Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa 2020026114, 2020026115, 9780253053756, 9780253053763, 9780253053770

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism, 1949–1966
2. Education of a Revolutionary, 1966–1973
3. A Rising Star: Soldiers and the Political Left, 1973–1982
4. From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister, 1982–1983
5. The “Revolution of August 4” and the People’s President
6. “This Man Who Unsettles”: Confronting the Neocolonial Order, 1983–1984
7. The Struggle for Unity, 1983–1984
8. “Daring to Invent the Future”: Nation Building and the Promise of Revolutionary Change, 1984–1985
9. Politics Is War and War Is Politics: Sankara in the International Arena, 1984–1985
10. Revolutionary Duties and Perils, 1986–1987
11. No Turning Back: The Road to October 15, 1987
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

THO M A S SA NK AR A

THOMA S SANK AR A A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa

Brian J. Peterson

Indiana University Press

This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.org © 2021 by Brian J. Peterson All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2021 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Peterson, Brian James, author. Title: Thomas Sankara : a revolutionary in Cold War Africa / Brian J. Peterson. Other titles: Revolutionary in Cold War Africa Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020026114 (print) | LCCN 2020026115 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253053756 (hardback) | ISBN 9780253053763 (paperback) | ISBN 9780253053770 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sankara, Thomas. | Presidents—Burkina Faso—Biography. | Burkina Faso—Politics and government—1960-1987. | Conseil national de la révolution (Burkina Faso)—History. | Revolutions—Burkina Faso—History—20th century. | Cold War. | Burkina Faso—Biography. Classification: LCC DT555.83.S36 P48 2021 (print) | LCC DT555.83.S36 (ebook) | DDC 966.2505/2092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026114 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026115

For my parents: Seija Farber, James Peterson, Barb Peterson, and Lawrence Farber

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations  xi

Introduction 1

1 Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism, 1949–1966 23



2 Education of a Revolutionary, 1966–1973 46



3 A Rising Star: Soldiers and the Political Left, 1973–1982 64



4 From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister, 1982–1983 89



5 The “Revolution of August 4” and the People’s President 112



6 “This Man Who Unsettles”: Confronting the Neocolonial Order, 1983–1984 135



7 The Struggle for Unity, 1983–1984 157



8 “Daring to Invent the Future”: Nation Building and the Promise of Revolutionary Change, 1984–1985 181



9 Politics Is War and War Is Politics: Sankara in the International Arena, 1984–1985 211

viii | Contents



10 Revolutionary Duties and Perils, 1986–1987 236



11 No Turning Back: The Road to October 15, 1987 263

Conclusion 291

Selected Bibliography  307 Index 317

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

O

ver the course of researching and writing this book, I have incurred many debts of gratitude, which I am happy to acknowledge. First, I want to thank Indiana University Press, and especially Dee Mortensen, who saw promise in the book and provided incisive guidance along the way. Ashante Thomas has been wonderfully helpful in navigating the publication process. Three anonymous readers provided feedback, which significantly improved the manuscript. John Norton made the map, for which I thank him. In procuring photos and granting permissions, many thanks to the following: Mary-Alice Waters and Michael Baumann at Pathfinder books, photographer John Vink, Laetitia Ganaye at MAPS, Getty Images, Alamy Stock Photo, Paul Sankara, Bruno Jaffré, Ernest Harsch, and the United Nations Photo Library. For their support, encouragement, and warm hospitality, I wish to extend my wholehearted gratitude to the Sankara family, including Paul Sankara, Pascal Sankara, Mariam Sankara, Pauline Sankara, Colette Sankara, Valentin Sankara, Blandine Sankara, Lydie Sankara, Florence Sankara, and Mousbila Sankara. Special thanks to Bruno Jaffré, who has been incredibly forthcoming with contacts, documents, and advice. I am grateful to the late Valère Somé for the time we shared together, discussing the revolution and playing chess. On many occasions, Fidèle Toé shared his thoughts and memories, and I thank him for his generosity. Germaine Pitroipa was a gracious host, and I am grateful for our many days together filled with discussion and meals. Many thanks to Luc Joseph Traoré for our conversations and for his great help. Among the individuals who took the time to share their testimonies, special thanks to Philippe Ouedraogo, Soumane Touré, Paul Yameogo, Jean-Pascal Ouedraogo, Justin Damo Baro, Abdoul-Salam Kaboré, Abiola Irele, Hugo Sada, Leonardo Neher, Robert Pringle, Thomas Hull, David Shinn, Rodney Huff, Peter Hall, Marc Dubois, Bénéwendé Sankara, and Stanislas Adotevi. I am also grateful to the many people of Burkina Faso who took the time to share their memories and experiences with me. Union College provided generous financial support and sabbatical time for researching and writing this book. I am also grateful to the libraries and

ix

x | Acknowledgments

archives that have assisted me in tracking down documents, making photocopies, and answering my questions, including the Centre National des Archives du Burkina Faso, the Archives Nationales de France, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library), and the United Nations. I extend my thanks to officials at the US State Department who patiently handled my Freedom of Information Requests and delivered documents in a timely manner. Among friends, family, and colleagues who have helped with their suggestions, encouragement, contacts, hospitality, and advice in the publication process, I would like to thank David Anthony, Ken Aslakson, Andy Feffer, Andrea Foroughi, Joyce Madancy, Teresa Meade, Andors Skotnes, Andy Morris, Cheikh Ndiaye, Mamadou Niang, Sekou Camara, Thomas Farber, Alice Kang, Guy Martin, Seydou Richard Traoré, Eva Traoré Dahlberg, Boubacar Diawara, Ablasse Segda, Amber Murrey, Amélie Ouedraogo, Kristina Gill, Mike Gill, Stephanie Hergenrader, Todd Hergenrader, Amilcar Shabazz, Lila Azimi-Rice, Ammanuel Haile, Rachel Refkin, Barbara Chénot Camus, Bertrand Camus, Brandon County, Marie Rodet, Robert Harms, Henry Trotter, Charlotte Walker-Said, Christopher Lee, Mike McGovern, Ryan Skinner, Emily Burrill, Carina Ray, Abiola Irele, JeanPierre Olivier de Sardan, Mamadou Diawara, Carola Lentz, Ernest Harsch, and Vincent Hiribarren. Finally, deepest thanks to my partner, Angeliki, who has been a constant source of support and encouragement; she has read portions of the manuscript and generously shared her thoughts. My parents—Seija Farber, James Peterson, Barb Peterson, and Lawrence Farber—have provided unfailing support over the years, and it is to them that I have dedicated this book.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Andriamirado, Il s’appelait: Sennen Andriamirado, Il s’appelait Sankara: Chronique d’une mort violente Bamouni, Burkina Faso: Babou Paulin Bamouni, Burkina Faso: Processus de la Révolution CDR: Comité de la Défense de la Révolution (Revolutionary Defense Committee) CEAO: Communauté Economique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Economic Community of West Africa) CMRPN: Comité Militaire de redressement pour le Progès National (Military Committee for Redressement and National Progress) CNEC: Centre National d’Entrainement Commandos (National Commando Training Center) CNR: Conseil National de la Révolution (National Council of the Revolution) CSB: Confédération syndicale Burkinabé (Burkinabé Union Confederation) CSV: Confédération syndicale Voltaïque (Voltaic Union Confederation) CSP: Conseil du Salut du Peuple (Council of Popular Salvation) DOP: Discours d’Orientation Populaire (Political Orientation Speech) FESPACO: Festival Panafricain du cinéma de Ouagadougou (Pan-African film festival of Ouagadougou) FPV: Front Populaire Voltaïque (Voltaic Popular Front) GCB: Group des Communistes Burkinabé (Burkinabé Communists Group) GOB: Government of Burkina Faso GOF: Government of France GOUV: Government of Upper Volta IMF: International Monetary Fund Jaffré, Biographie: Bruno Jaffré, Biographie de Thomas Sankara: La Patrie ou la Mort LIPAD: Ligue Patriotique pour le développement (Patriotic league for development) Martens, Sankara, Compaoré: Ludo Martens, Sankara, Compaoré et la revolution Burkinabé

xi

xii  |  List of Abbreviations MLN: Mouvement de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Movement) NGO: Nongovernmental Organizations OAU: Organization of African Unity OCV: Organisation Communiste Voltaïque (Voltaic Communist Organization) ONSL: Organisation Nationale des Syndicats Libres (National Organization of Free Trade Unions) OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries PAI: Parti Africain de l’Indépendance (African Independence Party) PMK: Prytanée Militaire du Kadiogo (Military Academy of Kadiogo) PPD: Programme populaire de développement (Popular Development Program) PCRV: Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire Voltaïque (Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party) RDA: Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (African Democratic Rally) RDP: Révolution Démocratique et Populaire (Democratic and Popular Revolution) Sankara, Oser Inventer: Thomas Sankara, Oser Inventer l’avenir, la Parole de Sankara Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara: Alfred Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, Chef de la revolution burkinabé: 1983–1987 Portrait SNEAHV: Syndicat National des Enseignants Africains de Haute-Volta (National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta) Somé, Thomas Sankara: Valère Somé, Thomas Sankara: L’Espoir Assassiné TPR: Tribunaux Populaires de la revolution (Popular Revolutionary Tribunals) UCB: Union des Communistes Burkinabé (Union of Burkinabé Communists) UFB: Union des femmes Burkinabé (Union of Burkinabé Women) ULC: Union de Lutte Communiste (Union of Communist Struggle) ULCR: Union de Lutte Communiste Reconstruite (Union of Communist Struggle—Reconstructed) UNAB: Union nationale des anciens du Burkina (National Union of Elders of Burkina) UNPB: Union national des paysans du Burkina (National Peasants Union of Burkina)

THO M A S SA NK AR A

INTRODUCTION

F

ew days in postcolonial African history have caused more collective anguish than October 15, 1987. On this Thursday afternoon, Captain Thomas Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso, was struck down by assassins’ bullets. At just thirty-seven years old, and seemingly at the peak of his powers, the popular revolutionary was dead. Soon, the news sank in that Sankara’s own right-hand man and friend, Captain Blaise Compaoré, had engineered the coup. “A Friendship Dies in a Bloody Coup,” the New York Times headline ran. Indeed, the murder was seen as fratricide, a Greek tragedy. But most importantly, leaders of Sankara’s charisma and moral integrity were rare, and his message had resonated deeply with the youth, whose own aspirations he seemed to reflect. “Sankara coming to power generated immense enthusiasm and hope across Africa,” Nigerian scholar Abiola Irele said. “Sankara was leading a renewal of society, a revolution in the true sense of the word. We felt that for the first time we had a leader with the genuine interest of the people at heart. Then those hopes were dashed when he was murdered. We saw his assassination as a betrayal that affected all of Africa.”1 In the days that followed, Sankara’s untimely death sent shock waves throughout Africa as people collectively mourned the loss. “Everywhere on the continent, and more particularly West Africa, the tragic passing of the young revolutionary leader has provoked very strong emotions in public,” Jeune Afrique reported. “This sentiment manifests itself first and above all among the youth, the students, and the ordinary people. Whether in Dakar, Bamako, Niamey, Lomé, or Cotonou, the people could not believe their ears when they heard of the death of Sankara.” Devastated by the death of their political hero, people wept openly in the streets of African cities. Taxi drivers pulled over to mourn. Entire newsrooms broke into tears. Supporters devoured stories about Sankara in magazines and local African newspapers and listened to homages over the radio. In Paris, Hugo Sada, the editor of Jeune Afrique, recalled: “After Sankara was killed, the Jeune Afrique issue that covered the assassination of Sankara—it was the cover story—was the

2 | Thomas Sankara

biggest selling volume ever. It showed Sankara’s popularity and importance across Africa. The outpouring of sadness was stunning.”2 However, Sankara was also a polarizing figure whose popularity exposed a generational divide in African politics. At a time of widespread political repression, African elites were threatened by his antiestablishment ethos, his crusade against corruption, and his general nonconformity. Many took exception to his statements against “imperialism” and the capitalist system. In an era when neoliberalism was on the ascent and African governments were abandoning socialism, Sankara went against the current. He channeled more state resources into health care and education, promoted greater self-reliance, and redirected his country’s meager resources from the more comfortable urban elites to the impoverished rural population. “His domestic message, delivered in his continuous travels throughout the country, is one of fairness, equality, rights of the poor, liberation of women from treatment as chattel, and power to the people,” a US embassy cable reported in 1984. Despite all the positive strides of the revolution, Sankara was often misrepresented in the Western media, labeled a “communist,” a “pro-Libyan,” or another “military dictator.” The mainstream French press kept up a constant barrage of stories aimed at discrediting his revolution. But then, after his death, and once the revolutionary threat had been eliminated, Western journalists took to eulogizing. The Washington Post described him as “one of modern Africa’s most unorthodox and original leaders,” whose revolution had “attracted continent-wide attention.” Other Western journalists called Sankara “iconoclastic” and mentioned his “energetic personal style” and “reputation for honesty.” The New York Times reported that Sankara, “with his jaunty red beret, his photogenic smile and his energetic preaching of revolution, was idolized by youths across Africa as their continent’s Che Guevara.”3 In seeking to understand why Sankara raised such hopes, it’s important to note that the revolution happened at a unique crossroads in late Cold War African history: it began in the midst of Africa’s debt crisis and ended on the eve of the transition to democracy. The period saw the rise of Reagan and Thatcher and the “neoliberal breakthrough” of the 1980s; there were ongoing civil wars in places such as Chad, Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, in which the Cold War figured prominently; the anti-apartheid struggle was in full swing in South Africa. It was the so-called lost decade in Africa, when poverty, corruption, repressive political systems, drought, and indebtedness plagued many countries. But, in a small corner of the world,

Introduction | 3

Sankara sought to tackle these most intractable and systemic problems, which was no easy task in the drought-afflicted Sahel zone of West Africa. In fact, Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) was among the “least developed countries” in the world. Landlocked, and with limited water access, few natural resources, and poor soils, it found its most valuable export in labor, mainly to neighboring Côte d’Ivoire. It constituted the second-largest migrant network in Africa; only southern Africa surpassed Burkina Faso in terms of the sheer numbers of migrants. But by the 1980s, the results of ongoing circular migration, and increasingly permanent emigration, were economic stagnation, structural underdevelopment, and widespread poverty. Within this context, and in the midst of devastating droughts, the desperation of the population called for radical change.4 Sankara came to power on August 4, 1983, through a military coup and wider social protest movement, and he swiftly set his sights on liberating Upper Volta from French neocolonial control. Renaming the country Burkina Faso (Land of Honest People), the new revolutionary state—the National Council of the Revolution (CNR)—battled to wipe out corruption and achieve food sovereignty. Along the way, the CNR created a new kind of political architecture that allowed for more direct democracy. Sankara declared that “women will be equal to men in all spheres” and boosted women’s roles in government. As the combined effects of widespread drought in the Sahel and a global recession propelled many African countries into structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he responded by forcefully calling for non-repayment of debt and taking steps to address environmental degradation through mass reforestation drives. Ahead of his time, he was an advocate for environmental justice, and he drew attention to climate change, or the “perturbation of the seasons,” as he called it. Against the backdrop of Cold War geopolitics, he embodied the principles of nonalignment, taking controversial positions on international issues while courageously challenging global inequality and foreign aggression. For many, his outspokenness and antiestablishment outrage restored a sense of dignity and pride in being African. His populist rhetoric and revolutionary policies fired the imaginations of the youth. In many ways, his revolution was a revolution of the mind, a project aimed at decolonizing people’s mentalities.5 Within two years, the CNR had successfully wiped out corruption; one US embassy cable reported that, following Sankara’s example of “simplicity, austerity, and honesty,” Burkina Faso had become “highly regarded for

4 | Thomas Sankara

the lack of corruption in the government.” But in doing so, Sankara made a lot of enemies. The revolution threatened the interests of the old political class, urban elites, French businesses, and traditional chiefs. In the meantime, internal factionalism and power struggles plagued the revolutionary leadership. Even within Sankara’s inner circle, many were more interested in using state power for personal gain. “The root of the problem is that they want to enrich themselves and I am preventing it,” Sankara told his friends and family in frustration. In the regional political arena—governed as it was by seniority and patrimonialism—the youthful Sankara refused to genuflect to his African political elders. But francophone African political norms were not ready for the kinds of changes that Sankara represented; the neocolonial rules of the game could not accommodate him. After repeated efforts to destabilize the revolution, neighboring francophone African heads of state breathed a sigh of relief when he was overthrown. In Paris, the French government took the view that Compaoré was “more moderate than his predecessor” and “fundamentally better disposed toward France” than Sankara. France turned the page, as did most African elites.6

Burying Sankara, Resurrecting Sankara After October 15, 1987, Blaise Compaoré and his military clique showed no reverence for the country’s fallen leader. Sankara’s body was buried in the middle of the night by prison laborers, thrown in a “hastily dug shallow grave” without a casket or even a jute bag, reported a US embassy cable. His death certificate stated that he died of “natural causes.” But, paying homage to their leader, throngs of people filed by Sankara’s grave in Dagnoën cemetery, a virtual city dump on the dusty outskirts of town. Sankara’s death “caused an undisputable mood of sadness in Ouagadougou. Thousands of people went to the cemetery yesterday to view his grave, many of them placing flowers or other tokens on it,” it was reported. But by the following night, gendarmes had “barred the public from visiting the graves.” The new strongman Compaoré then set about destroying the popular image of his deceased friend. Announcements via radio and the state-run newspaper Sidwaya described Sankara as seeking to “stifle the revolution from within” and accused him of “high treason.” He was labeled “unpatriotic,” an “autocratic mystic,” and even a “paranoid misogynist.” The wanton cruelty of the character assassination and persecution of Sankara’s family was shocking. The insults flew in the face of reality.7

Introduction | 5

As the new regime worked to erase Sankara from history, security forces raided his home and offices. “They took his books, his letters, his documents, even his music collection and personal photos,” his sister Pauline Sankara explained. “They took everything.” The homes of his family members were ransacked. “After October 15, they went to all of our houses, and turned our homes upside down, going through all of our personal things, looking for anything regarding Thomas. They tore apart our home and destroyed everything. They seriously persecuted our family,” sister Colette Sankara told. It was a campaign of terror targeting Sankara’s allies. Hundreds were rounded up. Many were subjected to imprisonment and torture. Nearly fifty were killed outright, and more in the years to come.8 Even as the state outlawed photos, stories, and public references to Sankara, a popular counter-memory proliferated. Teachers subversively taught their students about their vanquished leader; activists kept up the struggle; journalists smuggled out documents. The people refused to allow the memory of Sankara to be eclipsed. His violent death was the ultimate symbol of his self-sacrifice for the people, as one supporter remembered: “For most of us, the revolution died with Sankara. We will never forget him and what he did for this country and what he sacrificed for his people.” Indeed, what sets Sankara apart is that he became a revolutionary symbol in spite of state efforts to erase him from history. This contrasts with most political icons, which have often been actively constructed and institutionalized, their charisma routinized, by the state. For these reasons, Sankara came to occupy a sui generis place in popular imagination, as a beloved former African head of state whose memory was kept alive at the grassroots level. But in response to the national crisis and trauma that enveloped the country, people selectively cultivated his legacy. This collective memory, and popular historical revisionism, elided important but regrettable episodes in the revolution. It contained within it certain silences and repressions; errors committed by Sankara’s revolutionary government were forgotten. And so Sankara entered the pantheon of revolutionary martyrs, alongside Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Steven Biko, and Samora Machel.9 In the years that followed, Sankara became an icon of resistance, malleably taking on multiple meanings and new connotations; as the historical contexts changed, his supporters projected their own political aspirations onto his image. When the Cold War ended, he became less “socialist” and more “democratic.” He emerged as a fixture of Pan-Africanist imagery. He was reimagined, reduced to a symbol of resistance. Within Burkina Faso,

6 | Thomas Sankara

Introduction 1. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, May 2014. Burkina Faso’s opposition supporters hold portraits of their political hero and revolutionary icon Thomas Sankara at a mass rally. The protests erupted in opposition to Blaise Compaoré’s efforts to change the Constitution to extend term limits. (Ahmed Ouoba/Getty Images)

he was the opposition’s natural patron saint, the antithesis to Compaoré; he represented integrity and honesty in the face of corruption and impunity. Outside the country, stories about Sankara in the French press, and in local African newspapers, were churned out with regularity. Every new revelation about his murder quickly made the news. From Liberia to Ethiopia, Sankara quotes appeared on the front page of local newspapers as reminders of good governance. He was held up as an “exemplary life,” embodying certain core values, the ideal of a political leader with integrity. Indeed, he was proving to be one of Africa’s most enduring transnational political heroes, crossing borders and appealing to a wide range of social groups. Reporting on his legacy in 1997, the New York Times observed that “Sankara has not been forgotten” and that “few African leaders have been mourned so deeply at home or as widely on this continent,” largely owing to his “reputation for incorruptibility in a poor continent of fabulously rich presidents.” Another decade later, the democratization of the media landscape via the internet eroded the Compaoré regime’s ability to contain the circulation of Sankara iconography and stories. The sudden proliferation of Sankara material was astonishing. As the new technologies of mass communication

Introduction | 7

and social media platforms came to Africa, the youth watched online videos about Sankara and listened to his speeches. A whole new transnational generation was turned on to his ideas. In time, acts of resistance and protest movements picked up in Burkina Faso, with the image of Sankara illicitly carried on posters and T-shirts, his words remembered in songs. Across Ouagadougou, walls bore the ubiquitous Justice pour Sankara (Justice for Sankara) red graffiti, with Sankara’s silk-screened face. Sankara’s life was now a usable past, a rallying point in opposing the government.10 Although there had been periodic mass protests—beginning in 1998 in response to the murder of journalist Norbert Zongo—the first steps in a climactic denouement came in the summer of 2013, when a broad-based protest movement spread across the country. It was the largest mass mobilization in the country’s history since the time—thirty years before—when the youth mobilized to protest Sankara’s arrest and imprisonment on May 17, 1983. On that occasion, they protested until Sankara was freed. Now the youth, clad in Sankara T-shirts and appropriating Sankara’s pithy revolutionary slogans, took to the streets. They were determined to force Compaoré from power, chanting “Compaoré doit partir!” (Compaoré must go!) and “Blaise dégage!” (Blaise resign!). Maneuvering to stay in office, Compaoré responded by seeking to alter the constitutional provisions on term limits. But this only inflamed the situation as the protest marches, led by the grassroots Sankarist organization Balai Citoyen (Citizen Broom), evolved into a popular insurrection. On October 30, 2014, street warfare broke out in Ouagadougou, resulting in numerous deaths of civilian activists. The National Assembly, the nation’s parliamentary building, was burned to the ground. The homes of government elites were overrun and vandalized. As the dust settled, Compaoré abdicated. It was an extraordinary turn of events, and Sankara’s legacy played a major part in mobilizing the people.11

In Search of Sankara Much as there is a kind of poetic justice in this turn of events, for the historian it presents certain challenges. Popular representations of Sankara are overwhelmingly positive. This contrasts with the mixed legacies of many controversial revolutionary figures, from Robespierre to Lenin and Mao. It means that in order to achieve a balanced portrait of Sankara, we must inevitably seek to penetrate the icon and public myth, to demythologize him, and to peel back the layers of hagiography. In this endeavor, I think

8 | Thomas Sankara

Sankara would agree. He opposed cults of personality; he readily admitted his errors and frequently called for “self-criticism” as a “revolutionary duty.” In fact, as we shall see, it was his candor and idealism—and basic lack of Machiavellian praxis—that led to his downfall.12 As the first full-scale biography and book-length academic study of Thomas Sankara in English, this book tells the story of his life, political career, assassination, and emergence as a revolutionary symbol. Drawing on previously untapped archival and oral sources, it seeks to situate the life of a complex individual within the times in which he lived. Although his life was short, Sankara’s journey spanned colonialism, decolonization, the turbulent postcolonial years, the Cold War, and the rise of neoliberalism. In this way, his life provides a prism through which to view many of the challenges and political realities that Africans have faced since independence. However, in contrast to the extant literature, this biography provides a critical appraisal of Sankara; drawing on various conflicting views, it assesses his many triumphs and also errors while in power. Moreover, until present, we have known precious little about Sankara’s diplomatic encounters and approach to foreign affairs. Moving beyond his speeches and press accounts, this book draws on new government sources in order to chart his diplomatic career. Finally, it presents an array of documentation on the circumstances, and wider context, of his murder on October 15, 1987, offering a new multifactorial interpretation.13 As is the case with many historical figures, it’s a challenge to interpret the relative agency, life choices, and stages in a biographical subject’s life, especially when that life ended tragically and took on enormous posthumous meaning. We must resist falling into the “biographical illusion,” as Pierre Bourdieu has called it: the tendency to present the life of an individual as an ordered sequence of events, actions, and works, without properly accounting for historical circumstances and contingencies. Along these lines, it’s important to contextualize the “making” of Sankara as a revolutionary and to situate his life in relation to labor leaders, activists, students, and military colleagues. Because Sankara was the man on the stage and in front of the cameras, popular representations have over-personalized the revolution, highlighting Sankara and playing down other political actors. This book seeks to locate Sankara’s political career within social networks and political friendships. As one of his friends has commented: “It wasn’t Sankara who made the revolution; it was the revolution that made Sankara.”14

Introduction | 9

This is not to diminish Sankara’s charisma or to discount his own ambitions. He was far and away the centerpiece of the revolution, its chief symbol. And from the beginning, Sankara himself was engaged in a kind of revolutionary self-fashioning. Moved by past revolutions, he actively cultivated his image as a revolutionary, in his style and through his use of language. However, he built his political success on decades of work by labor unions, students, and leftist political parties. Concomitantly, he drew many of his cues from grassroots activists and supporters along the way, listening carefully to the people’s hopes and needs. As an orator, Sankara was adept at feeding off the crowd, trying out certain motifs and phrases, readily deviating from his script in response to his audience. “We worked together all night long on certain speeches,” one colleague recalled. “When he got in front of the people, he’d hear the cheers, ‘Down with Imperialism!’ He would respond to the crowd and change direction. But he was brilliant as an improviser.” Over time, through speech after speech, his audience shaped the message from below; his stump speeches came to embody the deepest aspirations of the people. In this way, charisma is a relationship that depends on the audience and the speaker’s ability to resonate with listeners. But as Sankara discovered, once the reciprocal dynamic changed and his speeches no longer resonated, he risked alienating the people.15 Although some of his most powerful statements—on women’s liberation and non-repayment of debt—were made in the final year of his life, by 1987 popular grievances had mounted, such that many urban workers, civil servants, and even university students turned against the revolution. But within transnational settings, particularly among the African youth and on the international left, his popularity skyrocketed; it was during his final year that Sankara’s speeches seemed destined for posterity as he cemented his legacy. This paradox, that even as he lost support within Burkina Faso his popularity soared abroad, helps to explain the contrasting views of Sankara. Most people who did not live through the revolution encountered him mainly through his speeches, and later online videos, without much awareness of the revolution itself or the specific contexts in which he gave his famous speeches. For these reasons, there are numerous decontextualized “Sankaras” in circulation, all reflecting the politics and social positions of certain groups and individuals who have found inspiration in his words. There is Sankara the communist, although his political program was characterized by considerable Marxist “revisionism” and pragmatism and his military faction eventually purged the civilian “communist” wing

10 | Thomas Sankara

from the government. He is held up as a Pan-Africanist hero, but he had contentious relationships with his African neighbors. There is Sankara the anti-imperialist and champion of self-reliance, and yet the CNR depended on loans and funding from Western donors. There is Sankara the martyr, the nationalist, the feminist, the environmentalist, the anti-corruption crusader, the man of integrity, and so forth. In varying degrees, all of these facets were embodied in the historical figure, but those advocating for particular causes have tended to magnify the pieces that best reflect their interests. We are left with a kaleidoscopic, but flattened, view of Sankara.16

The Character and Thinking of Thomas Sankara Beyond the two-dimensional images, Thomas Sankara was a complex individual who gained a reputation for his moral rectitude, relentless truthfulness, and incorruptibility. Despite his outward modesty, he was an ambitious individual, whose will to power was sublimated into combating injustice. As a soldier, he showed considerable courage and self-discipline, as his friend Fidèle Toé remembered: “Thomas was very disciplined and meticulous. In his car, he always had his wax and brush to polish his boots. He carried with him a needle and thread to sew buttons. When he got out of the car he was impeccable. This was how Thomas was with everything, demanding a certain rigor, morality, and perfection.” In his personal life, Sankara was an athlete who specialized in long-distance running and cycling but was also a gifted writer and orator, an omnivorous reader, a guitarist, and a polyglot.17 However, it was Sankara’s charismatic appeal that made him a political force. In one of the first journalist accounts of him—six months before he took power—the Malian reporter Mohamed Maïga observed how Sankara “radiated warmth and charisma,” with “a wide smile and large clear eyes,” and said: “One says of this parachutist officer with fine features, all muscles and nerves, above average in height and wearing an impeccable uniform, that he is rigorous like an ascetic, modest and honest like a Mossi and daring like a Fulani. . . . This athletic soldier with hands of a lumberjack revealed himself to be an intellectual of very high level.” US embassy cables described him as “a man of formidable charm,” who, in one-on-one situations, was “usually quiet, self-deprecating, and alert to the sensitivities of others, with the born politician’s sense for the remembered face or name. Rather like John Kennedy, his appeal is intellectual as well as physical.”

