High food prices and cuts in food aid to HIV-positive people are forcing relief organisations in Burkina Faso to take another look at local foods to keep people healthy. "We are all working with sustainability in mind, and we cannot always continue to rely on external support," said Dr Joseph Aimé Bidiga, who runs the health division at the national AIDS control council, CNLS.

Woman's fate is bound up with that of the exploited male. This is a fact. However, this solidarity, arising from the exploitation that both men and women suffer and that binds them together historically, must not cause us to lose sight of the specific reality of the woman's situation. The conditions of her life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. The specific character of this oppression cannot be explained away by setting up an equal sign or by falling into easy and childish simplifications.

It is true that both she and the male worker are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current economic system, the worker's wife is also condemned to silence by her worker-husband. In other words, in addition to the class exploitation common to both of them, women must confront a particular set of relations that exist between them and men, relations of conflict and violence that use as their pretext physical differences. It is clear that the difference between the sexes is a feature of human society. This difference characterises particular relations that immediately prevent us from viewing women, even in production, as simply female workers. The existence of relations of privilege, of relations that spell danger for the woman, all this means that women's reality constitutes an ongoing problem for us.

The male uses the complex nature of these relations as an excuse to sow confusion among women. He takes advantage of all the shrewdness that class exploitation has to offer in order to maintain his domination over women. This is the same method used by men to dominate other men in other lands. The idea was established that certain men, by virtue of their family origin and birth, or by divine right, were superior to others. This was the basis for the feudal system. Other men have managed to enslave whole peoples in this way. They used their origins, or arguments based on their skin colour, as a supposedly scientific justification for dominating those who were unfortunate enough to have skin of a different colour. This is what colonial domination and apartheid are based on.

We must pay the closest attention to women's situation because it pushes the most conscious of them into waging a sex war when what we need is a war of classes or parties, waged together, side by side. We have to say frankly that it is the attitude of men that makes such confusion possible. It is men's attitude that spawns the bold assertions made by feminism, certain of which have not been without value in the war which men and women are waging against oppression. This war is one we can and will win – if we understand that we need one another and are complementary, that we share the same fate, and in fact, that we are condemned to interdependence.

At this moment, we have little choice but to recognise that masculine behaviour comprises vanity, irresponsibility, arrogance, and violence of all kinds toward women. This kind of behaviour can hardly lead to coordinated action against women's oppression. And we must say frankly that such attitudes, which can sink to the level of sheer stupidity, are in reality nothing but a safety valve for the oppressed male, who, through brutalising his wife, hopes to regain some of the human dignity denied him by the system of exploitation. This masculine foolishness is called sexism or machismo. It includes all kinds of moral and intellectual feebleness – even thinly veiled physical weakness – which often gives politically conscious women no choice but to consider it their duty to wage a war on two fronts.

In order to fight and win, women must identify with the oppressed layers and classes of society, such as workers and peasants. The man, however, no matter how oppressed he is has another human being to oppress: his wife. To say this is, without any doubt, to affirm a terrible fact. When we talk about the vile system of apartheid, for example, our thoughts and emotions turn to the exploited and oppressed blacks. But we forget the black woman who has to endure her husband – this man who, armed with his passbook, allows himself all kinds of reprehensible detours before returning home to the woman who has waited for him so worthily, in such privation and destitution. We should keep in mind, too, the white woman of South Africa. Aristocratic, with every possible material comfort, she is, unfortunately, still a tool for the pleasure of the lecherous white man. The only thing these men can do to blot out the terrible crimes they commit against blacks is to engage in drunken brawls and perverse, bestial sexual behaviour.

And there is no lack of examples of men, otherwise progressive, who live cheerfully in adultery, but who are prepared to murder their wives on the merest suspicion of infidelity. How many men in Burkina seek so-called consolation in the arms of prostitutes and mistresses of all kinds! And this is not to mention the irresponsible husbands whose wages go to keep mistresses or fill the coffers of bar owners.

And what should we think of those little men, also progressive, who get together in sleazy places to talk about the women they have taken advantage of. They think this is the way they will be able to measure up to other men and even humiliate some of them, by having seduced their wives. In reality, such men are pitiful and insignificant. They would not even enter our discussion, if it were not for the fact that their criminal behaviour has been undermining the morale and virtue of many fine women whose contribution to our revolution could be of the utmost importance.

And then there are those more-or-less revolutionary militants – much less revolutionary than more – who do not accept that their wives should also be politically active, or who allow them to be active by day and by day only, or who beat their wives because they have gone out to meetings or to a demonstration at night.

Oh, these suspicious, jealous men! What narrow-mindedness! And what a limited, partial commitment! For is it only at night that a woman who is disenchanted and determined can deceive her husband? And what is this political commitment that expects her to stop political activity at nightfall and resume her rights and responsibilities only at daybreak. And, finally, what should we make of remarks about women made by all kinds of activists, the one more revolutionary than the next, remarks such as ‘women are despicably materialist,’ ‘manipulators,’ ‘clowns,’ ‘liars,’ ‘gossips,’ ‘schemers, ‘jealous,’ and so on. Maybe this is all true of women. But surely it is equally true of men.

Could our society be any less perverse than this when it systematically burdens women down, keeps them away from anything that is supposed to be serious and of consequence, excludes them from anything other than the most petty and minor activities!

