and urges continued resistance.

President Blaise Compaore’s ouster last week by popular revolt was the culmination of the people’s opposition to his regime, starting in 2011. The regime contrasted sharply with the short-lived government of Thomas Sankara. But Compaore’s exit does not necessarily mean restoration of Sankara’s revolution.

Once again the process of authenticating the tomb of Sankara ends in a denial of justice. The reality of Burkina Faso is that Blaise Campaore is the sole and veritable judge in this affair. And he panics each time the issue comes up, afraid that he himself might be charged, just as he panics at the idea of being sued for his role in the wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and la Côte d’Ivoire.

26 years ago Thomas Sankara was assassinated. The circumstances are yet to be clarified ... But he enjoys ever growing popularity

Here is the complete text of a hand-written speech that revolutionary Burkinabe President and African statesman Thomas Sankara was set to deliver on the evening of the day he was assassinated, October 15, 1987. Pambazuka News published a special issue on Sankara last week

Although murdered by retrogressive forces opposed to Burkina Faso’s true liberation and that of Africa, Thomas Sankara’s revolutionary ideas and initiatives remain a powerful inspiration to those individuals and movements that are dedicated to struggles for social justice everywhere

The sharpness of Sankara's mind and the courage of his convictions are very apparent in this forceful to heads of state and government attending the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, now African Union) summit in Addis Ababa in 1987. The chains of foreign debt still remain a troubling issue for Africa

This short shows the neglected grave of Thomas Sankara, and compares to how heroes are celebrated elsewhere: the grave of Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi's place of cremation

Thomas Sankara was a visionary. He was very ambitious and wanted the Burkinabe revolution to bear immediate fruits for his people, and he paid no attention to the political intrigues of the time, which culminated in his assassination. His single-minded determination to serve his people is a lesson for all who aspire to public office

Instead of a bust, a life-sized carving, a portrait, or a decent tomb with a headstone and his epitaph, Thomas Sankara’s remains are placed beneath dirt and unkempt surroundings overgrown by weeds. Not that he would have cared

Like Nkrumah of Ghana and Nyerere of Tanzania, Sankara sought to restore dignity and honour to his country and to imbue the youth with the ideals of pan-African solidarity, dignity and honour

Twenty-six years after the death of Sankara, it remains true that the essence of struggle is to mobilise people to believe in transforming their lives; that they have the capacity to dare to invent the future through collective struggle, rather than belief in an awaited messiah to lead them.

Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso, was assassinated 26 years ago. His original ideas for his country prefigured the alternative world movement and current approaches to change in Africa and South America

Written on the ninth anniversary of Sankara’s assassination, insight into the personality and political motivations of Sankara reveal not only a workaholic but a sensitive individual who sided with the poor in Burkinabé society

It has been thirty years since Thomas Sankara took power, before he was assassinated in 1987. The Sankarist Revolution was one of the greatest attempts at popular democratic emancipation in post-Independence Africa and is considered a novel experience of broad economic, social, cultural and political transformation

The country has remained stable under long-serving President Compaore, but now elections are looming. The transition could be tricky, a new report says, and attempts to amend the constitution to enable Compaore to run again could spark a popular uprising