Introduction | 11

A man of action, he was a barnstormer who thrived in the spotlight with a dramatic flair but also “a lover of beauty, flowers, feminine grace, and simplicity.” Alfred Sawadogo thought Sankara’s “dominant trait” was his humor, while Jean Ziegler commented on other qualities: “A curious paradox marked Sankara’s personality: warm, extroverted, passionate about debate; high-strung to the extreme with the desire to convince [others], laughing, a lover of music, festivity, and interminable nights, friendly; Sankara was at the same time a secret man, solitary, almost closed.”18 Sankara had his moments of triumph and brilliance as a revolutionary leader, but he also stumbled into costly mistakes. It’s important to highlight his flaws as a way of shedding light on errors and inconsistencies while in power. By all accounts, he could be demanding, impatient, quarrelsome, and even impetuous. In his leadership role, he was prone to impulsive decisions and often ignored the advice of others. For some, he displayed a disconcerting authoritarian streak in his decision-making. But colleagues also remembered that he thrived on debate and wanted to hear everyone’s opinions. According to Sawadogo, Sankara said to his advisers, “People say that I always love being right. It’s not accurate. I’m a person, like everyone, and I debate for the triumph of my ideas. But if the objective arguments prove me wrong, I fall in line with others. What I don’t tolerate is when an idea is refuted just because it’s new.” The problem, however, was that few were bold enough to challenge him directly, and so his ideas and policy decisions usually prevailed with little pushback. There were even times when he promoted audacious or idiosyncratic ideas simply for rhetorical purposes that left advisers, ministers, and bureaucrats scrambling. But there was a “method to his madness”: he often tacked from one extreme to another—generating reactions, controversies, and insights—ultimately seeking to discover what was realizable. In this way, he had tremendous tolerance for risk, apparent in his willingness to try new approaches. It was Sankara’s strategy for overcoming bureaucratic habits and slowness and looking for solutions outside the box. But, for the most part, he was not interested in mere rhetoric; he put his ideas into practice and focused on building new institutions and political practices. And yet he was also quick to acknowledge his errors and discontinue plans or policies. He learned from his mistakes and changed tack before errors compounded. Unfortunately, at a time of drought, economic difficulties, and constant political infighting, the margin for error was extremely slim. As one writer at Jeune Afrique opined after his death: “His country was too poor and too small for

12 | Thomas Sankara

the revolution which he launched to have been taken seriously. He tried to accomplish a great deal, and he devoted too much time to foreign affairs. But power itself is a school, and Sankara learned quickly. The pity is that he had so little time.”19 Sankara approached politics in a highly moralistic manner, but he was often so idealistic that he did not correctly assess and navigate power dynamics. Elliot Skinner viewed Sankara as a “young charismatic leader of a small country, challenging a large, complex, corrupt, and often brutal world,” who “refused to acknowledge not only the realities of power in his own society, but also the marginal position of his relatively poor country.” Sankara also struggled to manage competing individual interests and factional rivalries within the revolutionary leadership. As a man who prized friendship, he was loyal to a fault and placed far too much trust in others. Serge Théophile Balima, Sankara’s chief of communications, explained: “Sankara had intellectual maturity, and moral maturity, without doubt, but I think what he lacked was maturity in managing people, because people have to be managed in the way that they are, rather than seeing them as angels, otherwise you make mistakes. He was convinced that good always triumphs over evil, and he engaged in politics as if it was religion.” This moralistic approach to politics meant that he saw the world in clearly dichotomous ways. “After three years in power, Thomas Sankara still comes on as an intense, driven revolutionary,” a US cable from October 1986 reported. “He splits the world into black and white, just and unjust, oversimplifying the most complex issues.” Indeed, Sankara’s passionate idealism and penchant for audacity complicated his diplomatic career. Many interpreted his bravado and moral outrage as signs of a highly turbulent personality, thinking that his fiery rhetoric was echoed in his interpersonal dealings. But Sankara had distinct private and public personas, which was apparent in diplomatic encounters. US embassy officials described him as a charming, “complex individual,” considered “very intelligent,” who possessed a “wicked sense of humor.” But his winning qualities “did not always come through in public,” where his “penchant for bad political theater” and “posturing” tended to dominate. In describing Sankara’s personality, one revolutionary woman and close friend, Germaine Pitroipa, added nuance to this view: “[Thomas] could not accept injustice and the sufferings of others. But to hide his acute sensitivity, he moved forward with his emotions, he took action and went on the attack.”20 In his political thought, Sankara resisted labels—and usually maintained that he was simply a “patriot.” His primary concerns were “nationalist” in

Introduction | 13

the sense of strengthening his country’s economic and political sovereignty. Guy Martin has described him as a “populist-socialist,” espousing a “socialist orientation” without expressly embracing or rejecting Marxism, while keeping the focus on “the people.” US embassy cables similarly characterized his leanings as “radical populism,” which was considered “a better description of the essential nature of this regime than a variety of Marxism or socialism.” Sankara himself rejected the label “populism,” or what he once described as “the game of populism.” But, of course, populism has taken a wide array of forms, and given the context of his statement, it’s clear that he was referring to a kind of right-wing, or “reactionary,” political tactic for securing the hold on power by marginalizing certain social groups. Rather, his entire political program—populist-socialist or left-wing populist—was focused on seeking ways to improve the living conditions of his people.21 Sankara observed: The people do not feed themselves with ideology. What good is there in proclaiming oneself communist or Marxist if the people die of hunger? . . . Why should one at all costs place us in an ideological taxonomy, to categorize us? If you must absolutely classify us, you can consider me being part of patriotic elements. . . . We don’t know whether it’s being communist or not, nationalist or not, to fight with relentlessness and determination for one’s people. In any case, we don’t preoccupy ourselves with this type of designation. . . . I consider myself as someone who has the duty to respect the wishes and the demands of the people.22

Although Sankara largely eschewed dogma, Marxism-Leninism was clearly a main pillar of his intellectual formation. He drew widely on anti-colonial revolutionary thinkers—like Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, Kwamé Nkrumah, and Julius Nyerere—while finding inspiration in figures such as Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Ho Chi Minh. He was a student of history, and he wanted to avoid the pitfalls of past revolutions. While he did not approach Marxism in a systematic way—and he harbored no illusions about the promise of communism along Soviet lines—many of his policies were still unmistakably “socialist,” as we shall see. In fact, he often demonstrated considerable pragmatism in policy making. At the same time, he was openly critical of liberal (or “bourgeois”) democracy in Africa; the CNR never held elections for nationwide offices, though there were elections for local political bodies, the Revolutionary Defense Committees (CDR). Beyond Marxism, he was deeply influenced by his Catholic faith and liberation theology.23 His lifelong friend Valère

14 | Thomas Sankara

Somé—considered the revolution’s leading theorist—provided insight into Sankara’s political thought: When we discussed things, I would say to Thomas that he was red and black at the same time. He wore the black of priest’s robes as well as the revolutionary communist red. In combating injustices, there was a morality to his speeches, a utopian character to his discourse revealing his Christian upbringing. . . . But Sankara didn’t become communist, and our revolution was not communist. We called it the “Democratic and Popular Revolution.” We were trying to unite the people to fight against poverty, to fight corruption, to fight imperialism. But during the Cold War, the minute you talked about revolution you were inevitably viewed as “communist.”24

Sankara took an active interest in international affairs, supporting national liberation movements around the world and the anti-apartheid struggle. By the end of his life, he saw African unity as an essential political force for opposing domination by foreign powers and achieving economic sovereignty. However, he was even more of an internationalist, finding solidarity with countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua. There was a throwback quality to his approach, harkening back to an earlier era of so-called Third Worldism. This was apparent in his efforts to resurrect the New International Economic Order (NIEO) while he was actively reinvigorating the Non-Aligned Movement. Malagasy journalist Sennen Andriamirado saw Burkina Faso as the “inheritor” of the revolutionary tradition in Africa, but in certain ways, when Sankara came to power, his imagined futures “already belonged to the past.” In any case, drawing on diverse influences, Sankara evolved into a “planetary thinker.” One only needs to read his powerful speeches to see his concern for humanity—global peace, human emancipation, the environment, women’s rights, and the “future of the world.”25

Historiography and African Political Biography The construction of Sankara’s revolutionary image owed much to the journalists who followed his career. They produced the first draft of his biography. Mohamed Maïga and Simon Malley (Afrique-Asie), Sennen Andriamirado and Siradiou Diallo (Jeune Afrique), Babou Paulin Bamouni (Carrefour Africain), Jean-Philippe Rapp (Swiss television), and Jean Ziegler all played crucial roles in the making of Sankara as a revolutionary icon. Their highly sympathetic accounts also reflected his wider popularity within leftist and Third Worldist (tiers-mondiste) intellectual circles, especially across

Introduction | 15

francophone Africa and Europe. During Sankara’s lifetime, and within a few short years after he took power, there were already four books written about him or the revolution. They canonized a certain image of Sankara that proved durable.26 After his death, books on Sankara took on a more polemical character, undoubtedly heightened by the assassination in tandem with Compaoré’s political repression. Sankara’s allies and Compaoré apologists presented conflicting accounts of the internal processes that led to the assassination. Ensuing publications also represented competing local historiographies and the views of rival political parties. There was a tendency to read Sankara’s life, and the entire revolutionary history, through the lens of his death. Indeed, commenting on political assassination as the basis for “founding myths” in African nation building, historian Luise White observed that “fixing blame for an assassination” effectively makes it a “chapter in the struggle,” while helping to “organize a national narrative in which agency and causation are subsumed.” In the case of Sankara, his assassination became an essential weapon in ongoing political struggles and contestations. It stood out as the defining moment of the revolution in popular narratives, and it continues to spark tendentious debate and disagreement. In 1997, French activist-scholar Bruno Jaffré wrote the first complete biography of Sankara, drawing on numerous interviews and advancing research into the assassination. However, very little new primary research has been added to the scholarship, with the exception of collections of speeches, memoirs, works of synthesis, and activist books.27 Despite Sankara’s immense popularity in Africa, few historians have written about him. This is especially the case in the anglophone world, where his story is less well-known, perhaps owing to the Anglo-French linguistic barrier. However, Paul Nugent commented that Sankara’s revolution, along with Jerry Rawlings’s revolution in Ghana, “represented a period of high idealism and mass political activism which has seldom been seen in Africa,” an important episode that has “largely been airbrushed out of the official histories.” Otherwise, in academic history writing, Sankara’s story has been relegated to footnotes or to brief asides. He has garnered mostly positive impressions, but his story remains marginalized within the historiography, even as his popularity has grown in Africa.28 In the wider literature, biography has been an important, but neglected, area in postcolonial African history. In a recent podcast, the late historian of Africa Terence Ranger stated that the writing of political biographies of

16 | Thomas Sankara

African leaders was an urgent necessity. In a way, the field of African studies had rushed past political biography, deeming it “Great Man” history, in an effort to catch up with the emergent fields of social and cultural history. But in other ways, biography became enmeshed in nation-building projects; alongside the domestic production of popular hagiographical accounts of national heroes, academics wrote biographies of precolonial African leaders, nationalists, and anti-imperialist figures as a way of delivering more “authentic” African histories. In contrast, “life histories” of ordinary people flourished within the context of social history writing, with a greater focus on subaltern or marginalized groups, such as women, peasants, workers, and slaves. But there has been a resurrection of biography over the past two decades. After slipping into the doldrums, the so-called new biography has sparked renewed interest in the individual. This has brought more focus to subjectivity, the performance of self, notions of “multiple selves” in changing contexts, transnationalism, and the use of biography as a vehicle for exploring various historical events and processes. As part of this process, there has been a renaissance of biography writing in African history, most notably in postapartheid South Africa. Indeed, political leadership matters, and biography provides an important window into the conduct of politics.29

A Note on Sources In form and substance, African political biographies are often very different from those of Western political elites, whose biographies tend to be massive tomes based on presidential archives and libraries, personal papers, letters, memoirs, and copious other sources of evidence that simply do not exist for biographers of African political leaders. Indeed, writing biographies without the biographer’s usual toolkit presents certain challenges. In Sankara’s case, researching a murdered head of state whose memory has been actively suppressed by the state and whose paper trail is extremely thin further complicates matters. This makes it difficult to reconstruct much of the political connective tissue, and the complex web of forces, that surrounded Sankara during the revolutionary period. Nevertheless, although the Compaoré regime succeeded in destroying most of the material evidence from Sankara’s time in power, survivors carried with them their memories and stories, and so this book draws heavily on their voices—over one hundred interviews, mostly with Sankara’s family members, friends, and revolutionary colleagues. Their testimonies have been crucial in reconstructing

Introduction | 17

Sankara’s personal and political life, while enabling us to inhabit the world in which he lived. They have made it possible to examine the entangled nature of Sankara’s private and public selves. Indeed, an aim of African political biography, according to one scholar, has been to “breach the divide between the public and the private, the political and the personal, and to reflect on the individual in a more complex way.” However, oral histories are still retrospective accounts. They are fraught with distortions, selective memories, and suppressed facts. Moreover, in African biography writing, the family is often a “protectively hidden” or “consciously suppressed domain,” as one scholar has described it. As such, there remains a sacrosanct aura around Sankara, as many are reluctant to volunteer information that might contradict positive images of him. In order to enrich and complicate these oral histories, I interviewed a host of foreign diplomats, journalists, labor leaders, academics, and activists. As a way of assessing Sankara’s resonance with ordinary people, and to accurately understand how most people experienced the revolution, I interviewed dozens of grassroots historical actors as well. However, these sources too, while capturing stories and motifs in popular imagination, often over-personalize the revolution, alternately presenting Sankara as a superhuman figure and placing an inordinate amount of blame on his shoulders.30 Oral sources have been complemented with hundreds of diplomatic cables on Sankara, which I obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. This includes all US embassy cables tagged with content on Sankara—from Ouagadougou, Paris, Havana, Abidjan, Washington, Bamako, Dakar, Niamey, and elsewhere—which have been indispensable in piecing together his diplomatic career. The cables elucidate foreign and internal efforts to destabilize Sankara’s government and provide crucial information on the wider political context of his assassination. They also help to establish a chronological baseline of events, government policies, and revolutionary changes within Burkina Faso. They represent the richest extant government sources made available. Nevertheless, while rich in information, these cables often reflect Cold War–era views and biases of the Reagan-era foreign policy establishment, and so they must be properly contextualized. To this end, I had the good fortune of interviewing five US diplomats who served in Ouagadougou during the revolution.31 At the archives in Ouagadougou, the Centre National des Archives du Burkina Faso, few official CNR documents have survived. There are, however, colonial-era reports, which have been useful in establishing the

18 | Thomas Sankara

colonial context in which Sankara grew up. The archives also have a collection of the state-run daily and weekly newspapers from the revolutionary period, such as Carrefour Africain and Sidwaya, which provide detail on revolutionary policies. But they must equally be read as revolutionary state self-representations. The most important internal CNR documents either have been destroyed or remain hidden. The French government has not yet made public its documents on Sankara. In fact, the “Sankara dossier” is currently classified under “secret défense,” kept secret in the military, or national security, interest of France. However, in his first visit to Africa as head of state, French president Emmanuel Macron paid homage to Sankara in Ouagadougou and said that he would request that “all the documents produced by the French administration during the regime of Sankara and after his assassination” be declassified and made available to Burkina’s judiciary. This has led to optimism within the international “Justice for Sankara” movement. But observers in France have noted that it’s wishful thinking to expect that France will actually make these documents public any time soon. Indeed, a prominent French judge has stated that he has “never had knowledge” of a single document marked “secret défense” being declassified.32 Finally, as with most biographies, one way to examine Sankara’s life and thought is through the record of what he said. In this case, most of Sankara’s thoughts were expressed orally via speeches and interviews. He never published anything, and just a scant few letters have survived. Most of his speeches were unscripted, and even when they were scripted, there were no significant ex post facto attempts at theorizing the claims made in them. Thus, they are often fraught with inconsistencies and contradictions, which makes it imperative to read them within their proper contexts. We must acknowledge that his speeches and interviews were public political statements, often with specific audiences in mind—whether in local or international fora—used to mobilize the people and popularize revolutionary policies. In fact, as French scholar René Otayek has argued, it was a “révolution du verbe,” a revolution that waxed highest at the level of rhetoric, and Sankara was known for his marathon speeches, with their numerous twists and turns and their dazzling use of figurative language, irony, and storytelling. Furthermore, many of Sankara’s speeches, including the revolution’s most elaborate political program, the Political Orientation Speech (DOP), were written by others. This means that, despite his reputation for candor, even his own surviving words must be contextualized. In this endeavor, oral

Introduction | 19

sources have helped to clarify Sankara’s political thought, adding nuance to his corpus of speeches and interviews. But in many cases, I have filled in gaps with my own interpretations of what I think Sankara was trying to say, even as these interpretations cannot be substituted for his own preferences or elucidations of their respective contents.33 In the end, we rarely hear Sankara discussing his own life. Because of his assassination, he did not have a chance to examine his life in hindsight. But this unexamined aspect was also due to his aversion to focusing on himself. He was characteristically opaque and volunteered few insights into his interior world. As someone who embraced modesty as a “revolutionary virtue,” he had difficulty acknowledging his own ambitions and usually redirected the focus to “the people.” He even took the position of being reluctantly forced into power, although he rarely doubted the moral importance of his revolutionary project. But in a rare moment, when asked about his “decision” to become head of state, Sankara revealed: “You can’t wage a struggle as a pretext, a lever, to acquire power, because generally the mask cracks very fast. You don’t get involved in a struggle alongside the popular masses in order to become head of state.” To understand how someone arrives at this crucial decision, Sankara suggested: “There are events, moments in life, that are like an encounter, a rendezvous, with the people. To understand them you have to go back a long way into the past, the background, of each individual.” And so we now turn to Sankara’s formative years under colonialism in order to understand how it was that he became a revolutionary.34

Notes 1. New York Times, October 26, 1987; Abiola Irele, interview, March 5, 2013. 2. Hugo Sada, interview, April 20, 2013; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 5–12; Jeune Afrique, October 28, 1987. 3. American Embassy in Ouagadougou (AMEmbassy-Ouaga) to US State Department, Washington DC (SecState), Sept 20, 1984, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); Washington Post, October 16, 1987; New York Times, October 16, 17, 26, 1987; Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1987; Le Monde, October 15, 16, 18, 1987; “Le Burkina Faso,” Politique Africaine 20 (1985); “Retour au Burkina,” Politique Africaine 33 (1989). 4. According to the 1990 UN Human Development Index, Burkina ranked third lowest overall and was in the bottom five in most major indicators, such as infant mortality, literacy rates, access to safe water, malnutrition, and so forth. See Human Development Report, 1990. See Cordell, Gregory, and Piché, Hoe and Wage, 1–4, 287–317; Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging; on the history of neoliberalism, see Slobodian, Globalists.

20 | Thomas Sankara 5. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 123–152; see Jaffré, Biographie; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks. 6. Somé, L’Espoir, 11–12, 48; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, July 2, 1987; AMEmbassyParis to SecState, October 19, 1987, FOIA. 7. AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, October 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 1987, FOIA; Somé, L’Espoir, 41–42; Sidwaya, October 23, 1987; Jeune Afrique, October 28, 1987; Libération, October 21, 1987. 8. Pauline Sankara, interview, July 13, 2014; Colette Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Jeune Afrique, March 30, 1988; Jeune Afrique, July 20, 1988. 9. Anonymous political activist, March 3, 2013; see Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart. 10. Somé, L’Espoir, 190–198; New York Times, March 10, 1997; see Cubitt and Warren, Heroic Reputations; Shuffield, Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man (film); Jaffré, L’insurrection inachevée; Ouedraogo, “Mediated Sankarism”; Harsch, “The Legacies of Thomas Sankara.” 11. See Jaffré, L’insurrection inachevée; Hilgers and Loada, “Tension et protestations”; Chouli, “L’insurrection populaire”; Peterson, “Burkina Faso: A Thousand Sankaras Come of Age”; Peterson, “After the coup in Burkina Faso: Unity, justice, and dismantling the Compaoré system.” 12. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 275. 13. Aside from collections of Sankara’s speeches, there is one short book on his life in English, Harsch, Thomas Sankara, in Ohio University’s Short Histories of Africa series. 14. See Bourdieu, “Biographical Illusion”; “Valère Somé: Le Lion n’est pas un leader politique qu’on doit suivre,” interview with ­lefaso​.­net, published on July 6, 2012; Valère Somé, interview, March 14, 2013. 15. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; on charisma, see Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism, 22–29; and Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455. 16. Sankara, Oser Inventer; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara; Murrey (ed.), A Certain Amount of Madness; on posthumous symbols, see Painter, Sojourner Truth; Riall, Garibaldi. 17. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 12, 2013; Abdoul-Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014. 18. Afrique-Asie, December 20, 1982; Afrique-Asie, January 17, 31, 1983; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 14–14, 21–35, 45–46, 67, 64–74; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, February 12, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, April 22, 1985, FOIA; Bruno Jaffré, interview, May 9, 2013; Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 159–160. 19. Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 86–93; Touré, Une vie de militant, 105–108, 113–118; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 30, 2015; Abdoul-Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 64, 28–67; Jeune Afrique, October 28, 1987. 20. Serge Théophile Balima, interview with Bruno Jaffré, January 2006; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 4, 2013; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution”; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 63–65; AMEmbassyOuaga to SecState, August 22, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, December 28,

Introduction | 21 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, February 12, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, April 22, 1985, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState, October 28, 1986, FOIA. 21. Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983; Martin, African Political Thought; Young, Ideology and Development in Africa; Martin, “Ideology and Praxis”; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecStateWashDC, Sept 20, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-Ouaga to SecState-WashDC, July 2, 1987, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 272; Laclau, On Populist Reason. 22. Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983. 23. Afrique Asie, November 7, 1983; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks. 24. Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013. 25. Afrique Asie, November 7, 1983; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle, 223–225; Malley, Call from Algeria, 75–76; Berger, “After the Third World?”; Gilman, “The New International Economic Order: A Reintroduction”; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks; Wilder, Freedom Time, 241–259. 26. Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle; Bamouni, Burkina Faso. Critical scholarly assessments of Sankara and the revolution were limited to La Révolution Burkinabé, by Belgian political scientist Pierre Englebert, and to articles in the French academic journal Politique Africaine, which were overshadowed by the more hagiographical works. 27. Andriamirado, Il s’appelait Sankara; Somé, L’Espoir; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré; Touré, Une vie de militant; Guissou, Burkina Faso; Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires et Révolution; White, Assassination of Herbert Chitepo, 6–15; Halen and Riesz, Patrice Lumumba entre Dieu et Diable; de Witte, Assassination of Lumumba; Cohen and Odhiambo, Risks of Knowledge. Recent works include Jaffré, Biographie; Benamrane, Sankara, Leader Africain; Pondi, Thomas Sankara et l’emergence de l’Afrique; Harsch, Thomas Sankara; Murrey, Certain Amount of Madness. 28. See Nugent, Africa since Independence, 258–259; Davidson, Black Man’s Burden, 240–242; Ellis, Mask of Anarchy, 158–159, 304–305; Berger, Women in Twentieth Century Africa, 104–105; Iliffe, Honour in African History, 346. 29. “Terence Ranger and the Making of History in Africa,” in Africa Past and Present Podcast, ­http://​­a fripod​.­aodl​.­org​/­tag​/­terence​-­ranger​/. On more recent biographical studies, see Van Onselen, The Seed Is Mine; Crais and Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus; Anthony, Max Yergan; Lindsay, Atlantic Bonds; Lindsay and Sweet, Biography and the Black Atlantic. There is a rich biography literature in South Africa, with numerous books on Mandela alone. On the “new biography,” see Margadant, New Biography. 30. Bruno Jaffré has also shared with me the transcripts of interviews he conducted during the 1980s and 1990s. These earlier interviews have enabled me to further crosscheck testimonies and identify areas of agreement and conflict. See Rassool, “Rethinking Documentary History,” 28–55; Alber et al. (eds.), Generations in Africa; White et al. (eds.), African Words, Africans Voices; Lodge, “Secrets and Lives”; Wydra, “Generations of Memory.” 31. I have also drawn on the Foreign Affairs Oral History Project of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at ­adst​.­org. 32. Le Monde, March 13, 2017; Libération, October 15, 2017; “Le juge Trévidic denonce: ‘le dispositive sur le secret défense n’est pas constitutionnel,” February 24, 2011, M ­ ediapart​.­f r; “France Will Open Secret Sankara Files, Macron Says,” November 29, 2017, r­ fi​.­f r.

22 | Thomas Sankara 33. See Otayek, “Avant-propos: Rectification,” 2–10; Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires, 17–32. 34. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 189–191.