When you are condemned, as women are, to wait for your lord and master at home in order to feed him and receive his permission to speak or just to be alive, what else do you have to keep you occupied and to give you at least the illusion of being useful, but meaningful glances, gossip, chatter, furtive envious: glances at others, and the bad-mouthing of their flirtations and private lives? The same attitudes are found among men put in the same situation.

Another thing we say about women, alas, is that they are always forgetful. We even call them birdbrains. But we must never forget that a woman's whole life is dominated – tormented – by a fickle, unfaithful, and irresponsible husband and by her children and their problems. Completely worn out by attending to the entire family, how could she not have haggard eyes that reflect distraction and absentmindedness? For her, forgetting becomes an antidote to the suffering a relief from the harshness of her existence, a vital self-defence mechanism.

But there are forgetful men, too – a lot of them. Some forget by indulging in drink or drugs, others through the various kinds of perversity they engage in throughout life. Does anyone ever say that these men are forgetful? What vanity! What banality! Banalities, though, that men revel in as a way of concealing the weaknesses of the masculine universe, because this masculine universe in an exploitative society needs female prostitutes. We say that both the female and the prostitute are scapegoats. We defile them and when we are done with them we sacrifice them on the altar of prosperity of a system of lies and plunder.

Prostitution is nothing but the microcosm of a society where exploitation is a general rule. It is a symbol of the contempt men have for women. And yet this woman is none other than the painful figure of the mother, sister, or wife of other men, thus of every one of us. In the final analysis, it is the unconscious contempt we have for ourselves. There can only be prostitutes as long as there are pimps and those who seek prostitutes.

But who frequents prostitutes? First, there are the husbands who commit their wives to chastity, while they relieve their depravity and debauchery upon the prostitute. This allows them to treat their wives with a seeming respect, while they reveal their true nature at the bosom of the lady of so-called pleasure. So on the moral plane prostitution becomes the counterpart to marriage. Tradition, customs, religion, and moral doctrines alike seem to have no difficulty adapting themselves to it. This is what our church fathers mean when they explain that ‘sewers are needed to assure the cleanliness of the palace.’

Then there are the unrepentant and intemperate pleasure seekers who are afraid to take on the responsibility of a home with its ups and downs, and who flee from the moral and material responsibility of fatherhood. So they discreetly seek out the address of a brothel, a goldmine of relations that entail no responsibility on their part.

There is also a whole bevy of men who, publicly at least and in ‘proper’ company, subject women to public humiliation because of some grudge they have not had the strength of character to surmount, thus losing confidence in all women, who become from then on ‘tools of the devil.’ Or else they do so out of hypocrisy, proclaiming their contempt for the female sex too often and categorically, a contempt that they strive to assume in the eyes of the public from which they have extorted admiration through false pretences. All these men end up night after night in brothels until occasionally their hypocrisy is discovered.

Then there is the weakness of the man who is looking for a polyandrous arrangement. Far be it for us to make a value judgment on polyandry, which was the dominant form of relations between men and women in certain societies. What we are denouncing here are the courts of idle, money-grabbing gigolos lavishly kept by rich ladies.

Within this same system; prostitution can, economically speaking, include both the prostitute and the ‘materialist-minded’ married woman. The only difference between the woman who sells her body by prostitution and she who sells herself in marriage is the price and duration of the contract. So, by tolerating the existence of prostitution, we relegate all our women to the same rank: that of a prostitute or wife. The only difference between the two is that the legal wife, though still oppressed, at least has the benefit of the stamp of respectability that marriage confers. As for the prostitute, all that remains for her is the exchange value of her body, a value that fluctuates according to the fancy of the male chauvinist's wallet.

Isn't she just an object, which takes on more or less value according to the degree to which her charms wilt? Isn't she governed by the law of supply and demand? Such a concentrated, tragic, and painful form of female slavery as a whole!

We should see in every prostitute an accusing finger pointing firmly at society as a whole. Every pimp, every partner in prostitution, turns the knife in this festering and gaping wound that disfigures the world of man and leads to his ruin. In fighting against prostitution, in holding out a saving hand to the prostitute, we are saving our mothers, our sisters, and our wives from this social leprosy. We are saving ourselves. We are saving the world.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Blaise Compaoré and Françafrique killed Thomas Sankara in the belief that they could extinguish the example he set for African youth and progressive forces across the continent. They could not have been more wrong. One week before his assassination, in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Thomas Sankara declared: ‘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 passage time to inspire future generations.

Their ideas, courage and sacrifice for the freedom and dignity of their people have made these martyrs larger than life. Thomas Isidore 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 their continent. That is why 21 years after his death, Sankara continues to guide those who are struggling to end the domination of their continent and the enslavement of its peoples.

Sankara’s great popularity is in part a reflection of Africans’ disillusionment with corrupt leaders who are incapable of meeting the basic needs of their peoples and who take their marching orders from Western capital and institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. Sankara’s popularity is also 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.

A GREAT VISIONARY

Above all, however, Sankara’s ongoing popularity is due to the ideas and values he embodied during his brief time on the African and international stage. Indeed, if Sankara arouses as much fervour today as he did 21 years ago, it is because he embodied and defended causes that still resonate today among the thousands 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 characterised 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.

SUPPORTING POPULAR STRUGGLES AGAINST OPPRESSION

Among the great causes passionately championed by Thomas Sankara was his unwavering support for all popular revolutionary struggles and resistance movements against imperialist domination and colonial oppression. In his memorable speech before the UN General Assembly, on October 4 1984, Sankara stated: ‘Our revolution in Burkina Faso is open to the suffering of all peoples. It also draws its inspiration from the experiences of peoples since the dawn of humanity. We wish to be the heirs of all of the revolutions of the world, of all of the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World.’

These revolutions and struggles inspired Sankara in his vision and desire to profoundly transform the economic and social structures in his country as well as the mentalities forged over centuries of foreign domination and oppression by dominant and exploitative classes internally and externally. This was the wellspring of his profound solidarity with the struggles of all oppressed peoples against the forces of domination.

Sankara’s commitment to solidarity was exercised with determination in every international body, from the UN, to the former Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the Non-Aligned Movement. Sankara was one of the first heads of State to support the struggle of the Sahrawi people against Morocco’s expansionist ambitions. He expressed the solidarity of the Burkinabés with the struggle of the Kanak people against French colonialism. During a trip to New York, he went to Harlem to express his support for the struggle of African-Americans against racism and discrimination.

Above all, the Burkinabé Revolution under Sankara showed its unwavering support and solidarity for all peoples resisting US policies of imperialist aggression. Before the UN General Assembly—in the very belly of the beast—Sankara forcefully condemned the United States’ illegal blockade and permanent aggression against the Cuban people. In this same forum, he condemned their unconditional support for the Zionist Israel’s state policies of territorial annexation and extermination of the Palestinian people.

THE SUCCESSES OF THE BURKINABÉ REVOLUTION

While Sankara came to power in a military coup d’état, his revolution was nonetheless a profoundly popular one. For Sankara, taking political power was a tool for liberating his country from foreign domination, and above all liberating his people from the multiple forms of economic, social, political and cultural domination.

In his historic speech of 2 October 1983, he explained that these goals would be achieved through the destruction of the neo-colonial state and the transformation of all socio-economic structures and institutions inherited from colonialism, including the army. And these transformations should lead to the transfer of power to the people for, as he stated: ‘the goal of this revolution is to exercise power by the people.’ This fundamental objective could only be accomplished by placing trust in the people and mobilising them to become conscious of the issues and sacrifices required.

Sankara believed it was futile to speak on behalf of the people if they could not be mobilised to become an integral part of the struggle and develop an identity forged in the fire of action. For Sankara: ‘I think the most important thing is to bring the people to a point where they have self-confidence, and understand that they can, at last…be the authors of their own well-being… And at the same time, have a sense of the price to be paid for that well-being.’ To a great extent, the Burkinabé Revolution was an original experiment in profound social, economic, political and ideological transformation. It was a bold attempt at endogenous development through popular mobilisation.

The pursuit of this objective required extraordinary efforts to emancipate mentalities, raise consciousness and mobilise the masses in the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR) and other revolutionary structures. Despite some of the excesses of the CDR and the other revolutionary structures, there is no doubt that one of the major objectives of the revolution under Sankara was to create the possibility for the people to speak and express themselves freely and in so doing build their self-confidence. In this, the revolution was profoundly democratic and popular. Sankara once stated: ‘Misfortune will befall those who silence their people.’ This warning reflected the importance he placed on freedom of expression, an indispensable condition for encouraging Burkinabés at all levels of society to speak their mind.

THE WEAKNESSES AND MISTAKES OF THE REVOLUTION

As in all human endeavours, the Burkinabé revolution had its ups and downs. Despite its incontestable achievements, the revolution also had its weaknesses, weaknesses that ultimately undermined the cohesion of the leadership and even stoked opposition among certain segments of the population that initially supported it, such as the intellectual petty bourgeoisie.

One of the weaknesses of the revolution was related to the fact that the social forces that had a stake in its success—peasants and workers (both manual and intellectual)—may not have had the ideological tools that would have enabled them to better understand and support the pace of revolutionary change.

Another weakness lay in the difficulty of building a solid and durable coalition between Sankara and his comrades on the one hand, and the political parties representing the intellectual petty bourgeoisie on the other. This undoubtedly explains some of the mistakes made by the revolution’s leadership that contributed to alienating portions of the population and exacerbating the contradictions within the leadership when difficulties started to accumulate.

Perhaps, to some extent, activism took the place of the more patient work that was required to educate the masses so that the social and ideological obstacles to popular mobilisation could be overcome. Lastly, sabotage by enemies working in the shadows and the country’s relative isolation in the sub-region, in a similar vein to what occurred in Ghana and Guinea, put the final nail in the coffin.

LESSONS OF THE BURKINABÉ REVOLUTION

The Burkinabé revolution was the last major effort toward the popular and democratic emancipation on the African continent. Neither the end of apartheid in South Africa, nor SWAPO’s victory in Namibia brought the same kind of profound and significant economic and social transformation. The Burkinabé Revolution was an unprecedented experiment in profound economic, social and political change.

The revolution was a bold experiment in endogenous development with the construction of infrastructure (dams, railways, schools, roads, etc.) through the intense mobilisation of the masses powered by the principle of self-reliance.

Indeed, the principle of self-reliance was the basis of Sankara’s denunciation of so-called foreign ‘aid’ which he argued ‘produced nothing more than disorganization and enslavement…’ He refused to listen to the ‘charlatans trying to sell development models that have all failed.’ Of course, he was alluding to the so-called experts from the World Bank and the IMF who took control of economic policy in many African countries to disastrous effect.