1 COMING OF AGE IN THE SHADOW OF COLONIALISM, 1949–1966

“A

captain has been born,” Joseph Sambo Ouedraogo exclaimed upon the birth of his first son. The news traveled quickly, and soon family members converged on the town of Yako, where Joseph was posted as a colonial guard, living with his wife, Marguerite Kinda, and their two daughters, Florence and Marie-​­Denise. On December 21, 1949, Thomas Isidore Noël Ouedraogo entered the world, and henceforth, he carried the nickname Captain, portending his unusual leadership talents.1 Bordering on the Sahel zone, Yako is in the wide central plateau of Burkina Faso. This hot steppe climate, with poor soils and frequent droughts, is a punishing place to survive. But there’s also a starkly beautiful landscape of vast ocher plains, interspersed with patches of acacia, baobab, and shea trees. Traversed by two rivers, the Nakambé (White Volta) and Nazinon (Red Volta), the region is punctuated by low mountain ranges and undulating hills. Just nineteen kilometers to the south of Yako is the Kipirsi range, the highest in the country. This is the location of Pilimpikou, a sacred hill and cave, where the ancestral spirits of the Mossi people are believed to reside. Around fifty kilometers to the east is Téma, the homeland of the Sankara family. In December 1949, the Sahel was in the middle of the dry season, the once-​­verdant landscape dusty and desiccated. After the harvest, people were highly mobile, engaging in trade, visiting kin, arranging marriages, and seeking work. In fact, under colonialism, this region was a labor reservoir for the French colonial state and business interests in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire. Mossi men provided crucial manpower in building roads, bridges, and railroads.2

24 | Thomas Sankara

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Ivory Coast Map 1.1. Map of Burkina Faso within West Africa. (John Norton)

This was the world that Thomas Sankara entered on the winter solstice. In family oral traditions, the birth took on symbolic importance. Marguerite Kinda, a devout Catholic, went to see the local priest, a Frenchman, and told him about her ardent desire to have a son. The priest spoke about the case of Samuel in the Bible, explaining that his mother, Anna (Hannah), had had difficulties bearing a child and resorted to prayer, promising that her son would be committed to God for his lifetime. Marguerite agreed to do the same, fasting and praying for a month. “Our mother went to see the priest, and she prayed so hard, everything so that she would have a son,” firstborn Florence Sankara remembered. “There were so many signs, like how he was baptized.” The birth of their first son—born to a Christian

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  25

father, Joseph; named after Saint Thomas the Apostle; and bearing the middle names Isidore (Greek for “gift from Isis,” the Egyptian goddess) and Noël (French for “Christmas”)—was shrouded in symbolism and hope.3 Thomas Sankara felt that he had been simply lucky to survive infancy, as he explained: “Out of 1,000 children born the same year I was, half died in the first three months. I had the great fortune to escape death, just as I had the great fortune to not die later from one of the diseases here in Africa.” In fact, he was an unusually tiny infant, and Marguerite thought that he would not survive. But, in time, he grew into a healthy boy, and he was eventually fortunate enough to get an education in such an impoverished colony. He was far from being an elite, but as the son of a colonial civil servant, he had many advantages over the peasant masses of colonial Upper Volta. But in most ways, he had a rather ordinary childhood. He had loving and supportive parents; he faced no major traumas. As fellow revolutionary Soumane Touré observed: “We have to be aware of all the constructions of ‘Thomas Sankara’ after the fact. Much of what is said about him now is part of a hagiography. When I first met him, he was not even ‘Thomas Sankara.’ He was Thomas Ouedraogo, and he was an ordinary kid from Gaoua.”4 Indeed, until his teenage years, Sankara bore the official surname Ouedraogo and the stigma of not being a “pure” Mossi. The change in surname reflected political alliances and marital ties between clans. And Ouedraogo—meaning “stallion” in the Mooré language—was a historically significant name. According to Mossi foundation narratives, the warrior princess Yennenga fought many battles and produced a son, Ouedraogo, named in honor of her beloved warhorse. Ouedraogo went on to establish the Mossi kingdom in the twelfth century. But the Sankara clan drew their lineage from Fulbé, or Peul, pastoralists who had migrated into Mossi territory over the centuries and entered into alliances with the king, or Naba, of Téma.5 In time, through intermarriage, they took on Mossi cultural practices, giving rise to the Silmi-​­Mossi ethnic group to which the Sankara family belonged. Mousbila Sankara, an uncle to Thomas Sankara, provided the following oral history: “We are all part of the Sankara clan of Téma, which was Fulbé and Mossi, or Silmi-​­Mossi. We derive our name from Sangaré. They say that our ancestors came from among the Sangaré in Wasulu, and in fact there’s a river in Wasulu called the Sankarani. We kept this identity, but our Fulbé ways and language were slowly lost as we stayed among the Mossi. We entered into marriage alliances with the chiefs of Téma, and were viewed as the little brothers of the Ouedraogo.”6

26 | Thomas Sankara

In this way, belonging to one of the smallest ethnic groups, Thomas Sankara developed a strong identification with marginalized or minority groups. He came to envision a form of national identity based more on ethical principles and morals than on bloodlines. As a result, Jean Ziegler observed, “neither ‘true Mossi’ nor ‘true Peul,’ Sankara was forced, very young, to define himself through his own actions, his convictions.”7 The political fortunes of the Mossi kingdom had changed in 1895 when French colonial conquest began. According to Skinner, the French pressured the Mossi ruler Moro Naba Wobogo to surrender, but the king refused to sign a treaty. Then, with news of French forces marching on Ouagadougou, Wobogo fled and took refuge in the neighboring British Gold Coast. The French promptly placed Wobogo’s brother, Sigiri, on the throne. Nearly two decades of brutal conquest ensued, until the territory was incorporated into the larger colony of Upper Senegal-​­Niger. There were ongoing acts of resistance, such as the massive armed rebellion known as the Volta-​­Bani revolt, which led to the creation of the separate colony of Upper Volta in 1919. French interests in Côte d’Ivoire lobbied for more labor, and in response the French dissolved Upper Volta in 1932, making it part of Côte d’Ivoire. However, the suppression of Upper Volta did not produce the desired results, and the colony was reconstituted in 1947.8 Within this context, Sankara’s father, Sambo (“Joseph”), was born in 1919, the second of four sons in a Muslim family. As a boy, Sambo worked as a shepherd for the Naba of Téma. Years later, leading up to Sankara’s assassination, rumors swirled that he was the “son of Mossi slaves.” In fact, given that this region of West Africa was a post-​­emancipation society that had seen a widespread resurgence of so-​­called pawning—essentially volunteering a child’s labor in exchange for credit—it’s possible that Sambo served as a pawn for the Naba. When the Second World War broke out, rather than risk his own son, the Naba volunteered Sambo for military service under the Ouedraogo name. Sambo and his future family were then mistakenly recorded as Ouedraogo in colonial bureaucratic records.9 Family oral traditions indicate that for most of the war—after France’s quick defeat by the Germans—Sambo found himself in a Red Cross camp, where a Catholic sister, Marie-​­Joseph, took him under her wing and proselytization ensued. “Our father had the good fortune that he was taken as an aid to the nurses in the Red Cross,” Florence Sankara remembered. “He learned about medicine from the Catholic sisters. There was one sister in particular, Marie-​­Joseph, and she later gave him the name, Joseph,

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  27

and baptized him.” When Sambo “Joseph” Ouedraogo returned home with his new Christian faith, he discovered that hardships had hit the population because of wartime grain requisitions, famine, and epidemics. Family members had perished, including his father. But Joseph found employment with the colonial state, serving as a colonial guard and military nurse in Ouagadougou. As a reward for their service, veterans were given preferential access to jobs. But it meant that they were in constant displacement, living in disparate localities across the colony.10 While in Ouagadougou, Joseph met Marguerite Kinda, a fellow Catholic from Loumbila whose brother was also a World War II veteran. In the early 1930s, Kinda’s father was conscripted as a forced laborer to work on the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Ouagadougou. “While working on the cathedral, he embraced Catholicism,” Valentin Sankara told. “The workers stayed there for a few years in their small community, and that was how they were brought into the church. He became Marc, and he was the first Catholic in the Kinda family. He died in 1950, when Thomas was only nine months, so he never knew either grandfather.” On a broader level, Catholic missionaries had been in the Upper Volta since the turn of the century. The first officially baptized Catholic was the renowned Alfred Simon Diban Ki-​­Zerbo, a former slave who converted in 1901 and played a central role in spreading Catholicism. His son, the historian Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, became a major political figure in postcolonial Upper Volta. But it took decades for Catholicism to really take hold in the colony, as the Mossi chiefs resisted proselytization efforts. In 1948, the colonial census recorded just 63,600 Catholics (and 523,000 Muslims) in a population of roughly four million. The vast majority of people adhered to “traditional” local religions, which colonial officials believed were on the decline as a result of the “well-​­organized and deeper penetration of Catholic missions,” according to one colonial report. Aside from the White Father apostolic vicariate in Ouagadougou, there were newly created vicariates in Ouahigouya, Bobo-​­Dioulasso, and Nouna. Each vicariate was tasked with spreading mission stations into surrounding villages and towns. But they were winning converts by taking a lax attitude vis-​­à-vis traditional customs, as one colonial official reported: “The White Fathers intensify their efforts to succeed in spreading the Catholic religion without seriously harming the traditions and customs of the races. . . . It is thus that among the Bobo the wearing of masks has not been abolished; we just advise them that when they wear the mask they pray to God instead of their fetish.” Indeed, many

28 | Thomas Sankara

Catholic converts preserved indigenous practices and beliefs, and there was considerable ritual cooperation between Christians and Muslims. In time, mosques and churches stood side by side without stirring controversy, and intermarriage between Muslims and Christians was common.11 One of Sankara’s friends, Germaine Pitroipa, described her religious upbringing in Fada N’Gourma during this era: Even those who are Catholic, they had their old practices. My father was converted to Islam and he prayed, but my mother kept her ancestral practices. I was baptized as a Catholic by my uncle, and this didn’t pose any problems for anyone. So my father was Muslim, my mother was animist, and I was Catholic. In Burkina, there were so many villages where you had mosques and churches next to each other, and you had villagers who continued to do their sacrifices. On Sundays we went to mass, and if it was the Muslim holidays we celebrated with them, and if it was a Catholic holiday they celebrated with us. If it was Easter, the Muslims came and celebrated, or the end of Ramadan or Tabaski we went to their homes. So we shared meat together. The children grew up without distinctions. We didn’t even realize that the religions were separate, and I never saw conflicts in the villages about religion. It wasn’t an issue back then.12

After their marriage in Ouagadougou, Joseph and Marguerite moved to Zorgo in 1944 and within a few years had their daughters, Florence and Marie-​­Denise. But in her first year of life, Marie was stricken with bacterial meningitis. She was one of thousands who were afflicted when a meningitis epidemic hit the Upper Volta. According to colonial reports, there were 13,976 cases of meningitis in 1947–1948, with a 20 percent mortality rate. Although Marie survived, she was disabled. Even so, for his first few years, Thomas was mostly under her tutelage. “Marie was the closest to Thomas of all the siblings,” Pauline Sankara said. “She was the one who really witnessed his childhood. They protected each other.” Marie recalled that Thomas was a “very sensitive” boy who helped her out with chores, such as gathering wood and carrying water, which were quite difficult tasks given her disability.13 Although it was unusual for African societies of this era, Sankara grew up without the typical multigenerational extended family. As the children of a civil servant who constantly moved around and lived in towns, he and his siblings were cut off from their traditional rural roots. Moreover, theirs was the only Christian household in a larger Muslim family. They grew up without grandparents who might tell stories and teach them village foundation narratives, myths, and oral traditions, and so their social frames

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  29

were very different from those in the Mossi heartland. Both of their grandfathers were deceased, and they never knew their maternal grandmother. Florence Sankara recalled: “Among our grandparents, Thomas only knew our paternal grandmother, Ralamanakaba, a little bit. She lived with our father, Sambo, briefly until Lassané took her to live with him in Tanguy.” Marie similarly explained that “Thomas knew her, but he didn’t have many chances to talk with her.” This absence of deep rural roots and ties to elders arguably made it much easier for Sankara to pursue radical, and even iconoclastic, ruptures with so-​­called feudalism during the revolution.14 Politically it was a time of rapid change, as the Mossi chieftaincy battled the growing influence of anti-​­colonial politicians, such as the Ivoirian Félix Houphouët-​­Boigny. Although Houphouët-​­Boigny, who headed the left-​ ­wing African Democratic Rally (RDA), narrowly defeated the Moro Naba’s preferred candidate in elections to the French National Assembly in 1946, the Mossi elite eventually succeeded in pressuring the new French president Vincent Auriol, during his visit to Ouagadougou, to support separate territorial status for Upper Volta in 1947. While this reconstitution served to expand the power of the Mossi chiefs, the new electoral system was heavily weighted in favor of the emerging educated urban elite and civil servants. The Mossi chiefs remained influential mostly in rural areas, where peasants looked to their chiefs for guidance. On a more global level, the Cold War was descending on Africa. In the year of Sankara’s birth, the Chinese Revolution erupted on the other side of the world, while colonial governments in Africa adopted anti-​­communist discourse. In France, communists were purged from the government, and soon Cold War pressures were brought to bear on the colonies. Within Upper Volta, the Mossi-​­dominated Voltaic Union made use of this rhetorical strategy in its political combat, accusing the RDA of “associating with communists” during the colony’s first General Council elections in 1949. Use of such “Red Scare” tactics would become an enduring feature of postcolonial politics in Upper Volta.15 After seven years in Ouagadougou, Joseph was assigned to the colonial post in Gaoua to serve as a military nurse. Many years before, in 1898, a French military garrison had been established in Gaoua, perched on a large hill overlooking the town. That part of the colony was a rich agricultural zone targeted for cash crop production. But the Lobi peoples fiercely resisted colonial conquest. The colonial administration responded by taking women, children, and elders hostage, seizing livestock, burning villages, and destroying crops. The French commandant of the district summed

30 | Thomas Sankara

up: “Either they show tangible signs of submission, or their crops will be destroyed. The method is extreme, but we must finish with this most rebellious corner of the country, the refuge of all the bandits of the region.” Eventually, this “refuge” for bandits came under colonial control and provided large contingents of forced laborers to work on roads, bridges, and railroads. But after the Second World War, the region reemerged as a stronghold of anti-​­colonial resistance, with its ties to Ivoirian RDA leader Houphouët-​ ­Boigny and its proximity to newly independent Ghana.16 However, as an admirer of Charles de Gaulle, Joseph Sankara was on the conservative side of politics. Like many colonial soldiers of his generation, he supported maintaining close ties to France and was wary of the young leftists, although he later embraced the RDA. During these years, the French army and its African soldiers played important roles in controlling political processes. As veterans took up positions as colonial guards and gendarmes, they served as “political agents,” tasked with monitoring leftists. Pro-​­French propaganda was disseminated via radio, newspapers, and especially mobile film units, targeting mostly veterans and schoolchildren in all of the colonial districts. Yet although African soldiers often took pro-​­French political positions, they were also embraced by leftists. For example, the leading political figure of the period, Daniel Ouezzin Coulibaly—the RDA’s representative from Upper Volta in the French National Assembly—fought for veterans’ rights and criticized the French state for using Africans as “mercenaries” in its wars against Vietnamese guerillas. In short, Thomas Sankara grew up in an environment in which veterans were deeply respected and honored, even if their politics and politicization provoked mixed responses.17 The Sankara household and the small community of Gaoua were important crucibles that shaped Sankara’s personality. In the military mold, Joseph raised his children to be obedient and respectful. Corporal punishment was the norm. Thomas internalized this sense of military discipline. As the first son, he held a privileged position. He was relieved of household chores and given considerable freedom to express his opinion. This social position endowed Sankara with an extra sense of confidence and even entitlement. He was considered an authority figure and was designated as the natural leader among his siblings.18 Pascal Sankara remembered: We were one of the largest families, eventually with eleven kids. And Thomas was the first son, so naturally he was the leader. He raised us, educated us. He was the teacher with the younger kids. Our father had built this blackboard

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  31 for studies, math problems, language, dictation. Thomas would stand in front of the board and teach us. Even before meals, he would send us to go wash. Then he would begin eating first, and we would follow. The big brother always starts first. Otherwise, he’d slap you. There’s order involved. But he raised us correctly. We realized that the rules he enforced were important. Because we had such a large family, he was virtually like a parent for us.19

The Sankara children grew up in the milieu of Gaoua’s military camp and its unique subculture. It was a tiny melting pot in which they encountered people of different backgrounds. Jula (Dioula) was the lingua franca around town, and so it became the main language of the Sankara household, even as the children learned Mooré from Joseph and Marguerite. Soon, through colonial schooling, French was added. The Sankara household became highly multilingual, as family members moved fluidly between Jula, Mooré, French, and even bits of Lobi and Fulfuldé. Such an environment forged an identity in Sankara that was much more national than regional (or ethnic) in its orientation. This identity would later be reinforced during Sankara’s years in school and with the military, when he lived, studied, and worked in various communities characterized by considerable social, religious, and ethnic intermixing.20 As children in Gaoua, he and his siblings spent most of their time outdoors, playing on the hillside and taking the numerous forest pathways down to the town. It was a tight community in which military families lived in a row of modest homes. Joseph’s family was the first to live in their new brick building, but electricity and indoor plumbing were nonexistent. The family used gas lamps for light in the evenings. Eventually, Joseph purchased a battery-​­powered transistor radio, and so the family sat around and listened to the various colonial programs, mostly French news and music. They were also exposed to the occasional films screened by French authorities. Sankara would later make use of these colonial-​­era mobile film units during the revolution, as friend Fidèle Toé remembered: “The colonial agents brought a mobile cinema and set up a screen. It was an open-​­air thing. They put up a tent, and at night they showed different movies. First in Pô and later during the revolution, Thomas developed this mobile cinema system, which he had remembered from when he was a child.” Sankara’s love of movies was part of a wider film craze in the 1950s French West Africa, as young beneficiaries of the expanded secondary school system flocked to the ciné-​­clubs and open-​­air screenings to see mainly American movies dubbed in French. Local moviegoers in Upper Volta preferred

32 | Thomas Sankara

westerns, Tarzan, Zorro, and adventure and detective movies. These films undoubtedly shaped Sankara’s view of the world outside Africa.21 It was in this community that Sankara met his lifelong friend, Jean-​ ­Pascal Ouedraogo. Seven years older, Jean-​­Pascal became Sankara’s kòrò, his adopted big brother, serving as an important mentor in his life. “We were mostly Mossi from the plateau, but there were others too,” Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo recalled. “I brought Thomas to school. I was his protector . . . I tutored Thomas and the other children in grammar, math, and science. Thomas learned things very quickly and understood things easily.” Sankara’s closest childhood friend, however, was a local Lobi boy named Valère Somé, who lived in the nearby village of Diébougou. The Somé family was important, with members serving as ritual specialists and “priests of the land.” But Valère Somé’s father had converted to Christianity and was working as a colonial civil servant in Gaoua, tasked with fighting epidemics. Rather short in stature, Valère Somé took on a combative personality, mirroring his famously strong and politically active mother. Later, he came under the wing of Soumane Touré, also from Diébougou, who emerged as one of the country’s leading labor leaders. Finally, it was in Gaoua that Sankara met Ernest Nongma Ouedraogo, whose father—a restaurant owner in Gaoua—had died prematurely, which led Joseph to adopt him.22 As the first son of a veteran, Sankara was in a privileged position, and in 1956 he began primary school. As an interest group, veterans numbered 17,492 in Upper Volta on the eve of independence, and they had come together to push for greater access to education for their children. Colonial reports show that 7,368 of the 15,836 children attending schools in 1956 were from the families of veterans, civil servants, or chiefs. In other words, less than 1 percent of the population provided 45 percent of the student body. Catholics were also overrepresented in schools. In terms of gender in Gaoua, boys still outnumbered girls, 11,669 to 4,167. In any case, Sankara was one of the fortunate few who were able to attend school. Schoolmates remembered that he was especially strong in mathematics and the French language, and he got along well with the teachers. In fact, as the country moved toward independence, increasing numbers of African teachers took over positions in the school. According to Jaffré, one of the more memorable instructors was an Ivoirian named Anatole Diboulo, an early member of the RDA who was devoted to social justice and the anti-​­colonial struggle. Sankara came to admire Diboulo for his “revolutionary attitude” vis-​­à-vis the French officials in Gaoua.23

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  33

The Sankara family was devout and churchgoing. Joseph instructed his children in the catechism, while Marguerite was known for her prayers, words of encouragement, and moral lessons. They preached modesty, humility, and pride in one’s work. Thomas attended Mass every morning, served as an altar boy, and sang in the church choir. “When we were children, every morning we went to Mass together before going to school,” Valère Somé said. “Our families were both Catholic. So above all we grew up in the Catholic religion. And what people don’t realize is how much this entered into Thomas’s personality. He was really marked by this, in his actions, in his way of doing things, and way of thinking about changing the world in a certain way, his sense of moral purpose and justice.” Later in life, Sankara would take an interest in “liberation theology,” which advocated for the rights of the poor and greater political activism to address social inequities and oppression. But in the 1950s, the Catholic church in French Upper Volta positioned itself against such political efforts.24 Fidèle Toé remembered: “The priests were still saluting the picture of Petain! They continued to preach the message of Petain’s National Revolution. They had this ideology. And the priests were saying that communism was going to come and we had to fight against it, because communism was going change everything socially by creating communal property; women would be shared, marriage would end, religion would end. We lived through this kind of ideology. We learned about the French revolution, which the priests saw as destructive.”25 Within family oral traditions, some have remembered Sankara as obedient and “unusually interested in religion.” According to Marie, he performed his prayers morning and night and often quoted the Bible to other children, telling them that “the eye of God is on you.” But other accounts present a different side. They depict Sankara as a much more mischievous youth who got in scraps with other boys, irreverently spoke his mind around adults, and questioned social norms. “From when he was very young, he was always curious about everything and questioned everything. Any rule that was enforced, he sought to understand the reasons behind that particular rule,” Pascal Sankara remembered. Even within the context of the church, he tested boundaries, like his namesake the “doubting” apostle Thomas. He asked the priest, Father Maurice, probing questions about the nature of heaven and hell and about the lives of biblical figures. “This was a time when you didn’t ask such questions of the priest,” Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo recalled. “But Thomas was always asking tough questions, about creation,

34 | Thomas Sankara

Adam and Eve, and one time he asked the priest ‘Why are Adam and Eve white and I am black?’ He was curious and challenged the priests.” Furthermore, although an image has been cultivated of Sankara as an individual of great modesty and humility, he was intensely competitive and ambitious. “Thomas always wanted to be first in the class,” Ouedraogo remembered. “And the one time he was second, he was so upset that he couldn’t eat. Thomas went through his notebook and counted his points and went to the teacher and said that he had more points.”26 In the wider Catholic community of Gaoua, Sankara blossomed as a leader in the local Cœurs Vaillants (Brave Hearts) scout organization. On weekends, the scouts took long hikes in the forests with the priests. “Thomas was a natural leader among the children in the community and in the scouts,” Pascal Sankara remembered. “When we marched around in the forests for the day, Thomas was in command. He just instinctively rose to the top and organized people. It was in these years that his friends started calling him Captain more regularly.” In their leisure time, Sankara played soccer with other boys in the dusty fields on the outskirts of town. Although popular accounts have portrayed him as a consummate athlete, Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo observed frankly: “Thomas loved sports, but he was not so gifted at soccer. In the games of combat and such, climbing, jumping, crawling, and engaging in combat, he was extremely gifted, but honestly, not in soccer.” Still, he was a passionate soccer enthusiast, and in those years he enjoyed watching a local soccer club called the Flèches Noires (“Black Arrows”) of Gaoua. Many of the players were civil servants or migrant workers who worked on the railway line. These matches were some of Sankara’s childhood highlights. There were other important moments, such as the day his uncle Alexis Kinda arrived by airplane in Gaoua. It was the first time he and his siblings had ever seen an airplane in person, and for Sankara it sparked a lifelong interest in aviation and military technology. His siblings also remembered that Thomas relished solitary time, fostered a rich inner life, and read avidly. He especially liked comic books, Tintin, and cowboy stories, such as Lucky Luke. Sankara often gave boys in his entourage nicknames derived from Lucky Luke.27 As Sankara grew into middle boyhood, he took an interest in questions of justice. With six sisters and a close bond with his mother, he became especially aware of the injustices that women and girls faced in society. Moreover, he saw his sister Elisabeth perish from disease as a child.28 Sankara later described the gender inequities in childhood:

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  35 While society sees the birth of a boy as a “gift of God,” the birth of a girl is greeted as an act of fate, or at best, a gift that can be used to produce food. . . . [The girl] knows no childhood. From the age of three, she must meet the requirements of her role in life: to serve and be useful. While her brother of four or five or six will play till he drops from exhaustion or boredom, she, with little ceremony, will enter the process of production. She already has a trade: assistant housewife.29

Life was tough for women in the military post of Gaoua. There were frequent disputes, and children watched helplessly as their mothers were subjected to domestic violence. But at the age of nine, Sankara dared to confront his father for hitting his mother. Jean-​­Pascal remembered: “Papa Joseph was hitting mama Marguerite. It was common in our gendarme camp that you’d hear a mother crying because her husband was beating her. But Thomas rose up in revolt against this, against his own father. He was just a boy of nine years old, and he said, ‘I want you to stop hitting our mother.’” It was a courageous act, and word about the incident spread. Hearing the sounds of domestic violence, young Sankara would rally children to go bear witness. Just their presence was often enough to stop the abuse. Paul Sankara recalled that his older brother also readily criticized Muslim men for the treatment of their wives, calling out the inequalities stemming from polygamy.30 It’s tempting to impute to Sankara a remarkably precocious commitment to women’s rights. However, other young men of his generation held similar views, often drawing inspiration from their mothers and women activists of the era. In fact, Sankara’s actions took place within a wider context of women’s political engagement in Gaoua, Bobo-​­Dioulasso, and Banfora, where the wives of civil servants, teachers, and political leaders got involved in the RDA. Most prominently, the head of the RDA’s women’s section for Upper Volta, Célestine Ouezzin Coulibaly (married to Daniel Ouezzin Coulibaly), was from Banfora. In 1949, she led an important women’s protest march in order to free their detained husbands in Côte d’Ivoire. Later, in 1958, she became the first female minister in the new government of Upper Volta, serving as minister of social affairs and becoming the first woman in the National Assembly. At the time, only one other woman in francophone Africa had achieved this level of political success: Aoua Keita of French Sudan (Mali).31 Over time, Sankara channeled his revolt increasingly in the direction of anti-​­imperialism. Growing up under colonialism, he heard stories about