Sankara’s position was in stark contrast to that of several African leaders who literally became beggars who no longer dared raise their voices against the injunctions and interference of their ‘development partners.’ Sankara showed that ‘poverty’ did not have to translate into a loss of dignity and an abdication of sovereignty.

The Burkinabé Revolution can also teach us some negative lessons that merit reflection. One of the lessons is the difficulty of building a sustainable and victorious relationship between the army and progressive intellectuals. Another lesson relates to the destiny of military coups: can a coup d’état truly serve as the basis for sustainable revolutionary change or is it condemned to be a flash in the pan? This question surely begs others. The point is that African revolutionary forces must study the lessons that can be learned form this experience in order to better pursue current and future struggles.

The ideas and principles that guided the Burkinabé revolution did not vanish with Sankara’s assassination. They will continue to guide African popular struggles and resistance movements until foreign domination has been vanquished and Africans have recovered their sovereignty. The best way to honour the memory of Thomas Sankara is to continue his fight and promote the values he embodied.

In truth, African revolutionaries have a duty not only to remember the Burkinabé revolution, but all the African revolutions that inspired it. We forget that Sankara was an ardent pan-Africanist who did not hide his ideological and political debt to Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Amílcar Cabral, among others. It is our duty to study the thinking and works of Sankara and other African revolutionary leaders and thinkers in order to be able to teach the younger generations. By preserving and developing the fundamental values and ideas of the Sankarist revolution and other African revolutions, we will forge the ideological and political tools we need to deconstruct the values and concepts of the dominant system and build anew from our own concepts based on our vision of the world and our realities.

Just as Che’s blood has fed the sacred ground of the Americas where worthy successors of the legendary Argentinean revolutionary are now taking root and pursuing the dreams of Simón Bolívar and other South American heroes, the sacrifice of Sankara and his illustrious predecessors will produce other Sankaras who will one day realise the dreams of Nkrumah and the other heroes and martyrs of the African revolution: to build an independent, united and prosperous Africa that is the master of its own destiny.

* Demba Moussa Dembele is the Director of the African Forum on Alternatives based in Dakar.

* This article, which first appeared in the French Pambazuka last year to remember Sankara's assassination, is translated by Gwendolyn Schulman, a writer and broadcaster for Amandla, an alternative views and news show on Africa, on CKUT 90.3 FM.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

A cabinet reshuffle in Burkina Faso saw the appointment of six new ministers and shifting of ministerial portfolios. In a presidential decree, President Blaisse Compaore has retained all officials of the 34-sized cabinet headed by prime minister Tertius Zongo.

Doctors in Burkina Faso say fistula is being under-reported, and are launching a new project to offer free surgery to some of the affected women. According to the government’s statistics, there were just 54 cases of fistula in Burkina Faso in 2007. But Aboubakar Coulibaly, a doctor in the national health system, said “Cases are being under-reported.”

In the West African nation of Burkina Faso, millions of trees are planted every year to reverse desertification. However the growing socio-economic needs of local populations pose a constant threat to these efforts. "People have built homes, marketplaces, places of worship, full cities within our national reserves," said Salifou Sawadogo, Burkina Faso's minister of the environment in an interview with IPS.

Poor farmers in Burkina Faso who have been hit by soaring food prices and severe weather conditions have been boosted by supplies of crop seeds from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).bIn all, FAO has supplied about 600 tons of seeds, including millet, sorghum, maize, cowpea and peanut seeds, as well as 432 tons of fertilizers, to 33,000 farmers in the country’s eastern and central zones in time for the current planting season.

This radio interview addresses the question of Charles Taylor's possible involvement in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

The Africa Commission is holding a conference on youth and education on 16 June. At the first meeting of the Africa Commission in Copenhagen on 16 April it was decided to set up five thematic conferences in various places in Africa during the next half year. Here the participants will discuss and investigate various aspects of the Commission’s focus on youth and employment.

Workers from the public and private sectors throughout the country launched a two-day strike on 8 April to protest high living costs and demand salary increases. In Ouagadougou, the capital, few shops were open. In Bobo-Dioulasso, the second largest city in the west of the country, the central market was closed.

Thousands of children in Burkina Faso are taking part in peer education programmes to promote awareness among the country’s young about the scourge of HIV/AIDS under a project backed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The African Youth Network Against AIDS, the youth arm of a non-governmental organization supported by UNICEF, has sponsored a network of clubs for young people that has grown to almost 2,000 and in which sport, education and other activities are used to teach awareness about how to avoid the disease.

A coalition of civil society organisations that on recently mobilised several thousand people to take to the streets of Ouagadougou and other towns and cities in Burkina Faso has threatened a nationwide strike if the government does not find a way to lower prices.

A meningitis epidemic has killed 519 people out of 5,046 cases reported in Burkina Faso since the start of January, new health ministry figures said Thursday. Ousmane Badolo, a ministry epidemiologist told AFP "we've gone over the 500- dead mark". Dr Badolo said that of 16 affected districts in Burkina Faso, the outbreak had reached epidemic levels in eight. The last official figures issued on March 9 reported 441 deaths out of 4,061 cases.

Violence spread to the capital, Ouagadougou, early on 28 February as demonstrators took to the streets to denounce the high price of food and fuel. Shops and petrol stations were shut down. The unrest took place throughout the day with young men burning tyres and igniting fires, using hit-and run tactics despite a heavy police presence. “The choice is to demonstrate or to die of hunger,” a demonstrator, who asked not to be named, told IRIN. “We have chosen to get our voice heard and I think we are succeeding.”

A new United Nations-backed $19 million project in Burkina Faso will help approximately 20,000 poor rural households bolster their crop production and incomes through improved irrigation. The UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will provide an $11 loan to the Small-scale Irrigation and Water Management Project, which will be carried out in six provinces in the south-west of the country.

This Case Study has examined how rural women mobilised to establish a women's shea butter sector enterprise in Burkina Faso. By adding value through processing of shea nuts into shea butter, women are directly reaping the benefits of their labour. The enterprise is creating jobs and providing extra income to the women. Shea is one of the few economic commodities in the region that is entirely under the control of women.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/336/45420sank.jpgAs 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.

*Carina Ray is Assistant Professor of History at Fordham University in New York City, where she teaches African and Black Atlantic History. She is also a monthly columnist for New African magazine.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

* Please click on the link for the article notes

As closer attention is paid to the lives of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, girls are found to be clearly disadvantaged, compared with their male counterparts. In Burkina Faso 74 percent of girls aged 15-19 cannot read (INSD and ORC Macro 2004).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/324/43776-Sankara.jpgKoni Benson and Mukoma Wa Ngugi interview Aziz Fall, Co-ordinator of the International Campaign for Justice for Sankara (ICJS) on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

President Thomas Sankara, affectionately referred to as Africa’s Che Guevera was assassinated in Burkina Faso on October 15th, 1987. Twenty years later, his assassins remain in power and continue to reverse the revolutionary changes Sankara initiated.

We interviewed Aziz Fall, the co-ordinator of the International Justice Campaign for Sankara (ICJS) who has been receiving ongoing anonymous death threats since December 2006. He has been co-ordinating 22 lawyers from France, to Senegal, Canada, Togo and beyond, dedicated to using legal means to find the truth behind Sankara’s assassination.

We started the interview by asking Aziz Fall about the death threats against him and his family, and about ICJS and the UN judgements on Sankara’s assassination. We then asked him about some of Sankara’s achievements in relation to the emancipation of women, education, and neo-colonialism in the 1980s, and then moved onto questions about power, politics, and policies in Burkina Faso under President Blaise Compaoré who has been in power since Sankara's assassination in 1987. Lastly, the interview reflects on Sankara’s legacy and his continuing relevance in this age of globalisation.

Aziz, Can you please tell us the nature of the death threats? What do they say? Do have an idea of where they are coming from? Are they from the government? Third parties? Is it one person or several people etc?

Thank you. I’ve received four death threats since December 2006. Three letters in bubble envelopes left in the mailbox at my front door. The first one was simple and said “stop or be stopped,” the second was similar but didn’t mention my name, and the third was a little more explicit, mentioning my name, asking me “to commit suicide or face execution.” I filed a complaint with the police in March 2007.

Then, in April, after the screening of a film on Thomas Sankara in Montreal, a young Burkinabé journalist, Sam Kah, who appeared in the film, received a threat, according to the organising committee of the Thomas Sankara 20th anniversary commemorations. The committee had invited both of us to their activities which take place Oct 11-15th, 2007. Following the threat against Sam Kah, I decided to tell the committee members about my own death threats, which I had previously hidden from them because I was worried it would have a demobilising effect.

They issued a press release concerning the threats against the two of us. A couple of days later, I received another threat, this time by phone. A man with a strange accent warned me that neither the police nor my lawyers would be able to protect me, and that since I still didn’t understand, my family would be targeted first, then me.

At about this time, someone tried, unsuccessfully, to break into my home through the back door. This was discovered as we were installing an alarm system.

We don't know exactly who is behind these threats. But we have good evidence that a Frenchman and two Africans have something to hide, because they have been caught in a number of lies and contradictions. The police and CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, are still investigating. That’s all I can say at this point.

It is unacceptable that as an advocate of freedom and justice, I am being physically threatened in a country that promotes these basic values around the world. We have approached the Canadian authorities about this situation, and we have great hope that they will do everything to solve the matter.

Can you briefly talk about the International Campaign Justice for Sankara (ICJS) and GRILA? How does the United Nations judgement (in which the Committee considers that the refusal to conduct an investigation into the death of Thomas Sankara, the lack of official recognition of his place of burial and the failure to correct the death certificate constitute inhuman treatment of Ms.Sankara and her sons, in breach of article 7 of the Covenant) affect the search for justice on behalf of Sankara?

Sankara's widow, Mariam Sankara, and his two sons never abandoned their call to the international community to take action to bring his assassins to justice. Ten years ago, the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA, an internationalist and panafricanist group) answered that call by creating an international campaign with a twofold strategy involving a political component and a legal one. I had the honour of co-ordinating a team of 22 lawyers, which put together a case for a full investigation into the murder of President Sankara and a dozen of his colleagues.

The government of Burkina Faso, under the presidency of Blaise Compaoré, along with a highly compromised judicial system, blocked all efforts by the Campaign to bring the case to court. After exhausting all possible legal recourse within the country, the Campaign brought the case before United Nations Human Rights Committee. Just over one year ago, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled in favour of the International Justice for Sankara Campaign, and demanded that the government of Burkina Faso take action to shed light on the circumstances of Sankara's death.
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That was actually a world first, and certainly a legal precedent in Africa, creating a breach in the cycles of impunity that characterize the political life of our continent. There is also a link between the Sankara case and the trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian head of state, who plotted with Compaoré in the assassination of Sankara. We expect the final UN judgement to be announced later this year and really hope that it will represent a major step forward in the global struggle against impunity.