36 | Thomas Sankara

forced labor, colonial violence, and military conscription. He witnessed famine and the hardships of peasants. “Very young we began our revolt against imperialism,” Valère Somé remembered. “We heard all of these stories about colonialism, and how the people had been traumatized, and this created a feeling of indignity that sent us in the direction of revolt.” Indeed, there was no shortage of stories about the brutalities of colonial rule. Virtually everyone had suffered in some way. “My parents, grandparents, and neighbors, everyone shared stories about forced labor and grain requisitions and severe famines that occurred here. And there was the head tax that was hated. There were stories about building roads and railroads, and all the men who died working on them,” Soumane Touré said. In this era of anti-​ ­colonial rebellion, the youth of Gaoua attended adult political gatherings and listened to the debates. They benefited from the experiences of older siblings, cousins, and those in the community who had traveled abroad or attended lycée. For example, Valère Somé’s uncle, Basa Jude Somé, returned from lycée in Bobo-​­Dioulasso with leftist books and ideas and sought to radicalize the youth of Gaoua. He was later a founder of Upper Volta’s first communist party, the Voltaic Communist Organization (OCV). However, a more important figure for Sankara was Adama Touré, the future African Independence Party (PAI) leader from the nearby village of Kampti, who was kin to Soumane Touré. His mother was a militant leader in the local RDA section, and he founded a small club focused on Lobi youth cultural activities. His political activism took a more radical turn after he arrived in Senegal in 1959 to attend the University of Dakar. In this cosmopolitan former capital of French West Africa, he joined the Marxist-​­Leninist Party, the PAI, and got involved in anti-​­imperialist movements. Later, from 1966, as a history professor at a military academy, Touré would be one of Sankara’s most important revolutionary mentors.32 Colonial guards in Gaoua told Sankara and his friends about their experiences in the wars of decolonization in Indochina and Algeria. They shared stories about the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and his brilliant military strategist Vo Nguyen Giap, and they explained the crushing defeat of the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Closer to home, Sankara and his friends followed the war in Algeria and learned about the National Liberation Front (FLN). They drew inspiration from figures such as Kwamé Nkrumah and Sékou Touré. Soon, with revolution in the air, young people engaged in their own acts of local political rebellion. Future revolutionary Philippe Ouedraogo remembered: “We had a student strike in 1958, because

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  37

we had a French professor who had a very colonial attitude towards us. We revolted against this teacher, had a strike. We were sent home for three weeks. But the teacher was dismissed. So my revolt began then, and we saw that together we could exercise our popular power.” Sankara engaged in his own acts of anti-​­colonial dissidence. According to his telling, the French director of the school in Gaoua, Mr. Vignon, had given his son, Patrick, a very nice bicycle. The African students beseeched the French boy for a chance to ride the bicycle. But then Sankara mischievously said to himself, “Too bad, I’m going to treat myself to this pleasure no matter what the consequences.” He grabbed the bicycle and took it for a quick spin. “They arrested my father and threw him in prison,” Sankara told. “I was expelled from school.” For Sankara, the episode generated “profound feelings of injustice.” Despite the trouble that his risk-​­taking son was constantly bringing to his doorstep, Joseph defended him. Thomas was proud that his father had been incarcerated for standing up for him.33 On the larger political stage, French-​­ educated African politicians slowly eclipsed the Mossi chiefs in the electoral game. A major turning point was the French Union’s so-​­called loi cadre, or “framework law,” of 1956, which, according to historian Frederick Cooper, became the “basis for the independent states of former French Africa,” by way of universal suffrage, the single electoral college, and territorial assemblies. Nation-​­states were not yet created, but the new territorial governments, with their elected assemblies, were responsible for their own budgets and civil service. In the process, they were “balkanized,” broken into smaller and more malleable units. In the Upper Volta, the non-​­Mossi Ouezzin Coulibaly emerged as the dominant political figure, being elected as president of the Government Council of Upper Volta in 1957. In the heated debates over creating a larger “federation” of French African states, Coulibaly leaned more toward the federalists than the so-​­called territorialists, who had French backing. However, Coulibaly suddenly died in Paris, where he was a deputy in the National Assembly, opening the way for the Mossi politician Maurice Yameogo, who threw his support behind the territorialists. Following the referendum vote in 1958, Upper Volta was granted further internal self-​­government within the context of Charles de Gaulle’s newly created French Community. On December 11, 1958, Yameogo was elected president of the Republic of Upper Volta, celebrating self-​­government. In the ongoing debate over the creation of an African federation—known as the Mali Federation—the Ivoirians announced, in May 1959, the formation of a rival

38 | Thomas Sankara

federation, the Conseil de l’Entente, made up of Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Upper Volta, and Dahomey. It was a “coordinating body” largely under the control of Houphouët-​­Boigny, who became the doyen of French neocolonial power in West Africa. Houphouët-​­Boigny offered favorable citizenship and naturalization paths for migrants from Upper Volta working and living in Côte d’Ivoire—who numbered around five hundred thousand at independence. Upper Volta’s status was largely cemented as a subordinate labor reservoir.34 With the approach of formal independence in 1960, the colonial administration had both the French and Voltaic flags flying in Gaoua. Sankara saw the two flags and posed a question to Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo: “A country cannot have two flags. Why do we accept to fly two flags? Are we French or Voltaic?” Sankara watched as they lowered a French flag in their schoolyard independence ceremony and raised the new flag of Upper Volta. A group of French kids had made little French flags out of paper, attached them to sticks, and planted them in the ground. Seeing this, Sankara organized his siblings and the children of the African gendarmes to make their own flags for the independent Upper Volta with black, red, and white crayons. Then, in a provocative action, Sankara ceremoniously led the African children around, removing all the French flags and replacing them with the new flags of Upper Volta. Pascal Sankara recounted: “When we went around removing their flags, the French kids were so upset, and they started crying. Then there were scuffles. They ran and complained to the French officials. They were saying how the son of Joseph Sankara had committed a very serious act of rebellion.”35 On August 5, 1960, the Upper Volta Republic was born, and President Yameogo wasted little time in declaring war on the Mossi chieftaincy. Although he was himself Mossi, Yameogo represented the new French-​ ­educated Catholic elite that had fought the chieftaincy for political leadership and now worked to dismantle the foundations of their traditional power. Yameogo’s attacks on the chiefs foreshadowed Sankara’s own efforts, twenty-​­three years later, to diminish the power of the rural chieftaincy. But in 1960, Sankara was feeling proud of his country as he listened intently to the radio. After the broadcast, according to Pascal, he turned to the other children and said, “Now the French are no longer in charge of us. We will be in charge of our own country.” He was still far from understanding the realities of neocolonialism, but at this moment a vision of true sovereignty had been planted in his mind.36

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  39

In 1962, Thomas Sankara departed for Lycée Ouezzin Coulibaly in Bobo-​­Dioulasso. Although the priests in Gaoua had been grooming him for seminary, when news arrived that he had passed the entrance exam to begin his first year in secondary school (collège), known as sixième, he took the opportunity. Father Maurice and the other priests were so upset with the decision that they criticized Joseph for “not praying hard enough.” But although Thomas did not attend seminary, he certainly carried inside him a kind of moral purpose. Still bearing the surname Ouedraogo, he arrived alone in Bobo-​­Dioulasso, Upper Volta’s cosmopolitan second city. As the country’s main economic hub, and the rival of Ouagadougou, “Bobo” was considered the big city, and there was plenty to dazzle a twelve-​­year-old boy from Gaoua: the paved roads, cars, streetlights, large markets, tree-​­lined streets, and impressive mosques. After finding his bearings, Sankara made his way to Lycée Ouezzin Coulibaly, up a short hill at the eastern end of town, only to find out that the dormitories were closed.37 According to his telling, he came upon a house and rang the bell. A man answered: “Why is there a youngster at my door?” Sankara replied, “I saw this house and said to myself: this is where I’m going to sleep tonight.” The man sighed and invited Sankara into the courtyard for food and lodging. The next day, Sankara was on his way, but he never forgot the kindness of this man, Pierre Barry. Sankara recalled: “When I left his house, I swore to myself that one day I would do something for this man so that he’d know his kindness had not been in vain.” Twenty years later, when Sankara was minister of information under Saye Zerbo, he gave Pierre Barry a job as a radio technician. But when Sankara returned to school the day after his visit, he learned that his scholarship, as a veteran’s son, did not cover food and lodging. He quickly got in touch with Ernest Nongma Ouedraogo, who had recently finished at Lycée Ouezzin and who was working at the high commissioner’s office. Ouedraogo and a military friend of Joseph’s arranged for Thomas to take up residence at the military camp.38 Once classes started, Sankara struck up a friendship with his tablemate, Fidèle Toé, a fellow Catholic whose father was also a veteran and who was staying with family friends on the outskirts of town. “When we first arrived, we were both forced to stay off-​­campus,” Toé remembered. “We did not have scholarships to stay in the school dormitories. We were given books and notebooks, but nowhere to sleep. This was a source of bonding for us, because Thomas and I were living in the same conditions.” Like Sankara,

40 | Thomas Sankara

Toé belonged to an ethnic minority group, the Samo. Born in Mali, at the French colonial Office du Niger irrigation project, where his father worked, Toé grew up in Toma, in the outlying west of the country. Eventually his father joined the colonial military and served in Indochina and Algeria. However, although both Sankara and Toé were from military families, they chafed at the political opinions of their fathers. “It was during these years that we both became more conscious politically,” Toé explained. “Our fathers were strong supporters of de Gaulle. This meant that we did not have the same political ideas and values as our fathers and the older generation. But in Upper Volta, independence came so precipitously that the people hadn’t had the time to develop a real national political awareness.”39 When not studying, the two friends spent much of their time riding around Bobo on their bicycles, exploring the city and venturing out to nearby villages. They regularly attended Catholic Mass together. But they still felt like outsiders socially, as they were the only students wearing traditional homespun cloth rather than Western clothes. “We came from modest backgrounds,” Toé explained. “We were not properly clothed, or even fed. Everyone else had the proper attire, and so the older kids had a tendency to tease us and humiliate us. But Thomas was truly fearless. If something seemed unjust to him, he would refuse to back down, even against the older boys. This made quite an impression on everyone, and he became the leader in our group.” Sankara also drew support from Soumane Touré and Ernest Nongma Ouedraogo. “Once we were all in Bobo, the village differences disappeared, and we all became the ‘people from Gaoua,’” Touré remembered. “[Thomas] was always with Fidèle Toé. I know he was going to church a lot, and always going to Mass and talking to the priests.” Sankara met another future friend, Paul Yameogo, who was a student at the Catholic private school.40 Aside from the curriculum in the French language, mathematics, history, geography, Latin, and Greek, Sankara deepened his creative endeavors, experimenting with writing poetry and drawing. By 1966, he was writing down his thoughts every night in a diary, but this source has long since disappeared. His biggest teenage passion was for theater. He acted in such plays as Molière’s “The Bourgeois Gentleman” (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme), which gave him considerable experience in front of crowds. He also developed an interest in Western popular culture and world news, his adolescent philosophical orientation shaped by cinema. He was deeply moved by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, whom he admired, as a fellow liberal

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  41

Catholic. Kennedy had raised hopes for Africans, and the mysteries around the assassination made Sankara aware of the dangers of imperialism, even to an American president.41 By his second year, Sankara was living in the dormitories. But almost immediately he fell seriously ill, requiring hospitalization. As his classmates forged ahead, he lay in a weakened and lethargic state. He finally left the hospital and, after a difficult beginning to his second year, returned home. A skinny teenager, albeit brave and skilled, he lacked physical strength, and so he committed himself to a regular exercise regimen. He decided to permanently abstain from any kind of stimulant or intoxicant. Fidèle Toé remembered: “Thomas said that in order to be a good surgeon you had to have hands that do not tremble. I drank coffee and certainly enjoyed my dòlò [beer]. But Thomas no longer would drink coffee, tea, or alcohol. And he did not smoke. This was his position, to be in supreme command of his faculties.” Indeed, Sankara had made the decision to become a military doctor, a surgeon. He also decided to reclaim his childhood nickname. “He had watched a Captain Morgan movie over the break, and he said that he liked being called Captain,” Toé recalled. “So we called him Captain.” At thirteen years old, he was beginning to figure out his role in society. In a way, he was following his father, who had become a military nurse. But the timing of the decision suggests that his illness prompted him to think about his life in a new light. Furthermore, in the hospital he witnessed the poor being turned away and perishing in the hallway, while rich people were treated. And he was still haunted by his sister Elisabeth’s death, its impact on his mother, and his sister Marie’s plight. These experiences moved him to commit himself to helping others.42 Like most teenagers going through an identity crisis, Sankara was doing a lot of soul-​­searching. And during these years, his surname was changed from Ouedraogo to Sankara. Over time, divergent accounts of the issue have arisen. Some have interpreted the name change as a sign of revolt. But internal family sources suggest more prosaic reasons, such as administrative convenience. Indeed, when Joseph went to “deal with his papers” in 1964, civil servants told him that his children could not bear different names, and so he took the opportunity to fix the situation by having everyone officially changed to Sankara. The new surname propelled Thomas further into self-​­examination, and so he went to visit his paternal homeland in Téma. “Thomas came back when he was older, around fourteen years old, and he was on his bicycle,” Mousbila Sankara remembered.

42 | Thomas Sankara

“He knew that he had an uncle in our neighborhood, and he came to see me. He said he was the son of Sambo. Right away he was very curious about religion. At this time, their family was in the process of changing their name back to Sankara, and he was very curious about his Sankara identity. . . . He even talked about the possibility of converting to Islam one day.” As a teenager exploring different identities and possibilities, he was looking for a way forward in his life. He read the Qur’an in French translation and many other books on Islam. Later in life, he would frequently quote the Qur’an and refer to the life of Muhammad in his speeches or interviews.43 During this time, Sankara began developing a reputation for frugality and modest living, traits that would define him as a political leader. Pascal Sankara remembered: When he left for lycée in Bobo-​­Dioulasso, our father gave him a little money. Thomas saw that with so many children our father had made a big sacrifice to gather a little money to give him, and so he saved it the whole school year. Nine months later, he came and gave the money back to our father. You have to imagine going from Gaoua to Bobo. There were stores. There was the cinema. And the youth loved the cinema in the 1960s. Saturdays, students went out together to the cinema, but Thomas would stay home and save his money. This was an unusually strong act of will for a teenage boy. It really made our father take notice. It was a powerful signal that he sent to everyone, about who he was. But, for Thomas, money simply served to mediate what was essential in life. Beyond that, he didn’t care about it, accumulating it, saving it, or using it to show one’s power. He discussed every other problem in life, but he rarely gave attention to money.44

In the meantime, Joseph and Marguerite moved the family to Ouagadougou in 1965. With eleven children in tow, Joseph set up a private clinic at their house in Paspanga, healing people in the neighborhood. Marguerite worked in the marketplace selling products. Now, instead of going to Gaoua for vacation, Sankara visited the family compound in Ouagadougou and got to know the country’s capital. He was becoming more independent, taking the train, traveling on his own, looking after his younger siblings. His horizons were broadening. He was also taking a more active interest in politics, and his teachers were an important source of politicization. “It was at Lycée Ouezzin above all where we become politically aware of things,” Fidèle Toé remembered. “This was mainly because our teachers were politically progressive. Some of them were tied to trade unions and had very leftist ideas. Revolt was the key idea, this sentiment of revolt.” In his last two years of middle school, Sankara listened to the radio regularly and came

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  43

into closer contact with African students from outside Upper Volta, particularly Malians. In this way, he learned about socialism in Mali under Modibo Keita and developed a lifelong affinity for Malians.45 Listening to the radio and talking to his friends, Sankara heard stories about his political heroes, such as Kwamé Nkrumah, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Félix Houphouët-​­Boigny, and Modibo Keita. But Sekou Touré of Guinea had a special kind of revolutionary prestige. Valère Somé remembered: “We had a lot of admiration for Sékou Touré. His revolt brought our dignity back. When he spoke we felt proud.” But young Africans also faced many disappointments that came with political independence. Even in this era of optimism, they learned about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo, in 1961. Sankara saw Lumumba as an important symbol and hero to African youth. Then, in January 1963, news spread that Sylvanus Olympio, the president of Togo, was assassinated. Months later, the civilian government in Benin was overthrown in a military coup. The inspiring revolution in Algeria ended in the overthrow of its first president, Ahmed Ben Bella, in 1965. Soon Upper Volta saw its own first civilian president overthrown in a popular revolt and military coup. Indeed, just as Sankara was contemplating a future in the military, the army took power in January 1966.46

Notes 1. Pascal Sankara, interviews, December 26, 2014, and July 13, 2015; Balufa Bakupa-​ ­ anyinda, Thomas Sankara, 1991, film. K 2. Skinner, Mossi, 2–12, 154–178. 3. Colette Sankara and Florence Sankara, interviews, August 23, 2015; Skinner, Mossi, 2–12, 154–178; Cordell, Gregory, and Piché, Hoe and Wage, 23–75. 4. Colette Sankara and Florence Sankara, interviews, August 23, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 198. 5. Skinner, Mossi, 7–30; Balima, Légendes et Histoire, 347–348. 6. Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; on precolonial Wasulu, see Peterson, Islamization from Below, 24–56. 7. Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 159–160. 8. Skinner, Mossi, 142–153; Saul and Royer, West African Challenge, 297–314. 9. Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts, 76–77; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, December 1, 1986, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, March 31, 1987, FOIA; Jaffré, Biographie, 15–32. 10. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 19, 2015; Florence Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts, 82–83, 134–137. See also Conombo, Souvenirs de guerre.

44 | Thomas Sankara 11. Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Pauline Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Rapport Politique, 1948, 10G23, Centre National des Archives du Burkina Faso (CNABF). See Ki-​­Zerbo, Apôtre Alfred Simon Diban Ki-​­Zerbo. 12. Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 19, 2013. 13. Rapport Politique, 1948, 10G23, CNABF; Florence Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Pauline Sankara, interview, July 13, 2014; Marie Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994. 14. Florence Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Marie Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994. 15. Skinner, Mossi, 176–189; Balima, Légendes et Histoire, 229–273; Cooper, Citizenship between Empire and Nation, 165–188; Morgenthau, Political Parties, 177–200. 16. Commandant de cercle Gaoua to Abidjan, CNABF 42V312; Kambou-​­Ferrand, Peuples Voltaïques et conquête colonial, 389–394; Saul and Royer, West African Challenge, 63–73. 17. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Ginio, French Army and Its African Soldiers, 141–170; Coulibaly, Combat pour l’Afrique, 259–265. 18. Paul Sankara, interview, July 19, 2014; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 156; Jaffré, Biographie, 15–32. 19. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014. 20. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview, May 1994. 21. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Saul, “Art, Politics, and Commerce,” 133–159. 22. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Valère Somé, interviews, March 13, 2013, and August 22, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015. 23. Situation de l’enseignement en Haute Volta, 1956, CNABF 2G56; Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts, 128–151; Jaffré, Biographie, 25. 24. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview May 1994. 25. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013. 26. Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview, May 1994; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Joseph Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994; Jaffré, Biographie, 32. 27. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2014; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015. 28. Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview, May 1994; Pauline Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015. 29. Sankara, Women’s Liberation, 36–37. 30. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Jaffré, Biographie, 30–31. 31. Rouamba, “La Participation des femmes,” 2–85, 215–216; Touré, Une vie de militant, 7–44; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013. See also Keita, Femme d’Afrique; Burrill, States of Marriage; Schmidt, Mobilizing the Masses. 32. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 7–35. 33. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 160; Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 51–59. 34. Morgenthau, Political Parties, 314–322; Skinner, Mossi, 190–203; Cooper, Citizenship between Empire and Nation, 214–278, 340–342.

Coming of Age in the Shadow of Colonialism  |  45 35. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014. 36. Skinner, Mossi, 190–203; Pascal Sankara, interview, July 13, 2015. 37. Pascal Sankara, interview, July 13, 2015; Joseph Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994. 38. Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 55–56; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 34. 39. Fidèle Toé, interviews, March 14, 2013, and August 19, 2015. 40. Fidèle Toé, interviews, March 14, 2013, and August 19, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015. 41. Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 195–196, 226–232; Fidèle Toé, interviews, March 14, 2013, and March 21, 2013; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 261–264; Jaffré, Biographie, 33–43; on Kennedy’s influence and legacy in Africa, see Muehlenbeck, Betting on the Africans. 42. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 19, 2015. 43. Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview, May 1994; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Joseph Sankara, interview, May 1994; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 16. 44. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2015. 45. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Luc Traoré, interview, August 29, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, July 13, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014. 46. Touré, Une vie de militant, 25–27; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 385–386.

2 EDUCATION OF A REVOLUTIONARY, 1966–1973

O

n January 3, 1966, massive crowds took to the streets and converged on the presidential palace in Ouagadougou. Waving leafy branches and protesting corruption, they called for the president to step down. By nightfall, the military had ousted President Maurice Yameogo. Unlike other coups in Africa, it was not a simple power grab by the army. The labor unions, students, religious leaders, and urban dwellers led the way, opposing the increasingly unpopular one-​­party state. While waging war on the chieftaincy and labor unions, Yameogo had assembled a quintessential clientelist state, drawing on support from lineage-​­based and neocolonial networks. But in due course, his popularity declined in the wake of ongoing revelations about his lavish spending, mismanagement, and nepotism. Then in 1965, just two weeks after his October 3 reelection—with 99 percent of the vote—he suddenly married a young Ivoirian beauty pageant winner without taking the time to divorce his first wife, flouting the Catholic clergy’s admonition. In foreign affairs, he sought to burnish his anti-​­communist reputation by accusing Nkrumah of communist subversion and tawdry attacks on Sekou Touré. While these accusations won him friends in Paris, Abidjan, and Washington, they only served to turn the youth against him.1 The last straw was his decision to impose austerity measures, reducing social security payments and government salaries and cutting veterans’ pensions by 20 percent, while he was in the middle of building a luxurious palace in Koudougou. On December 31, under the unifying leadership of Joseph Ouedraogo—head of the Confédération nationale des travailleurs Voltaïques (CNTV)—labor leaders came together and met at the Bourse du

Education of a Revolutionary  |  47

Travail, where a general strike was called. In response, the anti-​­riot police began their move, just as Yameogo hit the national radio waves to declare a state of emergency. Lycée and university students quickly joined the labor unions and broader protest movement. They were part of the first generation of postindependence students who had never really been integrated into the one-​­party system. Seeing the armed forces as their allies, they marched to the military camp, chanting slogans and carrying posters: “Long live the army!” “The army to power!”2 “People left their offices, their homes, their businesses, their fields. They plucked green tree branches and walked the streets. There were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs people; there were the Interior Affairs people. The numbers grew and grew during the day and into the night. Yameogo was isolated in his mansion. Even his staff walked out,” one foreign diplomat recalled. As it became clear that Yameogo’s time was up, the French ambassador met with government officials and labor leaders and brokered a transfer of power. Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana, head of the army, was reluctant to become head of state, but the French ambassador talked him into it because he was the only existing authority figure who had wide support across the political spectrum. Lamizana told news agencies that he took power to “prevent bloodshed.”3 Upper Volta was sorely lacking in strong leadership, particularly high-​ ­ranking military officers and educated civilians. That opened the pathway so young officers like Sankara could have an outsized impact on the country’s future. Long before military rule became an entrenched feature of African politics, people were proud of their new national army. They hoped that “the Colonel” would bring greater morality to government. With coups unfolding across Africa, including in the neighboring countries of Ghana, Nigeria, and Mali, many believed that the military would play a transitional role and soon return the country to civilian rule. However, as they discovered, it’s easier to bring the military into power than it is to remove it. The military, or a military head of state, would rule the country for the next fifty years.4 When the protests broke out, Sankara was just returning to Bobo from Christmas holidays, and he immediately regretted not being present in Ouagadougou for the marches. He later described the events in this way: “The Voltaic people took to the streets in a revolutionary outpouring, shouting slogans such as ‘Down with the embezzlers of public funds!’ and ‘Down with those who starve the people!’ . . . On January 3, 1966, in a

48 | Thomas Sankara

collective burst of energy the Voltaic people put the reactionary and corrupt bourgeoisie of our country in the dock.” Although students in Bobo were not involved in the insurrection of January 3, they did engage in their own internal rebellion against the school administration. Future labor leader Soumane Touré led protests against poor management of the school, poor living conditions, and insufficient food. The students managed to win some improvements.5 As the country returned to normalcy, Sankara finished his BEPC (a pre-​­baccalaureate exam) and considered his options. His father encouraged him to transfer to Lycée Zinda in Ouagadougou and tried to find him employment in the new Forestry Department (Eaux et Forêts). Just outside Bobo-​­Dioulasso, the French colonial state had established a training school for forest agents at Dinderesso. Nevertheless, Sankara opted for another path: while on vacation, he heard over the radio that the military academy in Ouagadougou was opening its doors to a few recent BPEC graduates. Essentially, the academy had not filled its seats for the “second cycle” of the baccalaureate, and so it was holding an entrance exam for three more cadets. After hearing the news, Sankara discreetly made arrangements to take the exam.6 In the summer of 1966, Sankara entered the national news for the first time. Listening to the radio, his family suddenly heard his name announced among the three civilians admitted to the prestigious military academy École Militaire Préparatoire of Ouagadougou (renamed Prytanée Militaire de Kadiogo, or PMK, at the time of Sankara’s graduation in 1969). After hearing the news, Sankara told everyone about his desire to become a military doctor, but the reality did not quite sink in until a couple of months later. “The first weekend they let him come home, he showed up in a uniform. My father was surprised to see him in this uniform,” Paul Sankara remembered. “My parents were proud. Thomas was doing his own thing.” And yet he was pursuing a career path not unlike that of his father, a soldier specializing in medicine. Moreover, he was studying at Upper Volta’s most prestigious institution of secondary education. “Everyone wanted to go to PMK military academy,” Pascal Sankara remembered. “It was because of the uniforms that the PMK students wore—their shiny boots, their berets, and the big belts. The young people saw them in the parade, in front of the president of the republic and the nation. They were well-​­fed, while the rest of us at lycée were like hoodlums, without proper clothes or anything to eat. All the girls wanted to date PMK cadets.”7

Education of a Revolutionary  |  49

However, at that time, Upper Volta was still under the control of France and the so-​­called françafrique system of French neocolonial networks. Jacques Foccart, President Charles de Gaulle’s adviser on African affairs, ran these networks, drawing on former colonial officials, intelligence officials, military officers, and businessmen. Many of the dominant political and economic actors in Upper Volta were Frenchmen who had remained in the country after independence, serving as advisers in the various ministries and setting up businesses. Jean Audibert had been a subdivision head in colonial Upper Volta, and he became an adviser in Yameogo’s government. Years later, when Sankara was in power, Audibert was François Mitterrand’s key adviser on African affairs. Most of the ministries had French advisers calling the shots, especially with respect to economic and military affairs. In the private sector, a central figure was the French businessman André Aubaret, whose activities spanned the country’s economy—including real estate, hotels, automobile imports, telecommunications, and small industry. A former colonial official in Upper Volta and founder of the Chamber of Commerce in Ouagadougou, Aubaret became the most powerful businessman, and main representative of the Foccart system, in Upper Volta. Indeed, France still had “complete control of the economy,” as Skinner observed.8 As in many other African postcolonies, this control was maintained through strong military ties. Even as the francophone West African countries got their independence by 1960, it was not until 1964 that African soldiers serving in the French army were completely demobilized, with many of them joining the national armies or gendarmes of newly independent African countries. This demobilization did not, however, sever the relationship with France, nor did it end the French military presence in its former colonies. Even as France gradually ceded degrees of sovereignty, it was clear that, as Ginio has stated, “military control ensured all other forms of domination,” maintained largely through military assistance agreements, defense agreements, and direct military interventions. In the first few years, military assistance agreements helped in the formation of the new African armies, with the exception of Guinea and Mali, which opted out of such agreements. Soon it took the form of “cooperation”—as the colonial-​­era Ministry of Overseas France was replaced by the Ministry of Cooperation. This bilateral relationship included training in French-​­sponsored military academies in Africa or at military schools in France. It also meant that France held a monopoly over the sales of weapons to the newly independent