What were some of Sankara's achievements, be it in the emancipation of women, education or rolling back neo-colonialism?

Our organisation (GRILA) and the revolution in Burkina Faso are the exact same age and we have many things in common. So we may sound pretty subjective when it comes to our assessment of what was achieved in those three years. Sankara tried to put into practice most of the key elements of our own philosophy; among other things, the destruction of all forms of racism and ethnocentrism, with the Bambaata summit and the anti-apartheid struggle; the respect of collective and human rights; the struggle against regimes allied with imperialist interests; a balance between rural and urban incomes; food self-sufficiency; the fulfilment of basic needs. A key issue for Sankara was the political, economic and social emancipation of women and the transformation of sexist mentalities. That particular aspect was crucial in a very traditional society where sexism was so with entrenched. Men were invited to go to the market once a week, women were appointed to key State positions, and civic rights and the constitution granted women important advantages.

While there were mistakes and contradictions due to the weakness of his alliances, Sankara was steadfast in focusing on other key issues as well, issues that are still cornerstones to our own work, namely, popular and civic participation, popular democracy and the promotion and empowerment of Africa's youth. Sankara promoted self-reliant, ecologically sustainable development, and invited locals and foreigners alike to plant trees; the emergence of regional panafricanist states that were politically and economically accountable to their citizens, as evidenced by his attempts to unite with Ghana. Sankara was committed to fighting corruption, and personally served as a very modest example, refusing to live a life of luxury and reigning in any tendencies by those within his government toward ostentatious consumption.

Are some of these changes still visible or has the Compaoré government managed to erase all of them?

While the Sankarist regime laid the ground for stability and a better form of development, it is clear that the international order ensured that Compaoré's regime did not take the same path. Compaoré’s regime was also involved in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean crises and wars, generating tremendous wealth for itself. The government has become very wealthy, which has allowed it to bribe some of the opposition elite, while intimidating or killing others. Within the framework of the neo-liberal agenda and the French zone of influence among its former African colonies, the regime has been able to establish a formal democracy and to reproduced itself, and in so doing has widened the gap between the haves and the have nots.

Compaoré has recently amended the constitution so that he can run for a third term which means he will have been in power from 1987 to 2012.

A very common phenomenon in Africa indeed. It's a pity, but history will judge. Killing your comrades and opponents and tailoring the constitution to fit your needs is nothing new. Even if the population is frightened, and busy surviving the harsh conditions of unequal development, there is no doubt that one day it will rise up against this.

How do the people of Burkina Faso regard Sankara today? Is he still part of the political imagination?

In general, people have a lot of admiration for him despite of the regime’s anti-Sankara propaganda and intimidation. The teenage generation doesn't know him well, and many may just know him as an icon. However, it is heartening that at the African social forum in Bamako, Sankara was chosen as a leading model. As my comrade Ameth Lô wrote, “The Sankarist alternative remains, therefore, entirely relevant in addressing issues surrounding development and lasting sovereignty. It is a panafricanist socialist alternative, focused uniquely on meeting the needs of the African masses, impoverished by decades of structural adjustment programs that had no results other than to ensure continued payments to shameless creditors for the so-called debt that's not only immoral—since a third of the initial debt has been repaid—but also because the borrowed funds were never injected into the economic and social fabric of these countries.” (see http://www.grila.org/e_forum.htm)
We'll see how the population will react on October 15, but it is clear that Sankara is going to be celebrated in many countries this year, which has been named Sankara Year by his supporters. That is surely a great sign of vitality and political imagination!

How does Sankara challenge the idea of revolution today? What is his legacy? What is his continuing relevance in this age of globalisation?

I think that GRILA is living proof of that legacy, and that the struggle that is at stake, in this process of so-called African union and various attempts at integration, has to consider what we are still advocating, namely: democracy and progressive strategies that focus on self-reliant and popular development. Africa should rely more on its own forces, within a socialist and panafricanist perspective, and develop strong ties with other third world countries. This form of development entails subordinating external demands to internal needs. A consciousness that is increasingly homogenised by the dominant values of today's globalized world system, however, is incapable of envisaging such a path. As the Burkinabé revolution was trying to achieve, GRILA's task as well as that of any other progressive political force in Africa, should be to contribute to re-politicizing the discussion around development, fostering a new political consciousness, and channelling the efforts of an organic intelligentsia that will be capable of building an alternative to the disorder now ravaging Africa.

How are these challenges being addressed today—locally and internationally?

For us it is important to continue the work. We will not be intimidated. Locally the Sankarist movement, despite numerous factions, is more united and better organized. In many African countries and in the Diaspora, Sankarist clubs and associations are mushrooming. A lot of people expect that history will repeat itself in a cyclical fashion. But each society is confronted with new challenges, and will take different roads. It appears to me that as long as the contradictions of capitalism deepen, and societies continued to be destroyed by the capitalist way of life and production, we have no choice but to invent more progressive and internationalist paths in order to tackle the barbarism of globalisation and the forces that dominate it.

* Koni Benson is a researcher at the International Labour Research and Information Group in Cape Town.

* Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (AWP, 2006) Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change (KPH, 2003), and editor of the forthcoming, New Kenyan Fiction (Ishmael Reed Publications, 2008). He is a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/43671-Sankara-3.jpgIt is 20 years since a great combatant for African dignity, integrity and human liberation, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, was assassinated. Widely recognised as pivotal to his death, his incumbent, Blaise Compaoré, meanwhile, has been in power for 20 years. Frequently compared with such dictators as Mbotu at home, his legitimacy resting solely on orchestrating the military coup that murdered Sankara.

On the commemoration the anniversary of his death that will be mourned in Burkina Faso and marked by the popular leader’s supporters throughout the world, Cheriff M. Sy, editor of the progressive and independent Burkinabe weekly political and cultural affairs journal, Bendré, recounts the assassination of one of Africa’s most important independence leaders, and assesses the legacy for his country and continent.

The tragic fate of Thomas Sankara is tied to the struggle for a social democracy. The ‘Africa mafia’, the businesspeople and their collaborators who control Africa, did not like the struggle. Therefore, he had to be exterminated. They found armed hands among the local ranks. The killing machine splurged into motion.

Reflecting on the causes of a dark Thursday

‘In favour of the meandering direction of history, this autocrat heaved himself up to the head of our revolution to choke it from the inside. This high treason was illustrated by his derision of all the organisational principles, the various denials of the noble objectives of the RDP [Rassemblement Démocratique et Populaire: ‘democratic and popular rally’], the personalisation of power, the mystical vision. As for bringing solutions to the concrete problems of the masses, everything engendered demobilisation at the heart of the militant people.’ – Extract from the Proclamation of 15 October 1987

‘People of Burkina Faso…the tragic moments that we lived through on 15 October belong to the exceptional events that often make up the history of the peoples. As revolutionaries, we must have the courage to assume our responsibilities. We did so through the proclamation of the Popular Front. We will continue…with determination, for the triumph of the objectives of the August revolution. This brutal denouement shocks us all as human beings, and me more than most, for having been his comrade in arms, moreover, his friend. For us too, he remains a revolutionary comrade who got things wrong.’ – Extract from the message to the nation delivered by the president of the Popular Front, comrade captain Blaise Compaoré, 19 October 1987

On Thursday 15 October 1987, the democratic and popular revolution in Burkina Faso was brutally arrested on the strike of 4pm. After the onslaught of the kalashnikovs, which lasted all the evening, the signed Proclamation of the Popular Front fell down like thick rain mixed with hail, surprising the RDP militants as much as those uninterested in and distanced from the revolution.

For a while, it had been known that there was a serious crisis in the national revolutionary council. Its principal leaders, formerly united, no longer agreed about orientation and strategy for action. Increasingly, the four historic leaders, Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré, Boukary Lingani and Henri Zongo, appeared to be ‘too many’ to lead the revolutionary movement.

But the serious crisis that shook the RDP leaders remains mainly concealed from the grass-roots militants, to the extent that they will be surprised by the magnitude and the brutality of the October denouement.

Additionally, many sincere militants still regret the outcome of the 15 October, as it has been presented, telling themselves there had been no lack of opportunity for debates about ideas to avoid this tragic event. But those responsible for the coup ran a significant risk by giving Thomas Sankara a voice, because he was such a convincing speaker that he may have emerged victorious.

His same capacity for persuasion led to certain decisions, which have retrospectively been judged as wilful or spontaneous, whereas in his time, he did not receive such constant criticisms. And this same personality trait of the late president saved the skin of more than one soul, whom close collaborators wanted to sacrifice, over-and-over, on the alter of the counter-revolution.

In fact, we can ascertain that the interventions of 15 October and the subsequent adjustments were precisely because the comrades who had started the RDP with Thomas Sankara were already exhausted. They had neither the strength nor the heart to continue. As there were influential enemies within and outside of the revolution, they had no difficulty in rallying to their side a whole world of people to counterbalance the RDP. The invented reasoning of ‘betraying the initial path’ was rapidly conjured up.

Now, captain Thomas Sankara was the first to realise the need to democratise, which he professed in his speech of August 1987 in Bobo Dioulasso: ‘Burkina Faso needs a people of conviction, not a vanquished people subjugated to their fate.’

He thus began the genuine rectification of the RDP, otherwise marked by the release of several political and common law prisoners. The wrongly sanctioned would be able to restart their careers.

But this policy, initiated by Thomas Sankara, was quickly short-circuited by the events of 15 October, and claimed by the Popular Front. The image of Sankara as closed and hostile to openings had to stick.

Things accelerated after the speech of reconciliation on August 87 in Bobo Dioulasso, when Sankara said: ‘in recent years, we have sometimes made errors. They must not re-occur in the scared land of Burkina Faso…we must prefer to take one step together with the people rather than ten steps without the people’.

After this speech, it was necessary for his opponents to take power. Leaving Thomas Sankara time to initiate democratisation of the RDP would deprive them of a justified pretext for the plot.

The political crisis that had prevailed for some time, as is customary, benefited the military, and from then on, arms had to speak to unlock it. Such have the tactics of politicians in Bukina Faso always been. Thomas Sankara opposed this, asserting that the soldier must ‘live amongst the people’, and preaching ‘a quarter of chicken per day per soldier’.