50 | Thomas Sankara

countries. With respect to Upper Volta, the national army was not established until November 1961, more than a year after independence. It was small, with only 750 soldiers and 24 officers. And the country’s poverty was a serious hindrance to the army’s capabilities. France offered “defense agreements,” which would have meant that France guaranteed overall national defense, providing support to the national army in cases of external aggression or internal subversion. However, Upper Volta decided to reject the defense agreements, mainly because of pressure from disgruntled veterans who opposed the continued French military presence in Upper Volta.9 Nevertheless, the military assistance agreements stayed in place, and so France aided in training Upper Volta’s soldiers. More Africans were admitted into French colonial military preparatory schools, renamed Écoles Militaires Préparatoires. Some were even admitted to the prestigious military grand école of Saint-​­Cyr, France. Graduates included numerous future African presidents, such as Saye Zerbo, Moussa Traoré, Seyni Kountche, and Mathieu Kérékou, all of whom took power through military coups. Lamizana had not attended French military academy but had earned his stripes through tours of duty as a colonial conscript in the Second World War, Indochina, and Algeria. Under his direction, the École Militaire Préparatoire of Ouagadougou became a full-​­fledged military academy in 1962, with its first class scheduled to graduate with their baccalaureate in 1969.10 After arriving at the academy in 1966, Sankara quickly got to know his peers and developed friendships with cadets such as Paul Yameogo, Abdoul Salam Kaboré, Henri Zongo, Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, and Pierre Ouedraogo. Until 1973, the academy was still run by Frenchmen who taught cadets military history, topography, communications, weaponry, and combat in small classes. But within this context, Adama Touré emerged as an important influence, spending twelve years at the academy teaching and serving as director of studies. Called Lenin by his students, Touré was a clandestine leader of the Marxist-​­Leninist party, the PAI. From the start, he taught history very differently from his French colleagues, who, according to Touré, “did not appreciate my courses on decolonization, above all when I spoke about the defeat of France in Indochina and Algeria.” He placed much greater emphasis on African resistance, anti-​­colonial movements, and explaining how neocolonialism operated. In this way, Sankara learned more about anti-​­colonial guerilla warfare in Indochina and Algeria and read the works of Vo Nguyen Giap and other military strategists. It’s not

Education of a Revolutionary  |  51

difficult to imagine that he found himself identifying more with the guerilla fighters than with the colonial oppressors. Adama Touré also exposed his students to the history of revolutions in France, particularly the Paris Commune, and the Russian Revolution. Therefore, Sankara had the chance to grapple with the different kinds of socialism, that of Proudhon, Fourier, Saint-​­Simon, and above all Marx. The students even read The Communist Manifesto and other works.11 It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Adama Touré in the political education of Sankara and his peers, who were still callow youth looking for direction. During the revolution, Sankara took his distance from Touré and downplayed his former teacher’s influence in a bid to consolidate power. However, those who knew Sankara well during the PMK years agree that Touré had a tremendous influence on Sankara’s intellectual formation. “Adama Touré was sort of Thomas’ revolutionary father, in the sense that Adama formed a number of young men along political lines,” Fidèle Toé observed. Fellow cadet Paul Yameogo summed up: “[Touré] would explain history in a way that the students internalized certain ideas. We were inculcated in a subtle way, and we called him Lenin. He planted certain seeds in the minds of cadets.” In such a way, the military academy was exposing an entire generation of military officers to revolutionary ideas and history. And these students would form the core of progressive officers who eventually took power in 1983.12 Sankara embraced the challenges of military academy, and in time he would emerge as a leader in his cohort. But he was not among the very top students academically. Thus, in contrast to hagiographical accounts, which present Sankara as a virtual Renaissance man, those who witnessed him during these years present a more balanced picture. “In his studies at PMK, Sankara did not stand out as someone particularly remarkable academically,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré remembered. “[But] I saw that he was extremely intelligent. And his spirit was so alive. You saw his charisma immediately and his ability to lead others with confidence.” In his memoir, Adama Touré did not list Sankara among the most accomplished students in Sankara’s contingent, which included Gaston Kani Gnoumou, Robert Tinga Guigemdé, and Kobié Bruno Elola, who all went on to advanced studies in the sciences. But Sankara still stood out in his own way. Touré remembered that Sankara was “endowed with a remarkably critical and independent mind.” Because of these qualities—and his superior combat skills—Sankara received numerous accolades as a student.13

52 | Thomas Sankara

On weekends, Sankara spent time at home in Paspanga and made friends with a neighbor boy named Allassane Konaté, whose family shared a compound wall with the Sankara family. Living in close proximity, Sankara and Konaté developed an almost fraternal bond. There was a certain freedom in not being classmates or siblings, and so they spent hours talking about personal topics, such as their relationships with young women, and they often took road trips together. “When Thomas was at PMK, Allassane had a Vespa, and the two of them traveled a lot together,” Valentin Sankara remembered. “They went to Ghana on the Vespa. They arrived at the border and left the Vespa at the police post and then walked together to Tamale. It was a big adventure. They often went together to the cinema. And they would stay outside here talking for hours.”14 Sankara was pleased to discover that his “big brother” from Gaoua, Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, was now in Ouagadougou, working as a musician in a band called Atimbo, which he assembled at a bachelor pad called “Le Carré.” Sankara loved West African music, especially the new postindependence bands, often influenced by Afro-​­Cuban music, such as l’Harmonie Voltaïque, Mélodie Volta, and Echo Volta. One of Sankara’s biggest musical idols was Sekou Bembeya, leader of the Guinean band Bembeya Jazz National. Music from farther away was also becoming popular, such as OK Jazz and Franco, with their Congolese rumba style, and black American music, such as James Brown, rock and roll, reggae, and the emerging protest music of the 1960s. Eventually, Sankara got curious about learning guitar. Years later, during the revolution, a popular image of Sankara emerged portraying him as the “musician president,” famously posing with his red Fender Stratocaster and sitting in with musicians during revolutionary events. It was part of the myth. And yet musicians who played with him tell a different story. “In music, Thomas was not so talented,” Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo explained. “I taught him guitar, all the chords, scales, rhythm. But in music, you have to be able to hear and listen. Thomas didn’t have a very musical ear. . . . Thomas was also very impatient. He had a hard time being patient enough to learn guitar well.” Nevertheless, Ouedraogo taught him guitar every weekend, and before long Sankara had his own acoustic guitar and was picking up basic chord changes. Beyond guitar, Ouedraogo provided mentoring about life, just as Sankara was coming into manhood. According to Ouedraogo, when Sankara brought girlfriends along with him, he was quick to intervene: “Who is this girl? Look at her family. If you get involved with this girl, you’ll have problems.” Sankara usually took

Education of a Revolutionary  |  53

Ouedraogo’s advice. However, at a certain point, he met a young woman named Françoise Dakané, a student from Fada N’Gourma, and the two began a serious relationship.15 The complex balancing act of maintaining both civilian and military friendships—which would define his political career—was already taking shape, as Sankara expanded his network of civilian friends. They were all part of a baby-​­boom generation of teenagers who were coming of age just as ethnic divisions were eroding and members of the opposite sex were socially mixing more openly. One young woman, Germaine Pitroipa—a Gurma (or Gourmantché) from Fada N’Gourma—got to know Sankara through the neighborhood card games in Paspanga. She remembered: “We were the children of civil servants and teachers, so we didn’t stay where we were born like most people. We grew up in different places and then we attended school in Ouaga or Bobo. And this constant movement shaped our minds. We were really the first generation in which all of these people came together and learned to get along without ethnic or regional differences.” Indeed, Sankara already had close friends from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds—Mossi, Lobi, Samo, Gurma, Mandé, Fulbé, Gourounsi, and Bobo. Sankara got to know many of the students at Lycée Zinda, but he kept his distance from leftist protest movements in the interest of military career advancement. It was the era of student revolt, and his civilian friends assumed that he was drifting politically to the right, just as they were all moving to the left. But on occasion, Sankara arranged meetings with his military and civilian friends, and it was clear to all that he was emerging as a leader.16 Fidèle Toé remembered: “When we saw each other in Ouagadougou during the vacations and some weekends, Thomas was developing friendships with other military officers at PMK, and he would bring them together with us and we would all discuss things. He already had these ideas that were far beyond us all. In his daily life, he was very evolved and disciplined, and he had a clear ethical sense. I noticed his leadership had really developed at PMK among the other soldiers. He was the leader of their group.”17 After completing their baccalaureate in 1969, among the fifteen cadets in their graduating class, Thomas Sankara and Jean Simporé were chosen for advanced training at the military academy of Antsirabé in Madagascar. Fellow cadet Paul Yameogo joined Sankara in Madagascar the following year. “We stayed in contact, and when I graduated he encouraged me to come to Madagascar,” Yameogo recalled. “It was really because of his

54 | Thomas Sankara

encouragement that I joined him there in 1970.” But in heading to Madagascar, Sankara gave up on his dream of becoming a military surgeon. He would focus on special operations with the aim of becoming a paratrooper. In October 1969, he bid a teary farewell to his family and set off on his first voyage outside the country. Ahead of him lay four years of arduous training and diverse experiences in highland Madagascar. Unbeknownst to him, Sankara was also heading into the heart of a rural revolution and Maoist uprising, which would have profound effects on his political thought.18 When Sankara and Simporé arrived in the capital city of Antananarivo (named Tananarive until 1975), they entered a very different world. Rickshaws filled the streets. A dazzling array of fruits covered the market stalls. Hills were covered with contoured rice field terraces. Compared to Upper Volta, there was also a more marked French colonial influence in Madagascar. There were vineyards, picturesque tree-​­lined streets, grand cathedrals, monuments, parks, and palaces; there were European-​­style restaurants, railway stations, and hotels. The military academy in Antsirabé, roughly 165 kilometers to the south of Antananarivo (or Tana, as they called it) in the cool highlands, was into its third year. Having opened in January 1967 with French technical assistance, and under French command, it aimed to provide the kind of elite African officers’ training that one would receive at Saint-​­Cyr. It was designed to produce the leading military officers in francophone Africa. In addition to his fellow countrymen, Sankara struck up friendships with Malagasy military officers and got to know Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, the future president of Niger. Sankara grew close to a Gabonese soldier, Guy Aïssa Dabany, who was the brother of President Omar Bongo’s wife. As a result, when Dabany died prematurely, Bongo developed a paternal affection for Sankara, despite their political differences.19 The academy’s curriculum focused on a mix of academic and practical forms of education and attempted to mold personality through order, discipline, and a sense of duty. Officers trained intensively in military tactics, weapons, military history and theory, combat, and reconnaissance. At this time, Sankara began serious training in karate under the master Me Moshuzuki. According to Paul Yameogo, the classes were small, usually around twenty officers, and cadets slept together in shared dormitories. Cadets woke up at 5:00 a.m. and were busy with courses until lunch, after which they had around thirty minutes to relax before more studies and training. Finally, around 9:00 p.m., the officers went to their rooms. This allowed very little free time from Monday through Friday. When not

Education of a Revolutionary  |  55

Figure 2.1. Antsirabé, Madagascar. Thomas Sankara as a cadet at the military academy, 1969–1973. (Courtesy Paul Sankara)

studying or training, Sankara led a rather stoic life. He spent a lot of time alone, reading, thinking, and finding refuge in the Bible. But he regularly took time to attend Catholic Mass at Antsirabé’s colonial-​­era cathedral, Notre Dame de la Salette.20 From the moment he took up residence at the academy, Sankara was thrown into the rigors of hazing. Most of the officers and trainers were Malagasy, and they had been through similar ordeals and were simply passing on a tradition. But it meant that relations between the Malagasies and mainland Africans were often fraught with tension, and Sankara was remembered as playing an important role in mediating conflicts. The hazing included all sorts of physical punishment and deprivations. “The first 45 days of hazing was something very difficult for me to handle coming straight from lycée,” Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara recalled. “At the end, that completely changes a man.” When Sankara saw his teammates struggling or reaching their limits, he carried their backpacks or rifles for them. He quickly earned a reputation for his formidable endurance. “In Madagascar he really emerged as the leader, in his demeanor and his rigor,” Paul Yameogo remembered. “Even in the way he dressed, he was very meticulous. He had gotten in the habit of polishing his boots and taking care of

56 | Thomas Sankara

his uniform. I remember we’d go out in the fields doing combat exercise and training, and he’d return and immediately polish his boots. He was very demanding of himself. There was a certain exigency and perfection about him.”21 From his experiences, Sankara developed a lifelong love for Madagascar. He approached the country in a somewhat ethnographic manner, studying local cultures and making sound recordings of traditional musical performances. His Malagasy friends, such as Sennen Andriamirado, nurtured this interest. Andriamirado, director of a research center focused on rural development, came to the military academy to teach and would later work as a journalist for Jeune Afrique. He became one of Sankara’s supporters and later wrote two books on him, which played important roles in constructing popular images of Sankara. Training at the academy also included studies in rural sociology, political economy, and economics. This side of the curriculum was under the direction of Gérard Roy, a French researcher associated with the Office of Scientific and Technical Research Overseas (ORSTOM), financed by the French government. Sankara was particularly drawn to the writings of René Dumont, whose l’Afrique noire est mal partie (False Start in Africa), published in 1962, had caused quite a stir. With his extensive survey of agricultural problems, Dumont provided an account of Africa’s underdevelopment, with a corrosive analysis of the problems of foreign aid. Echoing Fanon’s criticisms of the African “petty bourgeoisie,” he also pointed a finger at the wastefulness and corruption of African elites. Sankara found much to like in Dumont’s work. He was also drawn to writings of Egyptian economist Samir Amin and the Marxist school of “dependency theorists.” Both Dumont and Amin later responded favorably to Sankara’s invitation to visit Ouagadougou and played advisory roles in the revolution.22 According to Jaffré, Sankara worked on refining his ability in the French language, focusing on oration. He served as editor of the academy’s journal, Ralliement. But he was still wary of taking dangerous political positions and even careful about possessing books in his soldier’s trunk. In reference to his military “trunk” library, he later commented on the dangers: “A library is dangerous, it betrays. As a matter of fact, I don’t like saying what I read, either. I never make notes in a book or underline passages, because that’s where you reveal the most about yourself. It can be a true personal diary.” Despite such precautions, Sankara’s convictions were deepening, and toward the end of his time at the academy, the younger

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officers looked to him for ideological guidance and leadership. “[Sankara] came to find us as soon as he had a free moment to lead us to our training, including at night. At the same time, he gave us our ideological training,” Maïnassara explained. “We learned a lot thanks to him. I believe that he even felt it was his duty to instruct us about ‘the things in life.’” Maïnassara was particularly struck by Sankara’s “honesty and his sincerity,” and his “gift of communicating.”23 For leisure, Sankara and his friends took the train into Tana on the weekends. Shedding his military uniform, Sankara often donned a flowing white boubou, an unusual style of dress in that part of Africa. Sometimes they took trips down the oceanfront, and for Sankara, having grown up in the landlocked Sahel, the beaches of Madagascar were miraculous. In the capital, they often walked around town or went to the movies. “On Saturdays we would go out, get dinner somewhere, and then we’d go to the movies,” Yameogo recalled. “Thomas ate a lot of Cantonese rice. He loved that. Then he insisted on going to the movies, but every time he would fall asleep within a few minutes. Afterwards he’d turn and say, ‘That was interesting.’ I’d say, ‘Oh really, but you slept through the whole thing.’ We’d both laugh because it happened every time. But I never saw him drink a drop of alcohol.” Every month he wrote letters to his family, which Joseph would read aloud to everyone, and occasionally he arranged brief telephone calls. Sankara also kept up a regular correspondence with his fiancée, Françoise Dakané. He managed to return home twice for short trips. Much had changed in his absence.24 Across the continent, revolutionary ideas were in wide circulation, and Sankara’s friends were encountering the African political left. Many of Sankara’s civilian friends went to universities in Abidjan, Paris, Bordeaux, Dakar, or Lomé, in the wake of the global student uprisings of 1968, which had inspired the African youth. It was an intoxicating time when the spirit of revolution was alive and well. Maoism burst onto the scene, Marxist revisionism was in full swing, and the effigy of recently murdered Che Guevara—the revolutionary martyr of their generation—was ubiquitous in the streets. It was the height of the Vietnam War, which had mobilized the international left. For Africans living in France, the movement held promise for continuing efforts to decolonize Africa, especially Portuguese colonial Africa. One of Sankara’s future political collaborators, Philippe Ouedraogo, was studying engineering at the École Polytechnique. A leader in the Black African Students Federation in France (FEANF) during this

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period, Ouedraogo remembered: “Our political formation really took place as students in France within the context of FEANF. We learned to analyze imperialism more broadly in its different forms. We were all reading Marx and Lenin. We were involved in the 1968 student movement. . . . We were there in streets at the barricades. And it was tremendous.”25 However, while most students around the world were protesting the Vietnam War, West African students focused their political engagement on the Portuguese colonial wars in Guinea-​­Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola. In fact, Adama Touré and the PAI general-​­secretary, Amirou Thiombiano, saw the Portuguese wars as a “good occasion to develop anti-​­colonialist and anti-​­imperialist sentiments” among the people, as Touré remembered. The leaders of the anti-​­colonial wars, such as Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-​­Bissau and Samora Machel in Mozambique, became heroes to the African youth, and the anti-​­imperialist movement had an enormously galvanizing effect on students. For example, in 1971, the PAI organized an anti-​­imperialist demonstration when the Ivoirian president, Félix Houphouët-​­Boigny—now viewed as a neocolonial stooge—visited Ouagadougou. Within days, those involved in the protests were expelled from university or lycée, and many were conscripted into the military. PAI leader Adama Touré was even removed from his teaching post.26 Sankara’s friends, such as Valère Somé, were pulled into this anti-​ ­imperialist movement, distributing leaflets and participating in the protests. Eventually, Somé headed to the University of Dakar, where he reconnected with Soumane Touré, who was deported from Côte d’Ivoire for political activism. “When I went to Dakar, at first I lived with Soumane Touré, who came from my village, Diébougou,” Somé told. “Soumane was sort of my big brother in Dakar. He took me under his wing and began educating me politically. He brought me into the PAI.” His formal studies were in economics, but Somé thrived on political debate and spent his leisure time reading leftist literature and playing chess. In post-​­1968 Dakar, Somé was immersed in the writings of anti-​­imperialist intellectuals—such as Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, Kwamé Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Samora Machel. These African authors and revolutionaries later became important strands in Sankara’s political thought, as he and Somé were constantly sharing ideas, books, and pamphlets with each other. Somé was particularly drawn to the works of Cabral, whose global renown as an anti-​­colonial resistance hero was at its apogee. “When I was a student in Dakar I had a big poster of Cabral on my wall,” Somé remembered. “For my generation, we were very

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influenced by Cabral. Among the African revolutionaries, Cabral was the most advanced theoretically. We read all his writings. His influence was so pervasive that all of it entered my mind. I still remember all the phrases like ‘the petite bourgeoisie must be capable of committing suicide as a class in order to be reborn, and completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people.’” In fact, Cabral’s statement on the “petty bourgeoisie” struck a chord, as Somé came to understand that they had to fight against their own class interests and tendencies.27 Reading Cabral, Somé and Sankara learned to approach political problems in a much more pragmatic and empirical way and to use Marxism as a methodology in critiquing capitalism and imperialism. Indeed, both men were drawn to the wider “Third Worldist” systems of thought, which had gained ascendancy over more orthodox European Marxism. As devout Catholics, they were also reluctant to embrace the rigorous atheism of Marxism and were wary of Marxism’s inherent Eurocentrism. Third Worldism—as an ideology drawing inspiration from the revolutions in Cuba, Algeria, China, and elsewhere and reflecting the belief in the revolutionary aspirations of the Third World—was tailor-​­made for the likes of Sankara and Somé. For their generation of incipient revolutionaries, it held out promise as a model for future revolutionary movements in Africa.28 There were many setbacks and tragedies for the political left in Africa. On January 20, 1973, the great hero of the West African youth, Amilcar Cabral, was assassinated in a plot organized by the Portuguese security forces just as Guinea-​­Bissau was on the verge of winning its independence. “When Cabral was killed, all the students were deeply saddened,” Somé remembered. “People were crying. There were protests. Africa had lost someone so important.” But Cabral—who, like Sankara, was hailed as the “African Che”—was not the only African revolutionary leader who perished during those years. Students in Dakar also mourned the death of Kwamé Nkrumah, who died in April 1972. His thinking on neocolonialism and African socialism continued to win a large following in francophone African university milieus. African students followed the political scene in Dakar, and in particular President Leopold Sedar Senghor. But after the revolts of 1968 in Dakar, they drifted away from Senghor. “We were young students in Dakar, and so we followed Senghor a lot,” Somé explained. “But eventually we determined that the African socialism of Senghor was just rhetoric. We saw how he spoke about it but then embraced neocolonialism; and with negritude how he sang about African women but then married a

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French woman.” Students debated the experiments with socialism in places such as Tanzania; they read the works by Julius Nyerere, whom they considered a great Pan-​­Africanist and man of integrity, and were inspired by his idea of self-​­reliance. West African students were not as tuned into the situation in apartheid South Africa, but they knew about the African National Congress (ANC) and Mandela’s imprisonment, and after his murder at the hands of apartheid forces in 1977, Steven Biko—and his writings on the black consciousness movement—grew in popularity as well. Sankara, in particular, developed a keen interest in South Africa and saw Mandela’s imprisonment as one of the greatest injustices in Africa at the time.29 In Madagascar, Sankara was not exactly in a 1968-​­ style student milieu—something he always regretted missing—but he was coming into contact with revolutionary action. In his final year at the academy, Madagascar was plunged into political turmoil, when, in April 1971, a Maoist peasant revolt began in the south of the country. The revolt was brutally suppressed, and by October 1971, the government was moving forcefully against militants at the university, including two of Sankara’s instructors, Gérard Roy and Régis Rakotonirina, who purportedly had ties to the Maoist movement. But it was not long before another revolt broke out, in April 1972, this time right in Antananarivo. It was an urban uprising, fiercely anti-​­imperialist in character. Eventually, Didier Ratsiraka rose to power and led Madagascar on the path of socialist revolution. But despite the ties between the military academy and the leftist intellectuals of Antananarivo, officers were far removed from the revolution. “We followed the uprisings only from far away, as we weren’t really close to the action of the popular uprising,” Paul Yameogo told. “We heard some things over the radio.” But in the evenings, Sankara discussed the events with his peers, and increasingly his political consciousness was forming. Mulling things over, he reportedly jotted down in his notebook: “A soldier without political education is but a criminal in power.” It was an important realization for a young soldier.30 In October 1972, Sankara completed his three years of officers’ training, but he decided to stay an additional year to participate in a civil service unit organized by the Malagasy military, called the “green berets,” which was involved in rural development. He moved to Antananarivo but spent most of his time visiting rural villages. In his private life, Sankara befriended a Malian economist named Lansina Sidibé and his Malagasy wife, Harry. With the age-​­old Fulbé connection between the Sangaré (Sankara) and

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Sidibé lineages, they became family, sharing meals, talking, and listening to African music at the Sidibé home. But at some point, Sankara heard news that his fiancée, Françoise Dakané, had died. The circumstances remain unclear, but Sidibé recalled “conversations focusing on her” and frequent contact between Sankara and his mother. Within the Sankara family, there has been silence about Dakané. But it must have been devastating news for Sankara.31 Since Lansina Sidibé had lived in Mali during the time of Modibo Keita, Sankara was keen to understand why socialism ultimately failed to improve the lives of Malians. Sidibé and Sankara spent hours discussing Keita’s policies and analyzing socialist Guinea under Sekou Touré. Moreover, Sankara had the chance to hear about the Republic of Congo, where Sidibé had lived for two years around the time of the 1968 coup that brought Captain Marien Ngouabi to power. Ngouabi became something of a revolutionary hero in the Congo during those years, and his government was the first military regime in sub-​­Saharan Africa to espouse Marxist-​­Leninist “scientific socialism,” soon followed by Benin and Ethiopia. Ngouabi was eventually assassinated in 1977. Through Sidibé, Sankara even had a chance to meet Didier Ratsiraka, the future revolutionary leader of Madagascar, and numerous professors, such as Philippe Hugon and Guy Pourcet. In fact, Hugon taught Sankara at the military academy, and later, in his memoir, he recalled Sankara’s interest in the ujamaa (“self-​­reliance”) movement in Tanzania and Sankara’s “search for a socialist system adapted to Africa.”32 But it was the rural villages of Madagascar that made the biggest impression on Sankara. His experience out in the countryside gave him a completely different understanding of the potential role of the military. Although he had learned about these sorts of military-​­civilian projects in theory, the fieldwork gave him more practical knowledge. Part of the work was setting up literacy schools and health clinics. During this year of extended trips into rural areas, Sankara learned about new water-​­retention technologies and innovative agricultural practices. He would draw upon these experiences a decade later when he led his own revolution. Now, four years after arriving in Madagascar, Sankara’s sojourn had ended, and he was preparing to return home. Many trials and tragedies lay ahead. By the end of the following year, he would be on the battlefield, in the open savanna between Mali and Upper Volta, fighting in a pointless war, just as the Sahel zone was decimated by drought.33

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Notes 1. Le Monde, January 3, 4, 1966; Sandwidi, “Syndicalisme et pouvoir politique”; Kaboré, Histoire, 59–76; Otayek, “Burkina Faso”; Englebert, La Révolution, 33–44. 2. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 27, 2014; Englebert, La Révolution, 36–44. 3. Owen Robert, The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collections, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) interview, 1991; New York Times, March 29 and April 7, 1965, January 8, 1966. 4. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 13, 2013; Kaboré, Histoire, 65–74. 5. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 27, 2014; Englebert, La Révolution, 36–44; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 47, 69–70. 6. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14 2013; Winterbottom and Linehan, “Dinderesso Forestry School,” 107–114. 7. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 27, 2014. 8. Labazée, Entreprises et entrepreneurs, 13–23; Audibert, Jamais je n’ai cessé, 7–54; Saul, “Development of the Grain Market,” 127–153; Elliot Skinner, ADST interview, 1981. 9. Ginio, French Army, 171–202; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 83–269; Crocker, “France’s Changing Military Interests,” 16–24. 10. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts, 119–125; Touré, Une vie de militant, 56–57. 11. Sangoulé Lamizana, interview with Jaffré, June 1994; Touré, Une vie de militant, 56–57. 12. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Touré, Une vie de militant, 100–101. 13. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 100–101; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455; Elliot Skinner, ADST interview, 1981. 14. Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Jaffré, Biographie, 45–49. 15. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994; “Thomas Sankara: un passionné de musique,” Mutations 14, November 2, 2012. 16. Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 26, 2013, and May 4, 2013. 17. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013. 18. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Touré, Une vie de militant, 96–110. 19. Jaffré, Biographie, 53–73; Goguel, Aux Origines du Mai Malgache, 298–300. 20. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle, 24. 21. Maïnassara, Mon ambition, 14–16; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 54–56. 22. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 57–60; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait Sankara; Le Monde, August 27, 1970; Goguel, Aux Origines du Mai Malgache, 298–300; Dumont, l’Afrique noire est mal partie; Dufumier, Un agronome; Amin, “Une Révolution inachevée.”

Education of a Revolutionary  |  63 23. Maïnassara, Mon ambition, 14–16; Jaffré, Biographie, 54–61; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 263. 24. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, November 29, 2015; Lansina and Harry Sidibé, interviews with Jaffré, July and December 1997. 25. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015. 26. Touré, Une vie de militant, 46–51; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 5, 2013; Cabral, Unity and Struggle, 199–201. 27. Valère Somé, interviews, August 28, 2015, and March 11, 2013; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Cabral, Unity and Struggle, 122; Bathily, Mai 1968 à Dakar. 28. Malley, Call from Algeria, 17–33, 75–114. 29. Le Monde, February 2, 1973; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, August 27, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015. 30. Le Monde, October 14, 1971; May 16, 1972; May 20, 1972; April 16 and May 8, 1971; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Ziegler, La Victoire, 160. 31. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Lansina and Harry Sidibé, interviews with Jaffré, July and December 1997; Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 1994; Jaffré, Biographie, 63–73. 32. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Lansina and Harry Sidibé, interviews, July and December 1997; Hugon, Mémoires solidaires et solitaires, 86–126. 33. Jaffré, Biographie, 63–73; see also Gow, “Admiral Didier Ratsiraka,” 409–439; Afrique-​ ­Asie 326, July 16, 1984.

3 A RISING STAR Soldiers and the Political Left, 1973–1982

T

homas Sankara returned to his homelands amid one of the worst droughts in modern African history, spanning the Sahel belt from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The resulting famine, which peaked in 1973–1974, hit the Sahel just as African countries were dealing with the economic repercussions of the sudden oil-​­price hike with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) embargo of 1973. African governments found themselves sliding deeply into debt. In certain countries, the drought even led to political destabilization as military officers of varying political stripes took power. In environmental imaginaries, the Sahel was cast as a zone of degradation; “desertification” became a central development narrative. Within this conjuncture, Western aid agencies acted in response to the images of starving children and human misery. Soon they were airlifting grain into Upper Volta, distributing it in bags bearing the symbols of Western largesse.1 When Sankara pulled up in a taxi outside the family compound, there was an explosion of excitement. Surrounded by his siblings, he opened his suitcases, distributing gifts as exotic odors wafted out. In the evening, he set up a projector and shared slides of Madagascar. But the drought weighed heavily on his mind. Rural family members had converged on Ouagadougou, seeking assistance. Everywhere he looked there was suffering, poverty, and the heavy presence of relief organizations crisscrossing the country. Over the years, Sankara struck up friendships with aid workers and Peace Corps volunteers, but he was frustrated by the sheer indignity of receiving food aid and by the neocolonial ways in which foreign powers used the famine to expand their influence. He wanted to radically change things and

A Rising Star  |  65

restore his country’s dignity. He was thinking about the possible role of the military in digging the country out of poverty.2 Many of Sankara’s civilian friends were still studying at universities across West Africa or France, engrossing themselves in Marxism and left-​­wing politics. They were especially interested in Maoism and in socialist experiments in places like Tanzania and Ethiopia. They read deeply in the Marxist canon, which for young African leftists was an essential intellectual tool in fighting neocolonialism. In fact, the global “intellectual tide” of Marxism was cresting in the 1970s, as Marxist literature proliferated and young people harnessed the leftist ideas in challenging unpopular regimes. Western Marxists took a keen interest in the forms of inequality and injustice found in the “Third World.” Therefore, there was much excitement around the New International Economic Order (NIEO) program, finally promulgated at the United Nations in 1974 by the G-​­77 countries in an effort to radically transform the global economy. Emboldened by OPEC’s ability to use “commodity power” during the oil embargo, the world’s poorer nations united in a bid to demand redistributive economic justice. They called for “economic sovereignty”: the right to control their own natural resources; the ability to form resource cartels to stabilize commodity prices; the regulation of transnational corporations; North-​­South technology transfers; preferential trade deals; and forgiveness of certain debts. Indeed, many years later, Sankara would pick up on these policies, seeking to resurrect the NIEO in his speech at the UN in 1984.3 Within this context, Marxist-​­Leninist study groups spread through Ouagadougou and Bobo-​­Dioulasso. One such group met in the home of Malian sociologist Youssouf Diawara, a founder of the country’s first explicitly communist party, the Voltaic Communist Organization (OCV). Diawara lived in Sankara’s neighborhood, and so every Saturday, Pascal Sankara and his friends gathered on the Malian’s veranda to drink tea and learn about Marxism. Then, upon his return from Madagascar, Thomas joined the discussion group. Diawara observed that by this time Thomas Sankara was already “totally outside the traditional army” and had “extremely precise ideas about the fight against neocolonialism.” As their interest in Marxism grew, young leftists accumulated political leaflets and literature, including copies of Mao’s “Red Book,” which the Chinese embassy was distributing freely. “The Red Book of Mao, everyone was reading that,” Pascal Sankara explained. “It was the bible for us. You kept that in your pocket.” This Maoist phase in Sankara’s life would eventually lead him to a more focused study of Lenin.4

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However, Thomas Sankara did not stay long in Ouagadougou. He was soon en route to the military camp of Bobo-​­Dioulasso for his first full-​ ­time job, with his younger siblings Pauline and Paul in tow. Because of the drought and economic difficulties in Upper Volta, Thomas agreed to take care of his siblings to lighten the burden on his parents. Now a second lieutenant and twenty-​­five years old, he was assigned—along with Paul Yameogo, Jean Simporé, and Amadou Sawadogo, a graduate of the military academies in Aix-​­en-Provence and Saint-​­Cyr—to train incoming recruits at the military camp. Paul Yameogo explained: “When we returned, we both were sent to work in the Group for Instruction of Armed Forces [GIFA]. So we trained soldiers together in Bobo. The work was training the raw recruits for two months of basic training. Many of them were students who went on strike, and they sent these bad students to the army.” Some of the recruits stayed in the military, such as Etienne Zongo, who trained under Sankara and then became an aeronautical technician. During the revolution, Zongo served as Sankara’s aide-​­de-camp. While in Bobo, Sankara complemented the military drills for the young recruits with special teaching sessions aimed at “ideological training.” But, at the time, his interest in politics was unique. “He read a lot and was very informed of things. He liked to hang out with the leftist circles,” Yameogo remembered. “He already had this idea that he wanted to change things. But he was also secretive. He gave me a copy of Mao’s Red Book and asked me what I thought, but I was not so far to the left as him. Most soldiers hid their political ideas and opinions.”5 Sankara lived in the military camp with twelve-​­year-old Pauline and ten-​­year-old Paul. “There was food, and we could go to school,” Paul Sankara explained. “It was less of a burden for the family, because they had eleven children, and there were many others coming from the village who needed help. Thomas also thought we needed more discipline.” Thomas assigned chores and followed their performance at school. He insisted that they respect domestic workers at the military camp. “There was a ‘boy’ who cooked and cleaned. His name was Joineau. He did everything. People mistreated their workers at this time. Thomas wanted us to have respect for his work and to treat him well. It was part of his whole progressive view,” Paul explained. According to Pauline, her older brother could be a harsh taskmaster, and as a result, she had frequent disputes with him. But in leisure time, Thomas demonstrated his fun side, playing soccer with soldiers and organizing informal musical events. “All the soldiers would come out

A Rising Star  |  67

and play music and dance. Thomas played guitar,” Pauline recalled. “Others played drums. ‘Petit Paul’ was there, and ‘Petit Jean’ and Amadou Sawadogo. They would play music on the terrace.” In the capital, however, another political crisis was brewing.6 For years, Lamizana rode a wave of popular support as the relationship between the state and civil society significantly ameliorated. Whereas Yameogo had fraught relations with traditional authorities, Lamizana wisely sought to broaden political support by reintegrating the chieftaincy, Catholic leaders, and Muslim authority figures into wider clientelist networks. In what Otayek calls “debonair authoritarianism,” Lamizana asserted more “indirect and supple control,” domesticating institutions of civil society in order to “insert them smoothly into its development strategy.” The public also broadly supported economic “Voltaization,” through the promotion of Voltaic entrepreneurs and merchants, ultimately with the aim of creating a national bourgeoisie.7 In 1969, there was a return to multiparty politics as Lamizana officially ended the military regime. After the removal of restrictions on political parties, the largest party, the RDA, sprang into action under its two leading figures, Joseph Ouedraogo and Gérard Kango Ouedraogo. There was also a new political force: the National Liberation Movement (MLN), under the leadership of historian Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, who was close to the French socialist party and François Mitterrand. The MLN’s socialist leanings led Lamizana to engage in a campaign to discredit it using Red Scare tactics, and when the elections were held, the conservative parties maintained their dominance. But within four years, the long-​­standing rivalry between Joseph Ouedraogo and Gérard Kango Ouedraogo erupted into a public row. As the drought worsened and famine spread, Lamizana blamed the rival factions that had brought about the “paralysis of the state.” Faced with a national emergency, in February 1974, he suspended the Constitution, banned all political parties, and dissolved the National Assembly. Under the so-​­called National Renewal government, he reorganized the country, placing all departments under the authority of military prefects. As part of this reshuffling, Sankara was reassigned to an engineers’ corps in charge of building projects. He traveled around the country, overseeing projects, but in the process, he witnessed widespread corruption. In various localities, he saw superior officers embezzling funds, stealing building materials, and even pilfering food aid. At great risk, he exposed the corruption. While he was winning the respect and admiration of his fellow officers, a brief war

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with Mali vaulted him into the public spotlight, marking the beginning of the popular construction of Sankara as a heroic figure.8 On November 25, 1974, the so-​­called Agacher strip war broke out in the borderlands between Mali and Upper Volta, a region prized for its potential sources of manganese. The drought, and the resulting transborder migrations, inflamed tensions and pushed both countries toward conflict. While at the front, Sankara mostly led his platoon on patrols across vast expanses of the Sahel. “The only great action that took place was when the Malians attacked a village in our territory,” Paul Yameogo remembered. “Thomas mobilized his platoon and pursued them into Malian territory. He liberated the chief and brought him back. This was the biggest event of the war. It was why Thomas emerged as a hero.” It was a simple mission. In fact, Sankara’s military colleagues saw nothing particularly gallant in the actions. Sankara also took his distance from notions of heroism. In a conversation with the US ambassador, he “poked fun at his own participation in the ‘war’ with Mali, deriding it as a minor incident,” reported an embassy cable. “[Sankara] emerged, to his amusement, as a hero of the war.” But Sankara had also acted against the orders of his superior officer in the region, Colonel Joanny Tiemoko Ouedraogo. This flouting of the chain of command brought criticism from the Chef d’état-​­major General Baba Sy, and Sankara was severely reprimanded for the insubordination. The episode seemed to sum up Sankara’s character: his willingness to disavow authorities and take decisive action. With little else to report and the country needing a national heroic narrative, Sankara’s mission became the main story.9 Before leaving the front, Sankara met Blaise Compaoré, a young officer who eventually became his right-​­hand man. Born in 1951, the son of a veteran, Compaoré grew up in Ziniaré, went to Catholic school in Fada N’Gourma, and attended lycée in Ouagadougou. But when he was fifteen, his mother died suddenly, and then his father passed away several years later. Bereft of his parents, he latched onto the Sankara family, especially Joseph Sankara, who came to view him as a son. In personality, Compaoré alternated between quiet reserve, even timidity, and rebelliousness. Many viewed him as cold and calculating. Eventually his mischievous streak got him expelled from school, and he was sent to military basic training. Compaoré then decided to pursue a military career and found his way to the academy in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where he got to know Henri Zongo and the labor leader Soumane Touré, as well as various other military figures from across the region, including Cameroonian Mbara Guerandi. As the

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war ended, Compaoré found himself north of Ouahigouya, where he made the acquaintance of Sankara. The two engaged in conversation deep into the night, and their friendship was born.10 After the war, there were initial reports that Sankara had been killed. As Paul Sankara recalled: “It was lunch time, and it was quiet. My mother was very emotional. We thought Thomas was dead. Then we heard a Jeep. I ran outside. And I remember seeing all the dust kicking up around the Jeep, and Thomas got out. He had a beard on his face and was wearing his camouflage uniform. He had survived!” Soon the news traveled, and Sankara was the toast of Ouagadougou. But he saw nothing to celebrate. Indeed, while the heroic image gained traction across Upper Volta, Sankara recoiled from violence. A decade later he told Afrique-​­Asie that he lamented the plight of civilians. “I often encountered the Malian and Voltaic civilians,” he explained. “It was not their war. They were not concerned with the conflict. Between them there were no geographic, linguistic, or racial borders. . . . Certain moments profoundly troubled me and convinced me more and more that we, Voltaics and Malians, were in an unjust and useless fight.” In contrast to other revolutionary figures, who engaged in guerilla warfare and did not hesitate to use violence to advance their cause, Sankara was inherently a pacifist. He had a deep sensitivity and humanity that was often missing in the emerging popular constructions of him as a bold and brash figure.11 The country was in peril, due to drought and war, and yet military officers hurled themselves into self-​­enrichment. They capitalized on the aid infusion by commandeering grain and selling it for profit, even in neighboring Mali and Niger. But eventually this illicit trade in stolen food aid was exposed, dubbed the “Watergrain” scandal, as it coincided with Watergate in the United States. By July 1975, as corruption mounted, the young progressive officers started publishing political tracts signed with such mysterious names as Le Roc (“The Rock”) or Arête (“Mountain ridge”). The first authors of these tracts were Sankara and Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani. Eventually the progressive officers settled on a name for their group: ROC. There has been some disagreement over the nature of this group. Many have claimed that the name was an acronym for “Communist Officers’ Group” (Regroupement d’Officiers Communistes), but former ROC members reject this explanation. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, one of its founding members, explained: “There were those who said it meant the ‘Group of Communist Officers,’ but it’s not true. We just meant Roc as ‘hard like a rock.’ It wasn’t

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a communist group. It’s true that we were influenced by leftist ideas. But we were simply trying to become aware of ourselves as political actors, not just as soldiers.” ROC met secretively in their respective homes and in the so-​ ­called maquis (restaurant-​­bars) of Ouagadougou and Bobo. Their goal was not to take power but to reform the military system and to educate themselves politically. Its early members were Thomas Sankara, Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani, Henri Zongo, Abdoul Salam Kaboré, and Boukary Kaboré. Eventually Blaise Compaoré was brought into the group. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré recalled: “Blaise was the outsider in the group for a long time. He was always very timid and simply attached himself to Thomas. But the leader of this movement was always Thomas Sankara. There was no internal debate over this. He was the one who was most well versed in politics, the most charismatic, and mature in his political thinking.”12 In time, Compaoré provided an important link between military and civilian groups by rekindling Sankara’s ties to Soumane Touré—now an important labor leader and key figure in the PAI. Touré met with Sankara on multiple occasions, but Amirou Thiombiano, the head of the PAI and general director of customs, had reservations. Soumane Touré explained: “After speaking with Thomas, I didn’t feel entirely reassured. Things didn’t seem clear in his head. He was too impatient. He seemed impulsive. Amirou was worried about the reactionary tendencies of the soldiers and warned me of potential Bonapartism. He said, ‘Be careful, because soldiers are always soldiers first.’ Amirou never met Sankara but he opposed the military in principle. I was his only contact with these young officers. He died soon after that.” Indeed, PAI leader Amirou Thiombiano’s unexpected death on March 13, 1975, was a tremendous shock to the PAI members. Regarded as a man of integrity, he had been widely admired in leftist circles around Ouagadougou. But his death provided an opportunity for the young officers, as their former teacher Adama Touré now took the mantle as PAI head, and he immediately called upon his two closest allies, Philippe Ouedraogo and Soumane Touré, to enter the executive committee. The party emerged from the shadows by forming a mass organization called LIPAD (Patriotic League for Development). And as the wars of liberation in Guinea-​­Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola were finally winding down, LIPAD, under the leadership of Philippe Ouedraogo, shifted its attention to domestic concerns. The Voltaic Union Confederation (CSV) was also formed—with Soumane Touré eventually emerging as its leader—thus unifying sixteen various labor unions. Soon, LIPAD, CSV, and the other labor

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confederations appeared on the public stage in a dramatic showdown with the Lamizana regime.13 When, on November 29, 1975, Lamizana declared the birth of another one-​­party state, the “National Movement of Renewal,” the labor unions united for one of the few times in the country’s history. On December 12, they published a joint declaration denouncing the one-​­party state and calling on the people to mobilize. Across the country, all professional and economic activities were suspended. Offices were empty, stores shuttered, streets deserted, and markets closed. Faced with such a show of defiance, Lamizana acquiesced and formed a special committee to guide the country back to “normal constitutional life.” To mollify the young progressive wing, he abruptly called Sankara to Ouagadougou and proposed that he establish a new training base for commandos, to be known as CNEC (National Center for the Training of Commandos). Within weeks, Sankara took thirty men and led them on foot to Pô, a distance of 150 kilometers. Sankara wanted to send a message of strength and unity, stopping en route to talk with peasants. On June 4, 1976, CNEC was officially founded.14 Removed from the capital, Pô was a peasant village in south-​­central Upper Volta, not far from the border with Ghana. Sankara was now in close contact with the struggles of rural peoples. When he first established the training center, there were few water sources in the village. In fact, according to UN statistics for Upper Volta, only 25 percent of the population had access to safe water in 1975. Seeing the enormity of the problem, Sankara immediately arranged for wells to be dug, and on his next visit to Ouagadougou, he ordered a motorized pump and hand-​­delivered the bill to Lamizana. Soon the commandos in Pô had water, and Sankara made the water available to all residents. With such actions, Sankara was seeking to create an “army of the people.” In Maoist terms, he later declared: “Officers engaged in the revolutionary process will no longer be potential criminals, but will instead become conscious revolutionaries, at home among the people like fish in water.” He made it a point to educate himself about the goings-​­on of the local community. When not training, the commandos did agricultural work in the fields, growing their own food with the idea of self-​ ­reliance in mind. A Catholic nun from Europe, who was in Pô for twenty years, recalled: “In the time that Sankara was the head of CNEC, he often sent his men to come help farmers in the fields, and he brought wood to the Catholic mission for the sisters’ kitchen. He was a man of great generosity.” At the time, there was also a young Catholic priest named Gustave Bouda

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who was active in various development projects, such as well digging. Soon, Sankara and Bouda, the two Catholics, became close friends.15 The relationship with the community was one of interdependence. Soldiers depended on the local people for lodging, food, and social life. But the soldiers were mostly young bachelors, and so relations with local women occasionally led to conflicts with their families, particularly when pregnancies occurred. Sankara was quick to intervene, imposing discipline on soldiers who engaged in misconduct. He also taught his men how to manage their money and eventually established a community savings bank, which made it possible for the soldiers to procure their own mopeds. Embracing an egalitarian ethos, he made it his mission to eliminate unnecessary protocols or acts of deference. Abdoul Salam Kaboré remembered: “From 1976, I visited Pô often and I saw how his men were working hard and in the process of building something special there, their base and their community. I saw a very unified group around Thomas. He lived among them and ate among them. Usually the superior officers would eat apart in the Officers’ Mess, but in Pô Thomas did everything with his men. This was extraordinary. His men loved him.”16 To address the community’s need for entertainment, the commandos formed a music group called the Missil Band and organized frequent concerts. With Sankara on guitar and CNEC’s second in command, Compaoré, on vocals, they were touring around the country, playing mostly at military bases and schools. Sankara also arranged for film technicians to train soldiers. Drawing on his experience with French colonial mobile cinema units, he had outdoor screens set up, and movies were shown for the community. These initiatives were linked to wider developments in cinema, such as the founding of Africa’s largest film festival, Ouagadougou-​­based Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO), in 1972 and a new film school, Institut Africain d’Éducation Cinématographique de Ouagadougou (INAFEC), in 1976. Soon the commandos of Pô were among the most popular military units in Upper Volta, capturing the imaginations of young people with their unique style during national military parades. A resident of Ouagadougou recalled: “Sankara was a well-​­known commando among the young people. The first time I saw him was on the anniversary of Upper Volta’s independence, and he came here with the other commandos to do a demonstration of motorcycle acrobatics. It was for the national parade. He stood out as a superstar right away. It was like the circus. This pleased the youth. Sankara was becoming a hero for us.”17

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During these years, Sankara visited Ouagadougou regularly for his political activities, often lodging with Paul Yameogo. On weekends, he spent copious amounts of time alone to focus on reading revolutionary writings, thinking, and strategizing. “When we lived together in Ouaga there were moments when he would go in his room and disappear for days. It would be the weekend and I thought he was out, and then I’d discover that he’d been in his room for the whole weekend,” Yameogo recalled. “He had a certain vision and got lost in concentration on things.” A US embassy cable reported on Sankara’s uniqueness among his fellow soldiers, stating that he was “an omnivorous reader and indefatigable debater who liked nothing better than to discuss philosophy, government, economics, and history until dawn surrounded by friends.” The cable added that Sankara’s “most satisfying period of his life” was while “he was in command of the commando unit at Pô and did not leave his room except to carry out his daily duties,” allowing him to spend the rest of his time in “reading and debate and a few hours of sleep on a cot in that small barrack room.”18 Politically, Sankara and ROC officers were focused mainly on military reform, but a crucial turning point propelled them into collaboration with the civilian left. In March 1977, teachers launched a warning strike, which soon spread across the country, as medical specialists joined the teachers. But when soldiers were tasked with suppressing the strike, the progressive officers sided with the teachers. Seeking to calm the situation, Lamizana passed an ordinance permitting political parties to legally resume their activities. Legislative and presidential elections were scheduled for April and May 1978, and eight political parties were allowed to compete. The strikes of 1977 also pushed Sankara deeper into partnership with the leftist groups. It was around this time, in August 1977, that the Voltaic Communist Organization (OCV) was formed under the leadership of Jean-​­Baptiste Oualian, Youssouf Diawara, Drissa Touré, Clément Ouedraogo, and Jude Somé. Sankara had clandestine ties to the new OCV, but he was in more frequent contact with members of PAI-​­LIPAD. Labor leader Soumane Touré, who had won a large following with his fearless and aggressive style, reached out to Sankara.19 He explained: “We started to educate the soldiers. We invited Sankara and his group over to our houses. We held meetings to talk about theory and how to organize. We told them that it wasn’t just about military force. We had to build a social movement. I was coming from the labor movement side of things. But we were trying to work in as many directions as possible: soldiers, students, workers, and seeking to

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raise political consciousness. The lack of political consciousness had been a serious handicap in this country.”20 By late 1977, Sankara was working with Philippe Ouedraogo, the head of LIPAD. He arranged a series of teaching sessions based on key concepts— such as the class struggle, capitalism, socialism, and neocolonialism—and then proceeded to lead the officers through a primer of Marxist classics, which included Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program”; Lenin’s “Left-​ ­Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder,” “The State and Revolution,” and “What Is to Be Done?”; and Mao Zedong’s “On Contradiction.” Ouedraogo explained their association: “Sankara said he was looking for political and ideological formation. He was part of a new generation of young officers who showed that they were seriously interested in politics and sought political apprenticeship with us. But above all it was Sankara who was most interested and foremost among them.”21 In this way, Sankara plunged deeper into Marxism. Years later, when asked by a Cuban journalist about how he had come to Marxism, he replied: “It was very simple—through discussion, through friendship with a few men.  .  .  . Gradually, thanks to readings, but above all thanks to discussions with Marxists on the reality of our country, I came to Marxism.” He was mostly drawn to Lenin and Marx’s early writings. He was part of the wider current of post-​­Stalinist Marxist “revisionism,” but he did not subscribe to any particular school of thought, remaining eclectic in his intellectual influences. Although he read Fanon, Mao, and the works on “African socialism,” there’s no indication that he read, or was directly influenced by, the works of Antonio Gramsci and György Lukács, for example. In an interview years later, he simply stated: “I can nonetheless admit to being familiar with the classics of Marxism-​­Leninism.” Although he had not read all of Marx’s works, he said: “I have read all of Lenin’s works,” adding that he considered Lenin’s State and Revolution a “book I take refuge in, that I reread often. Depending on whether I’m in a good or a bad mood, I interpret the words and sentences in different ways . . . State and Revolution provides an answer to problems that require a revolutionary solution.” Sankara’s close friends recalled that he was frequently reading State and Revolution, from which he drew plenty of ideas about how to use state power in a revolutionary situation, even when the social conditions were not quite “economically ripe.” However, despite his deep readings in Marxism, his friends and colleagues questioned whether he was really a “Marxist.”22 Luc Traoré, a PAI leader who had known Sankara since their time

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together at lycée in Bobo-​­Dioulasso, recalled: “I was close to Thomas, and I never thought he was a communist or really a Marxist. But when you are Catholic, you cannot accept the domination or exploitation of one group by another. It’s against our Christian doctrine. And I know that Thomas drew a lot from the principles of the church, and based on certain kinds of humanism. So for us there was no contradiction between our religion and Marxism; we saw the commonality between the two. To help the poor and fight for justice. It was the Cold War prism that deformed things.”23 Moreover, even as he read Marx and Lenin, Sankara had become disillusioned with the orthodox left, and he had many problems with the Communist Party, especially in the Soviet Union and China, owing to the abandonment of religion, the human rights violations, and the political repression that had become synonymous with communism. In parallel with this questioning, Sankara engaged in far-​­reaching conversations with his pastor friend Gustave Bouda, who also came of age in the generation of 1968 and was very familiar with leftist literature. He and Sankara brought out the Bible and Mao’s Red Book and discussed the various areas of overlap between the two. With such a kindred spirit, Sankara was able to examine more closely certain difficulties that he had with the institutionalized power of the Catholic Church and the positions it took vis-​­à-vis the poor. Although Sankara had many friendships with Catholic clergymen, such as his uncle Pastor Godefroy Sankara, it was Bouda who really introduced Sankara to “liberation theology.” This school of thought emphasized the necessity of reading the Bible “through the eyes of the poor,” focusing on liberation from all forms of oppression rather than on salvation, committing oneself to “transforming the world” rather than to “saving souls.” Sankara discovered powerful moral language with which to attack the problems of poverty and social injustice. It enabled him to examine and resolve many of the ideological contradictions with which he had struggled over the years as he negotiated between his faith and his growing revolutionary commitment.24 In this vein, Bouda provided insight into Sankara’s humanism, religious beliefs, and practices: Thomas especially appreciated the positions taken by Christ in the Gospels in support of the poor. He knew these texts of the Gospels as well as me, and often cited portions . . . I think that he was partly a mystic. He could spend hours on end meditating in absolute silence. This left an impression. . . . From the viewpoint of religious culture, he was not confined to his Christian faith, and he tried to understand what was going on in other religions. He spoke of