During regular meetings with their chief, he constantly made this complaint. To which the chief in question responded that he did not see a problem, except that ‘Sankara is opposed to us’. The soldiers replied: ‘why don’t we remove him?’ By force of repetition, he was finally removed on 15 October 1987.

What happened on that day?

According to Gilbert Diendéré’s book, ‘on 15 October, with the meeting of the officers, elements in the palace accused the soldiers of Pô of organising a coup. The atmosphere was heated…we went our separate ways without reaching an agreement…we knew that Sankara had a council meeting at 4pm and we decided to wait for him there…shortly after 4pm, Sankara’s Peugeot 205 and his guard’s car arrived at the pavilion. A second security car went to park a bit further on. We encircled the cars. Sankara was in sports gear. As always, he held his weapon, an automatic gun, in his hand. He immediately shot and killed one of our people. At this time, all the men broke loose, everyone fired and the situation got out of control…after the events, I telephoned the house of Blaise to inform him. When he arrived, he was extremely disappointed and dissatisfied, above all, when he established there had been 13 deaths’.

So the coup was apparently made without the knowledge of Blaise Compaoré! He declared ‘when I arrived at the council, after the shooting and that I saw the body of Thomas lying in the ground, I failed to have a very violent reaction towards his killers. That would undoubtedly have been a monster carnage, which I would certainly not have got out of alive. But when the soldiers provided me the details of the business, I was disappointed and disgusted…when I asked my men why they had arrested Sankara without informing me, they answered me that if they had done so, I would have refused them. And it is true. I knew that my political camp was strong. Thomas did not control the state any longer. I did not need to enact a coup d’état. But, my men became frightened when they learned, after midday, that we would be arrested in 24 hours’.

However, the truth is that on that day, Thomas Sankara was in a work meeting with some of his collaborators in a room at the council. Always in the council, 70 metres away, there was a white [Peugeot] 504 with seven people. A vehicle arrives at the meeting. The few elements of the guard in front of the room do not worry, because the passengers of the vehicle are their colleagues. The vehicle pulls over; the passengers open fire immediately. A police officer and two drivers are shot dead. They collapse. Thomas Sankara is in the room when he hears the shooting. He stands up, his gun in the hand and said to his collaborators ‘stay, stay, they want me!’ Just after crossing the door, he is shot. He collapses. Do they stop there? No. The attackers entered the room and killed his collaborators.

In short, let us suppose – and it is difficult – that the thesis that captain Blaise wanted to impose on the fait accompli were true. Would that however exonerate him? Would he not have been indirectly at the root of the tragic events of 15 October? Is he not the main beneficiary of the plot?

The man, even if he had never been really thirsty for power, as he claims, leaves any observer of political life in Burkina Faso sceptical all the same. Effectively, after 15 October, he proved that the power cannot be shared. The entire cohort of intellectuals that constituted the insurrectionary committee that psychologically prepared for 15 October with a series of filthy leaflets and intrigues of the lowest order will learn this at their own expense. Commander Boukary Lingani and captain Henri Zongo will learn at theirs.

Today, 20 years later, what should we remember?

Beyond the rhetoric, Sankara died because of his patriotic and progressive convictions, but also because he prevented some of his civilian and military comrades and soldiers from eating luxuriously and spending handsomely, to the detriment of the people.

When he arrived, his country was a ‘mournful synthesis of the sufferings of all humanity’, held the world record on infant mortality, and had permanently negative trade and agricultural balances and extremely high public debts. He wanted to make his country a land of dignity and freedom.

Thus courageously, he redefined the sum total of all the possible and the thinkable ways in which the development of a country among the most denuded in world could be envisaged.

On the evidence that underdevelopment and dependency could not be resolved without the integration of the marginalised, he engaged his country in progressive social transformation.

Sankara’s revolution was simple: work more, spend less and spend better, produce more, be concerned with the priority needs of the country. He said ‘our revolution is and must be permanent; the collective action of the revolutionaries to transform reality and improve the concrete situation of the popular masses our country. Our revolution will only have a value, if, looking back, we will be able to say that the people of Burkina are a little happier because they have clean drinking water, sufficient food, good health, education, decent housing and more freedom, more democracy, more dignity. Our revolution will have a right to exist if it can answer these questions concretely.’

Within a few years, he had achieved a qualitative jump for his country. But he remained aware that the essential questions of his people were those of his whole continent and of all the exploited and oppressed people. Pan-Africanist and anti- globalisation activist, he knew how to be the voice of the voiceless.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/43671-death-certificate-of… afternoon, bullets of the assassins shot Sankara dead. He fell, but had had time to sow the seeds and sprinkle them with his blood, time to break a link in the chain and free the oppressed youth of Africa.

He was a precursor of an alternative policy to the dependency and enslavement that the global economic institutions continue to impose by their model of development based on indebtedness.

Most importantly he has contributed to the understanding of his people and all the oppressed that a credible alternative cannot come from outside to save them. It is only by relying on themselves and their intrinsic capacity that they may ‘dare to invent the future’ and find the keys of their development and freedom.

Today, in each of our movements for social, political and cultural advancement, Sankara, the man, lives on in us. He will remain forever in the collective consciousness. He will be an example to those struggling for the liberation of humankind.

Link: Thomas Sankara -

* Cheriff M. Sy is director of the weekly Bendré publication providing information and reflection on Burkina Faso, http://www.journalbendre.net

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

* Translated and adapted from the original by Stephanie Kitchen.