76 | Thomas Sankara Chinese culture. He could cite the Qur’an. He spoke of Buddhism. He really had a broad mind. He spoke about Jean-​­Paul Sartre and Camus.25

Around this time, Sankara met his future wife, Mariam Sermé. The daughter of a World War II veteran, she had spent much of her childhood in Mali, growing up in a Muslim household, before moving back to Ouagadougou. “I met my spouse in 1977 in Ouagadougou, when I was out with some friends,” Sermé explained. “When I met him, I didn’t know anything about his past, except that he was in the military.” Not long after meeting her, Sankara proposed marriage, and their respective families began negotiating. But early in the courtship process, religious difference emerged as a sticking point. Mousbila Sankara recalled: “After Thomas met Mariam, I was part of the delegation with Lassané Sankara that went to meet with the family of Mariam in order to initiate the marriage process. But the Sermé family said right away that there was one problem: ‘She is Muslim and he’s Catholic.’ Thomas considered converting to Islam to be able to marry Mariam. But eventually they decided to handle it differently.” With the blessing of both families, Sermé decided to proceed as a catechumen. In the meantime, she departed for France to finish her studies.26 In early 1978, Sankara was in Rabat, Morocco, for advanced paratrooper training, and among his fellow officers was Blaise Compaoré. Rooming together in the Moroccan capital, the two men had a chance to deepen their friendship. Then, from Morocco, Sankara went to France for three months of further studies at the French paratrooper school in Pau, en route to his promotion to captain. On weekends, he visited friends in Bordeaux and Montpellier or saw Mariam in Caen, where she was completing her master’s degree. Valère Somé, Fidèle Toé, Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, Germaine Pitroipa, and Pascal Sankara were also in France for studies or training. “By chance I was doing training in pharmacy in Montpellier, and Thomas came to France to do further training there for three months,” Abdoul-​ ­Salam Kaboré recalled. “So we spent time together and discussed politics a lot, and we grew our movement closer to the student movement. At the time, Jean-​­Marc Palm and Gilbert Diendéré were in Montpellier. That was how Diendéré was brought into our group.” While in France, Sankara made several trips to Paris, and he soon discovered new sources of inspiration. As a young man, he had never had time to engage in a “militant life,” as his friends called it, characterized by debate, activism, and protest movements. But he embraced the radical student organizations and began to imagine

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how this movement could be fused with his own growing network of progressive officers. In this milieu, he was an intellectual sponge, soaking up everything he could, throwing himself into heated conversations with student activists and spending long hours in bookstores—his favorite a Maoist bookstore called Les Herbes Sauvages in Belleville.27 For years, African students in France had been radicalizing through their participation in the Black African Students Federation in France (FEANF), with those from Upper Volta under the leadership of the General Union of Voltaic Students (UGEV). But the promise of leftist unity was thrown into disarray by ideological disputes surrounding the Sino-​ ­Albanian split, which reached its denouement in 1976–1978. China had reoriented its foreign policy, promulgating its new “three worlds theory,” which recast Cold War alignments in a way that reduced the importance of the classic struggle between capitalism and socialism. This brought the condemnation of hard-​­line communists around the world, most notably the leader of communist Albania, Enver Hoxha. In French politics, the unity of the left was also broken, even as socialist François Mitterrand rose to power by outmaneuvering his enemies while weathering criticisms from Moscow over the “heresy” of Eurocommunism. In any case, the result of these disputes was the splintering of the student movement. In Upper Volta, the OCV fractured, in 1978–1979, into the pro-​­Albanian Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party (PCRV) and the more revisionist Union of Communist Struggle (ULC).28 Sankara witnessed this bitter partisanship of the leftist parties, divisions that would later undermine the revolution. But he was careful not to align himself with any particular faction. “When he came to France, he regularly visited me in Paris, and we would hang out in my room and discuss politics all night,” Valère Somé, the founding ULC leader, remembered. “Thomas formed himself intellectually in France, but without joining any party. He frequented the different milieus and mingled with all the different parties.” Because Sankara placed such a high value on friendship, which he blended seamlessly with politics, his reconnection with Somé was an important turning point. His childhood friend from Gaoua was a combative interlocutor who helped to sharpen Sankara’s thinking. However, despite his Marxist education, Somé now had rather eclectic interests, as he read widely across politics, economics, anthropology, and religion (he eventually completed his PhD in anthropology at the Sorbonne).29 Upon his return from France, he deepened his political ties to Sankara:

78 | Thomas Sankara We met secretly. Mariam’s sister lived next door to my family. There was just a wall separating the two compounds. Thomas would park his Jeep in front of his sister-​­in-law’s house, and then he would climb over the wall into my compound. I was labeled a subversive, a red, so he had to be very careful about his ties to me. When we held meetings, mostly of former students, Thomas would attend, dressed in civilian clothes and sitting in the back. So all the debates that we were having, and all the documents and books we read, we were sharing with him.30

As an emerging intellectual leader in Sankara’s group, Somé criticized the refusal of fellow Marxists to categorize the Soviet Union as an “imperialist superpower” or to denounce the “social imperialism” of China, as he explained. He questioned the silence around the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party of Cambodia under Pol Pot, and the Cambodian genocide. For Somé, these things could not be simply brushed under the rug. Although his newly formed political party took a communist name, the Union of Communist Struggle (ULC), he was having doubts about communism. He remained a “Marxist” and a devout Catholic, but Somé had come to believe that “communism was failing.” Thus, even as hard-​­line communists in Upper Volta belatedly espoused a more dogmatic party line, Somé struggled to find common ground. “I couldn’t discuss this seriously with people and open the debate with others who lacked the ideological formation,” Somé explained. “I wasn’t trying to form Sankara or anyone along communist lines. In fact, I wanted to convince them that the solution was not communism.” As part of his efforts, Somé routinely traveled to Pô in order to contribute to the political education of the commandos. But, on one of his visits, he noticed that the soldiers—lacking books—were reading Qaddafi’s Green Book, which was being distributed freely through the Libyan embassy. Somé scoffed at Qaddafi’s treatise and told Sankara that it was a mistake to offer such pabulum to soldiers without proper ideological training. Therefore, he made it his mission to bring books, political pamphlets, and other documents to CNEC.31 Upper Volta held legislative and presidential elections in 1978, with the RDA taking most of the legislative seats and Lamizana reclaiming the presidency. But Sankara thought that “bourgeois democracy” without real economic and social democracy was doomed to fail, taking the Leninist view that the state was mostly an instrument for maintaining class dominance, and that elections were used as a “political shell for capitalism.” In an interview with Afrique-​­Asie, he later described the 1978 elections as a

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“masquerade” and observed how the masses “voted on command” because of “certain constraints of feudalism.” He came to see how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had also become implicated in the political system: “These organizations [NGOs] were established according to the country’s electoral map. If there was a man of political importance in a certain fiefdom, that’s where the wells would be dug.” These features of the 1978 election, added to the fact that people “feared repression or intimidation,” led Sankara to remark, “Call it what you want, but for me that’s not democracy.” Indeed, it was for this reason that many of Sankara’s peers similarly rejected democracy and opted for Marxism-​­Leninism.32 PAI leader Luc Traoré explained: At this time, there was no democracy, it was impossible to organize democratically. If you tried to express your ideas or organize publicly, they would arrest you and put you in prison. So the only way to organize the fight was to do so clandestinely. The Marxist-​­Leninist organizations had developed tactics for organizing clandestinely, so that’s what we did. That was the reason the intellectuals of this country chose this form of struggle. We also saw that the Western powers systematically supported the old regimes that had been oppressing the people, so we looked to the left and progressive movements. It wasn’t because we wanted a communist society. It was because we didn’t have a choice. If you look at Africa at that time, and the regimes like Mobutu, because of the Cold War all those that wanted to fight for progress were labeled ‘communist.’ But we were nationalists trying to lead our country out of poverty.33

On July 21, 1979, crowds of people gathered along Avenue de la Cathédrale as Thomas Sankara, in his military officer’s uniform, and Mariam Sermé, in a white bridal dress and braided hair, passed in a military Jeep that had been decorated with machine gun belts draped over the window and the words “Honor and Glory” painted on the sides. Despite the pageantry, it was a modest celebration. “We wanted a simple wedding,” Mariam Sankara recalled. “We had a small budget, but our friends and family made it a great marriage. Because Thomas was the head of the military camp in Pô, there were soldiers who had decorated the vehicle.” Hundreds of guests showed up on the grounds of the College of Saint Jean-​­Baptiste de la Salle, where the couple was married in a small chapel. Gustave Bouda married them. Then everyone headed over to the Officers’ Mess for a simple meal and dancing. Friends and family prepared the food for the reception, and Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo’s group Atimbo provided music.34 Most of the principal actors in the revolution were now in Ouagadougou, where they used Sankara’s home in Samandin as a clandestine

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meeting place. Compaoré had become a regular fixture around the house, with a room permanently reserved for him. He was now Sankara’s deputy at the commando base in Pô, and henceforth the two were inseparable, plying back and forth between Ouagadougou and Pô. But some of Sankara’s military cohort opted out of the secretive political discussions. Jean Simporé kept the leftist officers at arm’s length, and Paul Yameogo went to the United States for advanced training at the Military Intelligence Center in Fort Huachuca for nine months. He was among the first group of officers selected from Upper Volta—which included Dominique Diendéré (the brother of Gilbert Diendéré, who played a leading role in Sankara’s murder) and Kodio Lougué—to participate in the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. Others, such as Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, joined the patrimonial networks of senior officers.35 By 1979, Sankara started looking beyond Upper Volta for potential regional support and inspiration for a military-​­led revolution. In fact, just across the border from Pô, a young flight lieutenant, Jerry Rawlings, had taken power in Ghana on June 4, 1979. Rawlings formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) with the intention of ending corruption, or kalabule, as it was called. The AFRC’s “house-​­cleaning” went so far as executing eight senior military officers—including three former Ghanaian heads of state—by firing squad. Then, on December 31, 1981, Rawlings launched a more thorough-​­going revolution under the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC). These developments in Ghana had a profound influence on Sankara, and Rawlings would play a crucial role in helping Sankara take power in August 1983.36 Sankara was inspired by the wave of revolutionary movements spanning the world from Iran to Nicaragua. In the late 1970s, this wave spread into Central America and the Caribbean, with guerrilla movements in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the Marxist-​­Leninist New Jewel Movement in Grenada under Maurice Bishop, who took power in 1979. In the same year, the Sandinista Front initiated its revolution in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega. These movements coincided with a global economic downturn from 1979 to 1982, which led to a rapid decline in prices of raw materials. Moreover, with the Latin American debt crisis of 1982, there was a decisive shift in the direction of neoliberal policies, signaling the end of efforts—along the lines of the New International Economic Order (NIEO)—by the Global South to achieve greater economic fairness and sovereignty. In the end, the crisis contributed to worsening terms of trade and deeper indebtedness,

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propelling many African countries into IMF-​­imposed structural adjustment programs.37 Within Upper Volta, grain production faltered in 1980, and with the rise in the cost of food imports, grievances mounted. In response, the labor unions mobilized in October 1980, unleashing a wave of strikes in Ouagadougou. As the strikes dragged on, schools remained closed and various other sectors of the economy came to a standstill. Finally, on November 25, Lamizana was overthrown in the country’s second coup. Colonel Saye Zerbo took power and promptly declared a state of emergency, banned all political parties, and suspended the Constitution. The new government called itself the Military Committee for the National Recovery and Progress (CMRPN). A veteran of the anti-​­colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria, and a graduate of Saint-​­Cyr, Zerbo maintained strong ties to the French military establishment. But the colonel sought to ease tensions within the military by bringing junior officers into the governing committee. Of the seventeen ministerial positions, nine were given to civilians, drawn mostly from Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo’s MLN party, which supported the coup. Sankara was suspicious of Zerbo’s motives—and felt betrayed by the socialist Ki-​ ­Zerbo’s participation—even as many junior progressive officers lined up to join the CMRPN. A month after the coup, he made his views known. “On New Year’s Eve 1980, we were at a get-​­together at Thomas’ house. All of his military friends were there, and many of them were now members of the government,” Fidèle Toé remembered. “He warned them that the government was just as rotten and it would corrupt them all.” But soon after, Zerbo unexpectedly named Sankara head of the Operational Division based in Ouagadougou. Sankara was forced to accept the position, and he handed CNEC over to Compaoré.38 Now living in Ouagadougou full-​­time, Sankara enjoyed married life and saw his family and friends on a regular basis. During this time, on August 10, 1981, Mariam gave birth to their first son, Philippe—named after Philippe Ouedraogo. Paul Sankara also took up residence with them while studying for his baccalaureate, and he remembered his older brother’s growing interest in African politics and popular culture, especially Bob Marley, whose message of resistance had taken Africa by storm. In fact, Marley had just died from cancer (on May 11, 1981), following on the heels of his high-​­profile visits to Africa, especially his performance at Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations in 1980. Now his premature death catapulted him to new levels of popularity. The youth in Upper Volta saw

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him as a prophetic figure, a powerful Third Worldist voice of liberation, whose words found their way into their political lexicons. In addition to drawing meaning from the turntable, Sankara followed international politics via the radio, read about the liberation struggles in South Africa, and became increasingly aware of Cold War politics. He watched with great interest and expectation as the socialist candidate for the French presidency, François Mitterrand, won the election on May 10, 1981, and soon initiated a “rupture with capitalism,” nationalizing industries, raising the minimum wage, staking out leftist positions in foreign affairs, and fighting for gender equality. Indeed, there was much overlap between Mitterrand’s “110 Propositions” and Sankara’s own positions once he took power. However, by 1983, the Mitterrand government was forced into an abrupt change of course, embracing Thatcherite austerity measures that seemed to disavow Mitterrand’s entire program. As Mitterrand pursued a more Gaullist approach to foreign policy, the much-​­anticipated break with the old françafrique neocolonial system never happened. In the end, Sankara acknowledged that the French socialists “disappointed many people, particularly the African youth,” as “everyone realized that things had not fundamentally shifted.”39 While Sankara himself was growing in popularity among the younger officers, Colonel Zerbo made further moves to politically neutralize him. Finally, in September 1981, Zerbo succeeded in co-​­opting Sankara, naming him secretary of state in charge of information. Sankara initially declined the offer, seeking to distance himself from the CMRPN. “We knew that the regime just wanted to get him wet with the others,” Philippe Ouedraogo remembered. “Thomas didn’t want to participate. He was very upset, as they were all mixed up in corruption. But I said to him: ‘Listen, be careful, Thomas, you’re in the military, and it’s a military order. You must obey your superiors.’” Sankara relented, and in October 1981, he began as the new secretary of information. Out of his element among civilian bureaucrats, he asked Fidèle Toé to serve as his chief of staff, and Toé then recruited Serge Théophile Balima, Hubert Bazié, and Paulin Bamouni. Balima, in charge of radio and television, recalled his first impressions of Sankara: “What struck me right away was his populist rhetoric. He wanted to put an end to certain hierarchies that existed between ministers and journalists. He wanted to integrate himself with the professional team [of journalists], and so he often came down to the editing room to see how we worked. . . . He wanted us to reflect on ways that television could be used in a revolutionary manner

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and have programs that propagated revolutionary ideas and to expose injustices.”40 In one of the first international media reports on Sankara, Afrique-​ ­Asie considered him “a curious minister of information” and “not like the others” in his simplicity and frankness. He represented a total departure from the habits of ministers and high-​­level bureaucrats, constructing his image as a down-​­to-earth man of the people. He was viewed as affable and approachable, eating meals in the cheap roadside stalls and projecting the persona of someone who did not see himself as being too important to take the time to engage with fellow citizens.41 Paul Sankara recalled that his brother wanted to send a signal that he would not be corrupted: He didn’t want anyone to think that he was in the government to enrich himself like others. I remember he had a driver when he was secretary of information, and Thomas felt uncomfortable with this because the driver was so much older than him. So he took his bicycle to work instead. He was the only minister who rode a bicycle to work, and he stood out. This disturbed a lot of the members of government. And even though he was minister of information, he didn’t want to appear on television or in front of the camera. He knew that they were just using his popularity, and so he resisted being viewed as a celebrity. He was showing that he wasn’t proud of being in Saye Zerbo’s government.42

As head of the Information Ministry, Sankara took his job seriously, perhaps too seriously. Under his leadership, journalists were encouraged to investigate corruption and abuses of power. As journalist Paulin Bamouni explained: “Freedom of expression became effective. . . . [The Department of] Information saw a real growth, because Sankara fought on all fronts not only to improve the existing methods, but to protect people in the profession.” In his ministerial position, Sankara was also brought into contact with foreign journalists and diplomats. Hugo Sada, communications director for Jean-​­Pierre Cot—French minister of cooperation—met with Sankara on several occasions and recalled: “On a personal level, Sankara made quite an impression on people. He was very charismatic, and right away you had a sense of this strong presence, even though he was quite young. He already had a very progressive and revolutionary discourse.” On the diplomatic front, one of Sankara’s signal victories was his success in bringing the live television broadcast of the 1982 World Cup soccer games to Upper Volta. It was an exciting year for francophone Africans, as both Algeria and Cameroon qualified, while the French team was a mix of immigrants

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from Africa, Algeria, and the French Caribbean. “The main thing Sankara wanted was for France to help Burkina to set up a system of satellite television so that Burkina could directly transmit the FIFA World Cup,” Sada said. But during the negotiations, Sankara said bluntly, “If France does not want to help, then I will ask Qaddafi to help with this.” France finally went ahead and provided the necessary funds and equipment, but the negotiations highlighted a “very troublesome side,” according to Sada.43 Indeed, within diplomatic and intelligence circles, word about Sankara’s “relations” with the Libyan leader spread quickly. It was a red flag for Washington, particularly at a time of CIA covert operations against Qaddafi in Chad’s civil war. Ronald Reagan had signed an intelligence order releasing funds to “quietly bleed” Qaddafi by supporting Hissene Habré in Chad. This was new CIA director William Casey’s first covert operation and part of a wider pattern of Casey’s numerous reckless and strategically dubious operations, which culminated in the Iran-​­Contra scandal. His Cold War crusade would lead to a broader escalation of the war in Chad. It also brought France and the United States into closer cooperation. In fact, in May 1981, during the handover ceremony, outgoing president Giscard told Mitterrand that US and French intelligence were working together on a plan to destabilize Qaddafi. Against this backdrop, Sankara appeared on the radar of the US embassy in Ouagadougou. US diplomat Thomas Hull remembered that the State Department was “very worried” about Sankara’s possible ties to Qaddafi, and so the US embassy invited him to the United States for a monthlong trip. Sankara agreed to discuss the possibility, and on the morning of March 17, 1982, he visited the US embassy for a meeting with Hull. But the trip never happened, owing to the fact that Sankara was soon imprisoned.44 In early 1982, with economic conditions deteriorating, Soumane Touré and other labor leaders engaged in acerbic attacks on the CMRPN. Then the union busting began. An arrest warrant was issued for Touré, but he managed to escape and fled to a small village near the border with Ghana. In response, Philippe Ouedraogo went to the National Printing Office and had a special issue of Le Patriote printed in protest. Pascal Sankara, who was working as a technician at the press, recounted: “Philippe Ouedraogo came to the National Printing Office when Soumane Touré fled into hiding. The government had issued an arrest warrant for him. So Philippe gave me a photo of Soumane Touré to print on the cover of Le Patriote, expressing support for him.” After the issue of Le Patriote appeared, the security forces stormed the printing office, arrested workers, and seized copies of the

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dissident journal. Then they proceeded to arrest Philippe Ouedraogo and other PAI-​­LIPAD leaders.45 As unrest grew, the government cracked down on the Information Ministry for its support of dissident journalism. On March 4, 1982, Sankara defiantly responded, writing personally to the Ministry of Interior: “On the afternoon of Friday, February 26, 1982, the Director of the Agence Voltaïque de Presse was detained in the local offices of National Security and interrogated by the police. . . . I actively protest against this action . . . [which] in the long run will hinder the development of the institutions of the press  .  .  . the national institutions should support them as responsible servants, capable of illuminating public opinion, to the detriment of underhanded and noxious rumor.” In short order, the CMRPN and organized labor were headed for a showdown. Six major trade unions under the direction of the recently banned CSV decided to challenge the anti-​­strike laws. Sankara understood the ramifications. Now in the growing conflict, he threw caution to the wind. “In April 1982, when we organized a massive strike against the CMRPN because they had suppressed our right to strike, Sankara joined with us,” Philippe Ouedraogo remembered. “We advised him that it could be very dangerous for him. But Sankara said that he would not be implicated in the government’s suppression of strikes. So he courageously resigned.” On April 12, 1982, as the strike drew near and the trade unions prepared for battle, Sankara drafted a resignation letter to Zerbo.46 On a hot evening in Ouagadougou, the ministers of ten different francophone African countries were present for a debate over the future of African cinema within the context of the FESPACO festival. In his closing remarks on April 21, Sankara discussed the state of African cinema, and then he made the shocking announcement that he was resigning from his position. With Colonel Zerbo and his entourage in attendance, and people listening to the live broadcast over the radio, Sankara observed: “There is no cinema without freedom of expression, and there is simply no freedom of expression without freedom.” He ended with his famous words: “Woe to those who silence their people” (Malheur à ceux qui bâillonnent leur peuple), a phrase that the youth promptly picked up as one of their rallying slogans. In Sankara’s first entry into the international press, Le Monde reported on the dramatic public resignation while adding that Sankara was “one of the officials who have contributed most to liberalizing the press.” But immediately after the speech, Sankara was arrested. He would spend the next six months imprisoned in Dédougou.47

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Notes 1. Le Monde, October 27, 1973; New York Times, October 16, 1973; Glantz, Politics of Natural Disaster; Harvey, Brief History of Neoliberalism; Swift, “Desertification,” 73–90; Nugent, Africa since Independence, 348, 326–367; Nicholson, “Review Article: The West African Sahel.” 2. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013. 3. Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 166; Hobsbawm, How to Change the World, chap. 14; Slobodian, Globalists, chap. 7; Gilman, “New International Economic Order.” 4. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 19, 2015; Diawara, Dernière entrevue, 7–58; Le Républicain, October 13, 2014, online at ­http://​­malijet​.­com​/­la​_ societe​_ malienne​_ aujourdhui​ /­interview​_ mali​/­114436​-­​­youssouf​_diawara​_ membre​_de​_ la​_commission​_politique​_ l​_ adema ​​.­html; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 115–124; Cook, Mao’s Little Red Book. 5. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Etienne Zongo, interview with Jaffré, September 2000. 6. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Pauline Sankara, interview, July 13, 2015. 7. Otayek, “Burkina Faso.” 8. Paul Sankara, interview, July 19, 2014; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 78–79; Kaboré, Histoire, 74–92; Englebert, La Révolution Burkinabé, 49–50; Le Monde, February 9 and 12, 1974. 9. “Litiges Frontalier entre le Burkina et le Mali,” CANBF 28V9-​­12; Le Monde, December 30, 1974; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, July 10, 1985, FOIA; Balima, Légendes et Histoire, 350–352. 10. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 30, 2015; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 71; Balima, Légendes et Histoire, 377–379. 11. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 19, 2015; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Afrique Asie, November 7, 1983. 12. Zagré, Les Politiques, 90; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 71; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013. 13. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Augustine Thiombiano, interview, August 27, 2015; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 51–69. 14. Sangoulé Lamizana, interview, 1994; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Carrefour Africain, June 8, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 95–100; Zagré, Les Politiques, 100–102. 15. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Jaffré, Biographie, 91–94; Andriamirado, Sankara, 32–33; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 63; Mao Tse-​­Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, 93; Jeune Afrique, June 1, 1983; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 145; Human Development Report, 1990. 16. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Gustave Bouda, interview with Jaffré, March 3, 1997; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 92–94. 17. Boubacar Diawara, interview, March 13, 2013; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Jaffré, Biographie, 91–93; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 181–182; Saul, “Art, Politics, and Commerce,” 144–148.

A Rising Star  |  87 18. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, July 2, 1987, FOIA. 19. Le monde, November 26, 1977; Kaboré, Histoire, 100–130; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Englebert, La Révolution Burkinabé, 55–57. 20. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015. 21. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, March 16, 2013; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 115–124; Jaffré, Biographie, 96. 22. Jeune Afrique, March 12, 1986; Valère Somé, interview, March 16, 2013; see Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, 730–778, 963–1032, 1148–1205; Lenin, State and Revolution; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 385. 23. Luc Traoré, interview, March 4, 2013. 24. Gustave Bouda, interview, March 3, 1997; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 94–95; Smith, Emergence of Liberation Theology. 25. Gustave Bouda, interview, March 3, 1997. 26. Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 29, 2015. 27. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 13, 2013; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 4, 2013; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 197; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 385. 28. Bianchini, Ecole et politique en Afrique noire, 143–144; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 115–130; Cook, “Third World Maoism,” 288–312; Valère Somé, “UGEV Mouvement du 21 Juin,” August 16–19, 1979, text shared by author; Judt, Marxism and the French Left, 169–301; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 295–311. 29. Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013. 30. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015. 31. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Somé, “UGEV Mouvement du 21 Juin”; Somé, “Deux voies, deux perspectives,” Prolétaire 2, June 1979, text shared by author. 32. Le monde, November 26, 1977, and May 31, 1978; Afrique Asie, October 10, 1983; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 207; Lenin, State and Revolution. 33. Luc Traoré, interview, March 4, 2013. 34. Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2015; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 25, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015. 35. Pauline Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 16, 2013; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015. 36. Afrique-​­Asie, January 31, 1983; Chazan, Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics; and Nugent, Big Men, Small Boys, and Politics in Ghana. 37. Van de Walle, African Economies, 1–15; Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 433–499; Westad, Global Cold War, 331–395; Bhagwati, New International Economic Order. 38. Afrique-​­Asie, December 8, 1980, and March 2, 1981; Zagré, Les Politiques, 105; Le Monde, November 27, 1980; Kaboré, Histoire, 130–131, 571–572; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013. 39. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 300–305, 365–376; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 244–245; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 443–482; see also Gilroy, Darker Than Blue, 87–103; Campbell, Rasta and Resistance.

88 | Thomas Sankara 40. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 168–171. 41. Afrique-​­Asie, December 6, 1982. 42. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014. 43. Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 168; Hugo Sada, interview, April 20, 2013; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Thomas Hull, interview, November 13, 2014; Dubois, Soccer Empire, 72–96. 44. Thomas Hull, interview, November 13, 2014; Woodward, Veil, 87–91; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 434–448; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 317. 45. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Afrique-​­Asie, January 18, 1982; Carrefour Africain, February 15, 1982. 46. Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 172; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Afrique-​ ­Asie, May 24, 1982; Touré, Une vie de militant, 75–80. 47. Le Monde, May 6, 1982; Afrique-​­Asie, May 24, 1982.

4 FROM POLITICAL PRISONER TO POPULIST PRIME MINISTER, 1982–1983

S

tripped of his rank, Sankara was imprisoned at the military camp in Dédougou, under the command of Colonel Fidèle Guebré. The conditions, and prison sentence, were nothing remotely close to what Nelson Mandela and others were enduring on Robben Island, but Sankara’s six months in detention burnished his image as a leader who embraced the struggle and self-​­sacrifice. By all accounts, he initially dreaded being eliminated, a fear echoed by his family and friends. But supportive junior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) posted in Dédougou made sure that nothing happened to him. Similarly, Colonel Yorian Somé—Valère Somé’s uncle—conveyed assurances that Sankara would be protected. Sankara’s arrest was followed by the demotion and reassignment of Henri Zongo and Blaise Compaoré to remote military posts (Fada N’Gourma and Ouahigouya, respectively) to disrupt communications among the core of progressive officers. There was also a broader crackdown on the civilian left, as workers, civil servants, and teachers were dismissed from their jobs and arrested. The PAI-​­LIPAD leaders were on the run, demoralized, and simply trying to survive. Many even fled the country.1 While imprisoned, Sankara kept contact with his family via commandos, such as aide-​­de-camp Moussa Diallo, who passed through Dédougou. Mariam Sankara recalled that during her husband’s imprisonment they would “exchange letters by intermediary of the soldiers” and then relay news to the Sankara family. The PAI leadership also got permission for a doctor to visit him. Soumane Touré said: “[There] was a doctor-​­psychiatrist based in Bobo, Dr. Jean Sanou. We were worried about the situation that Sankara was in, his physical and mental health. So we sent the doctor to

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see him, and the military officers just let him in. But it was useful in a double sense, to check on him, but also to pass information back and forth. Dr. Sanou visited him three times, and they managed to have clandestine conversations and discuss the political situation. Thomas told the doctor: ‘Nobody has hurt me. I’m just imprisoned, that’s all. No reason to worry.’” Indeed, it turned out to be a time of reflection, as Sankara devoted himself to studying the revolutionary works of Vo Nguyen Giap and Che Guevara. He was seeing himself as a real revolutionary, like many others, who had to undergo the ordeal of imprisonment. Among those in his military circle, Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré visited Dédougou. “I simply went to observe how Thomas was doing. He wasn’t free to leave the compound, but he wasn’t beaten or mistreated,” Kaboré said. “He spent six months on sabbatical, with plenty of time alone to read and think. He was playing his guitar, listening to music, exercising in the courtyard. I remember a phrase he said to me: ‘A slave that isn’t conscious of his state captivity does not value when others are concerned for him.’” As with his commandos in Pô, Sankara quickly made himself one of the men, participating in drills and even working in the fields.2 Very little else is known about Sankara’s time in Dédougou. He never made a public comment about it. But he did have a handful of local social contacts, including a young Peace Corps volunteer named Peter Hall. Over the years, Sankara had gotten to know Peace Corps volunteers in Upper Volta, and he was eager to learn English. Eventually, after hearing about Hall’s presence in Dédougou, he invited the young volunteer over for dinner, thus initiating several months of regular socializing. “We always met in his courtyard,” Hall remembered. “I didn’t know exactly what the restrictions were, but there was nobody listening or looking in. Every time he invited me to come back, I would just show up on my motorcycle. He’d be sitting down to eat, and we’d have dinner. This became a habit of ours every week.” After dinner, they would often play guitar together or talk about politics. Occasionally, Sankara would turn on the radio to listen to international news. According to Hall, the conversations reinforced Sankara’s own convictions regarding the local problems of corruption: “In Dédougou, there were some really nasty and corrupt officials. I had a lot of discussions with Thomas about this local corruption. It was the underbelly of the political environment, with elites that were less than really concerned about the people. Thomas was all ears listening to my experiences.” It was typical of Sankara. He had an instinct for connecting with people, reaching out to

From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister  |  91

others in order to make sense of how larger problems were reflected in even the smallest localities.3 Despite his imprisonment, Sankara encouraged his friends to resume their political activities, beseeching the ULC and PAI-​­LIPAD leadership to set aside their partisan disagreements. He wrote a letter to Valère Somé, urging him to get in contact with Philippe Ouedraogo in order to “bury our differences” and “prepare the ground for the revolution.” For that reason, Somé and his ULC colleague Basile Guissou met clandestinely with the PAI leadership, including Ouedraogo, Adama Touré, and Soumane Touré, who welcomed the contact. Sankara’s military colleagues then established contact with leftist civilian leaders, who provided crucial intelligence and clandestine communication channels to organize the coming coup.4 Philippe Ouedraogo explained: When Sankara was in Dédougou, I had contact with him through Blaise and Lingani, who were now in Bobo. I came back at the end of October, before November 7 [the date of the coup], and I went to Bobo, to get into contact with them. This was all clandestine. We had a meeting with Blaise, as he came to visit with Lingani, and then sat down and explained the plans for the November 7 coup. They explained that within the army there was a clear majority in opposition to the CMRPN, and of course among the population as well. They asked me to discreetly get into contact with some of their comrades in Ouaga, so Adama was in contact with Kamboulé, and I went to see another guy over in the artillery camp, and then he had contacts with others. I informed my civilian comrades about the plans.5

By that time, Colonel Saye Zerbo was isolated, as various currents within the military and civil society coalesced around a common hatred of the regime. Zerbo had alienated both the conservative and progressive factions within the military, while throwing himself headlong into self-​ ­enrichment. With discontent reaching deeper into the ranks of the military, Colonel Yorian Somé—head of the armed forces—saw his chance. He had plenty of support in the military, and he had a young acolyte to do his bidding: his nephew Captain Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé. But to ensure any kind of staying power and popular support, he needed Sankara in his government. After hearing news of the birth of his second son, Auguste, on September 21, Sankara approached senior officers about visiting his family in Ouagadougou. Colonel Somé saw an opportunity and offered to accommodate him. Finally, on November 1, Sankara climbed into a military plane sent by the colonel, and there he saw colleagues, such as Paul Yameogo. Soon he learned about Kamboulé’s coup plans.6

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On November 7, the CMRPN was overthrown, and by evening a newly declared Provisional Council for the Salvation of the People (CPSP) took to the radio. Sankara wrote the pronunciamento. “The military officials needed a declaration, so Sankara agreed to write it, mainly because he was the most capable,” Valère Somé said. “After this, rumors spread that it was Sankara’s coup, but the fact was he had been against it from the beginning.” Sankara’s declaration stated that the Zerbo regime had “betrayed” the people through its actions and policies, “mismanagement, corruption and illicit and spectacular enrichment of leaders,” “unjustified repression of workers, school children and students,” and “the suppression of fundamental individual and collective freedoms.” At the time, ordinary soldiers believed that Sankara himself was taking power. As Sankara explained, “On November 7 some well-​­hidden players were trying to win support for their project [and] they did not hesitate to say that Captain Sankara was the strongman.” International news agencies and freelance journalists seized on this story line. According to Le Monde, Sankara was “one of the ‘brains’ behind the last coup d’état and enjoyed real popularity among the youth.” The US embassy’s public affairs officer, Thomas Hull, wrote a telegram in which he reported: “Rumors persist that the Captain Thomas Sankara, the former secretary of state for information, played a leading role in the coup.” In fact, the real coup plotters, Colonel Somé and Captain Kamboulé, were rarely mentioned. Sankara, as the charismatic protagonist, emerged as the centerpiece of journalistic accounts.7 Beneath the veneer of reform and nationalism, the new council was deeply divided. As Otayek has observed, this period saw the “crystallization of conflicts,” marked by a “growing politicization of the army and its stratification of ideologically antagonistic groups.” The military old guard was still made up of senior officers who had served in the French army and therefore maintained friendships with the French military establishment, whereas the young progressive middle-​­rank officers had trained mostly in African military academies and developed strong nationalist and populist sensibilities. These fundamental and unresolvable cleavages would eventually lead to the military takeover by the younger generation. However, the issue that provoked immediate debate concerned the choice of president. Colonel Somé imagined himself on the throne. He’d been a minister in every government since 1971, and the people called him “Maggi Cube” (a popular bouillon cube) because he “blended so well with all sauces.” But now few supported his bid, so the colonel began to cast about for an

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appropriate cat’s-​­paw. Eventually, a more moderate faction put forward a rather innocuous military doctor, Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo. “We agreed to a kind of buffer between us, that was Jean-​­Baptiste,” Abdoul Salam Kaboré recalled. “He was neutral, a pediatrician, known more among civilians because of his work at the hospital.” Soon the Council for the Welfare of the People (CSP) was officially created, made up of 120 military men, including junior officers—such as Blaise Compaoré, Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani, and Henri Zongo—NCOs, and low-​­ranking soldiers. Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo was president.8 The November 7 coup also opened the door for PAI-​­LIPAD and ULC; for the first time, the Marxist-​­Leninist groups took up ministerial posts, with Eugene Dondassé, Emmanuel Dadjouari, and Ibrahim Koné taking key positions. Then LIPAD leader Philippe Ouedraogo worked to get Sankara to join the government. “I was in contact with Sankara then, and we had a couple comrades in the government,” Ouedraogo explained. “We said to Sankara that he too should play a prominent role in the new government. But he didn’t want to join the government.” Valère Somé also took the opportunity to tell his friend that he was making a terrible mistake: “When we met soon after the coup, I told him: ‘You can’t participate in a coup and say that you’re not involved. Now you’re implicated. You don’t have a choice.’”9 In the meantime, Sankara started making public appearances. On December 10, 1982, he addressed the large teachers’ union (SUVESS). In this earliest extant speech by Sankara, which was promptly published by L’Observateur, he stated that the country found itself in a neocolonial situation (a theme that he would develop over the years) and that soldiers and workers alike faced common forms of class oppression. In line with his evolving views on an “army of the people,” he stated that henceforth the military must support the labor unions. Sankara also expressed his views in the journal Armée du Peuple (Army of the people), which provided a forum for soldiers to discuss their grievances. Sankara’s words resonated more broadly. During this time, the French academic journal Politique Africaine, as part of its stated goal to examine African “politics from below,” provided an analysis of the “social causes” behind the November 7 coup and reprinted Sankara’s December 10 speech. It was the first reference to Sankara within an academic context, and it appears that French scholars, like the journal’s editor, Jean-​­François Bayart, took him seriously. For them, Sankara represented a wider trend in African politics, characterized by emerging populist

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discourses and popular movements, often led by young military leaders, such as Jerry Rawlings.10 In early January, the new Revolutionary Military Organization (OMR)— formerly ROC—gathered at the home of Henri Zongo and informed Sankara of their decision to nominate him as prime minister. After ex­pressing his reluctance to take the position, he finally acquiesced, and on January 10, 1983, he was sworn in. In his brief investiture speech, the thirty-​­three-year-​ ­old captain struck a populist chord, using the word people sixty-​­five times. But the people was more than an abstract category. For Sankara, the people were individuals with varying needs; they were peasants, workers, artisans, students, and women. And the government had to place the “interests of the people” above those of political leaders. As he exclaimed, “The government is there to serve to the Voltaic people, and not to serve itself.” Moreover, he sought to convince his colleagues that they should not “fear the masses, and barricade ourselves in our air-​­conditioned offices.” After taking his new position, Sankara immediately called on his civilian friends. Once again, his chief of staff was Fidèle Toé, who acknowledged that “we were all still very young.” Sawadogo similarly observed that when Sankara ascended to power he was “surrounded for the most part by his old childhood and school friends,” which contributed to the entangled nature of his private and public lives. In fact, one of the criticisms leveled against Sankara was that he came to power too quickly and had not yet “turned the page” on the 1968-​­style activist culture of the student groups, with their idealism and revolutionary drive to “change the world.” According to Jaffré, Sankara soon developed a reputation for provocation, seeking to shake elites and bureaucrats out of their complacency and therefore “transform mentalities.”11 Shortly after being named prime minister, Sankara gave his first interview for the international press in an article by the Malian journalist Mohamed Maïga for Afrique-​­Asie. Founded in 1969 by the Egyptian-​­born Jewish journalist Simon Malley, Afrique-​­Asie was a publication committed to Third Worldist movements. Taken by Sankara’s charisma, Maïga played a crucial role in constructing and maintaining his popular image. But Maïga was not unique in this regard; left-​­leaning journalists from around the world often became spellbound by Sankara’s charm and could not help writing effusively about him. In his first interview with Maïga, Sankara highlighted the changes taking place within the military, the “democratization” within the ranks. He recognized the influence of Jerry Rawlings, and

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announced that the new government was putting in place “certain mechanisms,” as in Ghana, aimed at ending corruption. For readers of Afrique-​ ­Asie in January 1983, a new revolutionary voice had emerged on the scene, a man of integrity with a populist style, which Maïga called the “Sankara effect.”12 In order to bring greater transparency to government, Sankara created a special show, En Direct avec le CSP (“Live with the CSP”), every Tuesday night, through which listeners could speak directly with their leaders, ministers, and high civil servants. Sankara wanted to “demystify power” and facilitate an ongoing dialogue between the people and their leaders. He placed special emphasis on reaching out to rural areas. As peasants had been mostly ignored by the political class, Sankara was keen on hearing about their grievances and bringing them into discussions of governance. He led campaigns through the rural provinces with the objective of educating the people about the new government and establishing dialogue, the so-​ ­called “Operation Truth.” These rural palavers and rallies took on a carnival atmosphere, with young people in their ubiquitous Bob Marley T-​­shirts and elders in traditional garb. The “Operation Truth” even passed through Téma, the ancestral homelands of Sankara. The event provided Maïga with the opportunity to visit the Sankara compound, which he described in the following way: “I saw some huts, among the most miserable that I have been shown in Africa: the dwellings of the family of Thomas Sankara. . . . It is difficult to believe that the young Voltaic Prime Minister comes from such modest origins.” Such reports played an important role in popularizing Sankara’s humble roots and connection to ordinary people.13 Not everyone was pleased with Sankara’s rise to power, and among those that were hardest to win over were the Mossi chiefs and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Sankara soon met with the Moro Naba of Ouagadougou in a bid to calm the waters. But, public niceties aside, the Naba, who was a mere twenty-​­six years old, would never support Sankara. As expected, the Catholic Church, especially Cardinal Paul Zoungrana, routinely declared its opposition to “atheistic communism,” while the conservative Catholic leadership sought to undermine the movement that Sankara represented. It was not exactly unprovoked, as leftist leaders often questioned the church’s support of the CMRPN and military old guard, criticism which, according to Afrique-​­Asie, “was perceived as anti-​­Catholic and even anti-​­religious.” Moreover, when Sankara stated that the “enemies of the people” included “forces of obscurantism who, under spiritual cover, under cover of tradition,

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are exploiting the people instead of genuinely serving their moral interests,” both Mossi elites and Catholic leaders interpreted his words as attacks.14 On February 24, Sankara embarked on his first international trip as prime minister. His visit to Libya was actually the result of a Libyan invitation extended to Colonel Saye Zerbo. Long before Sankara was prime minister, according to US intelligence, four Libyan delegations had visited Ouagadougou, promising $10 million in economic assistance and weaponry. En route to Tripoli, Sankara stopped in Niamey, Niger, a key pillar in the françafrique neocolonial system and France’s leading supplier of uranium. Its president, General Seyni Kountché, had taken power in 1974 with French backing, and he was a trusted ally of the United States—the CIA station in Niamey was the most important in the Sahel. It’s unclear what Sankara and Kountché discussed in their meeting on February 24, but a US cable reported the following: “In their February meeting, Kountché spoke firmly to Sankara, who was Prime Minister and en route to Libya, and cautioned him against forming close ties with Libya or letting Upper Volta be used by Libya for regional destabilization activities.”15 After meeting with Kountché, Sankara flew directly to Libya. The foreign press, and government officials in France, the United States, and neighboring African countries, worried incessantly about this relationship with Libya. US officials even called the Peace Corps volunteer Peter Hall into the embassy for two days of questioning about Sankara’s ties to Libya. Indeed, Sankara was pigeonholed as a pro-​­Libyan acolyte and suspected of planning a communist takeover of Upper Volta, mischaracterizations that were used to discredit his progressive agenda. In reality, Sankara simply hoped that an alliance with Qaddafi would yield economic development in Upper Volta, and he made it clear that Upper Volta had the right to cultivate friendships with any other countries it chose. Although Qaddafi saw things differently and wanted more than neutrality, Sankara made his position clear: “We told the Libyan leaders that we had nothing against Libya, but that we have positions of our own. When it comes to ideology, we are not virgins. We are ready to collaborate with Libya, but we are also ready to tell them, in a responsible manner, what we think.” Libya would support Sankara’s seizure of power through the provisioning of arms, but Sankara would also denounce Libyan intervention in Chad and rebuff Qaddafi’s efforts to expand Libyan influence in Upper Volta. In time the promises of Libyan economic aid would evaporate.16

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From March 7 to March 13, 1983, Sankara and his delegation from Upper Volta—which included the minister of foreign affairs, Michel Kafando— were in New Delhi for the summit of the Nonaligned Movement. Sankara had the chance to meet such figures as Fidel Castro, Julius Nyerere, Daniel Ortega, Indira Gandhi, Jerry Rawlings, Samora Machel, and Maurice Bishop. Three of them would also be assassinated—Gandhi, Machel, and Bishop—over a short span, and three others—Castro, Ortega, and Rawlings—would deal with constant US efforts to destabilize their governments. In any case, this was Sankara’s first address on an international stage. Kafando had prepared a more moderate speech for him. But as Sankara stepped up to the pulpit, he pulled out his own more radical statement. Kafando was so incensed that he promptly cut the trip short and headed back to Ouagadougou. It’s unclear what Kafando’s intended remarks contained, but we do know that one of his allies, Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, published a more moderate essay, in 1982, on the place of culture and education in the Nonaligned Movement, calling for efforts to reduce the “polarization of global politics.”17 Delivering his speech with panache, Sankara called attention to the need for continued nonaligned strategies to world problems. Taking a moral position, he declared that the Nonaligned Movement needed to serve “as a voice of reason, and as the deep and bold conscience of the world, which imperialism would like to eternally submit to its domination.” He viewed the Nonaligned Movement as a “moral force” aimed at promoting peace and the “democratization of international relations based on the equality of rights and obligations.” In this way, he was advocating for “true non-​­alignment” and taking the position that any country, regardless how small, had the right to cultivate diplomatic and trade relations with any other without outside interference. Sankara then entered the fray of Middle Eastern politics and in the process made his first public criticisms of US foreign policy. “The Israeli government, publicly supported by the United States, despite the unanimous condemnation of the entire world, invaded Lebanon with its army, submitted the capital Beirut to ruthless destruction,” he stated. “The Israeli government has allowed the indescribable massacres of Sabra and Shatila, and whose leaders [Israel’s] should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.” He condemned the intervention of “imperialism” in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and expressed solidarity with the people of South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola. At that point, he positioned himself far more with the international left than with the

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Pan-​­Africanists. In fact, as Jaffré has observed, Pan-​­Africanism was “not high on his agenda.” Still, Sankara argued forcefully that formerly “colonized or subjugated peoples” should “participate, with equal rights and obligations, in the development of international trade of all kinds.” He concluded: “We do not equate non-​­alignment with passive complicity in the face of imperialist crimes against the independence and freedom of countries.”18 Sankara had erupted on the scene, seemingly out of nowhere. The piercing accuracy and forcefulness of his positions drew the attention of Fidel Castro, who reached out to Sankara after the speech. The Cuban leader invited him over to his lodgings, where the two men talked for hours. Sankara later recalled in an interview with Radio Havana: “In this first conversation, I realized Fidel has great human feeling, keen intuition, and that he understood the importance of our struggle and the problems of my country.” Little is known about Sankara’s side trip to North Korea, other than the gift he received from North Korean leader Kim Il-​­Sung, a handgun with an ivory cross, which Sankara loved to brandish at speeches and meetings. On his way back to Ouagadougou, Sankara stopped in Paris and met with various military officers to discuss plans for their “war of maneuver.” According to Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, whom he saw in Paris, Sankara’s message was to “get ready because the movement was almost ripe and the hour was approaching.” Despite his postcoup efforts to distance himself from notions of personal ambition, it was becoming clear that Sankara had a final frontal attack in mind. Establishing diplomatic ties with various nonaligned countries had emboldened him. He was brimming with confidence and about to ratchet up his pressure on the old guard. His popularity was also growing across Africa, so that after his travels, “reports of Sankara’s external activities contributed a great deal to his reputation as a charismatic leader,” surrounding him with a “halo of mystery, embellished by growing myths,” Skinner observed.19 As he demonstrated his intellectual and moral leadership in multiple venues, Sankara’s popularity within civil society was now evident. He could see that the movement was growing, as the social forces—students, labor leaders, civil servants, and junior officers—coalesced in a sort of “historic bloc.” But he also understood that timing was everything; the establishment of political hegemony was essential before the taking of power by force. Thus, upon returning to Ouagadougou, he immediately set out to rally his forces. On March 26, he led the “Operation Truth” into Ouagadougou to a

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large restive crowd. Many young people came out specifically to hear Sankara speak. Others listened to the live broadcast over the radio. After he delivered a few scripted speeches, the statement on March 26 would mark the beginning of his trademark oratorical improvisations, characterized by his use of figurative language and provocative revolutionary rhetoric. It established him as something of a barnstormer, who fed on the crowd and did not hesitate to needle the governing elite. Punctuated by dramatic bursts of call-​­and-response, his words were much less a speech of ideas than a revolutionary rallying cry. In a populist and Leninist vein, Sankara took aim at the “enemies of the people,” deploying a discursive trope used by many past revolutionaries. He promised to provide “truthful information” in the interest of “the people.”20 Sankara animalized “imperialism” and its lackeys as “trembling” and being “holed up in their burrows.” He targeted the “enemies of the people,” asking the crowd each time: “Who are the enemies of the people?” He answered: “The enemies of the people inside the country are all those who take advantage of their social position, of their bureaucratic position, to enrich themselves illicitly . . . the bourgeoisie that enriches itself dishonestly through fraud and bribery, through the corruption of state officials.” Sankara moved on to define the external enemies as “neocolonialism and imperialism,” which were “attempting to sow confusion among the Voltaic people . . . through their newspapers, their radios, and their television. . . . Imperialism is everywhere. Through the culture that it spreads, through its misinformation.” Indeed, he used a Leninist understanding of imperialism, seeing it behind nearly all forms of domination, brutality, or injustice, whether in apartheid South Africa or elsewhere. But now imperialism was in a “violent phase.” As he said, “It is imperialism that has organized troop landings in certain countries.  .  .  . It is imperialism that has armed those who are killing our brothers in South Africa. It is imperialism that assassinated the Lumumbas, the Cabrals, and the Kwame Nkrumahs.”21 There was loud chanting, and at certain points the young people started popping plastic bags, which sounded like small explosions. The assembled ministers and military officers became visibly unsettled. Sankara himself sensed that he was touching a nerve and put his hand on his new pistol. “Perhaps this will cost us our life, but we are here to take risks. We are here to dare. And you are here to continue the struggle at all costs,” he declared. “We know that in this crowd there are people who would very much like to shoot us right now. Those are the risks we take, convinced that

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it is in the interests of the people.” Despite his hot rhetoric, Sankara sought to allay the fears of communism, restating Upper Volta’s non-​­aligned position. “They call us communists in order to frighten the people. They accuse us of being communists, and they tell the people that communism is bad,” he reasoned. “We have done nothing communist here, we have simply talked about improving living conditions, about social justice, freedom and democracy.” But if there had been uncertainty around his ties to Libya and Ghana, Sankara now vigorously defended his relations with both countries. He embraced Rawlings’ war on corruption: “Rawlings says, ‘No way for kalabule!’—that is, stop the corruption . . . the Voltaic people too are against corruption.” He attacked corrupt civil servants and soldiers alike and called out urban landlords for price gouging. Before wrapping up, he encouraged the audience, paraphrasing the Marxist adage, “You’re capable of transforming your existence and transforming the concrete conditions in which you live.” He ended with a series of rallying slogans, and almost surrealistic images, his signature way of playfully firing up the crowd.22 Down with imperialism! Down with enemies of the people! Down with the embezzlers of funds! Down with the fakers (faux-​­types) in Upper Volta! Fakery (faux-​­typisme) is over! Down with the owls with shady looks (hiboux au regard gluant)! Down with fence-​­sitting chameleons (caméléons équilibristes)! Down with the hungry jackals! Down with the cornered foxes (renards terrorisés)! Long live democracy! Long live freedom!

It was a hard act to follow for President Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo, who read his soporific speech. The event only deepened the divisions between the progressive officers and the conservative old guard. Then, following an unplanned visit by Qaddafi to Ouagadougou on April 30, President Ouedraogo was quick to tie Sankara to the Libyan specter. Minister of Foreign Affairs Michel Kafando promptly accelerated his travels to neighboring African countries to reassure everyone, and he scheduled trips to Washington and Paris. Behind the scenes, there were plans to move against Sankara. On May 4, a secret US cable reported on “attempts to remove Sankara” and contact between US officials and “a group” interested in removing Sankara. Washington did not want

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to “become involved in coup plotting or coup support” but would reconsider its position “should Libya interfere in the internal affairs of Upper Volta.” This would be the Reagan administration’s redline vis-​­à-vis Upper Volta: it would tolerate left-​­wing rhetoric and policies, but it would not allow Libya to get a foothold in Ouagadougou. During this time, the CIA was already aware of Libyan arms shipments and even the presence of Libyan military advisers in Upper Volta. It warned that a regime led by “radicals allied with Sankara” would offer Qaddafi “increased opportunities for meddling in Niger, Ivory Coast and Togo.” It concluded that President Ouedraogo would “probably look for help from France” in his efforts to oust Sankara.23 While these machinations were in motion, Sankara took his anti-​ ­imperialist message on the road, holding another youth rally in Bobo-​ ­Dioulasso. On May 14, tens of thousands of people turned out to hear Sankara, while the speech was broadcast live over the national radio. “A mobilized youth is dangerous,” Sankara stated provocatively. “A mobilized youth scares away even atomic bombs. . . . The enemy is upon us, the enemy is among us and the enemy will use violent methods. Mobilize yourselves!” While the country faced no threat of a nuclear attack, the symbolism was poignant, particularly among this generation of youth that associated nuclear weapons with imperialism; as Bob Marley reminded the youth in one of the rallying cries of the era, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” and “Have no fear for atomic energy.” More concretely, Sankara informed the crowd of plans to build “popular theaters,” to serve as meeting places for debate, films, theater productions, and conferences. He promised other projects, such as schools, roads, and health clinics. “Liberation is first of all about taking charge of your destiny, on your own soil, in the interest of the Voltaic people.” The crowd chanted Sankara’s name as he sought to distance himself from the old guard. It was a turning point for the people. One young man in attendance remembered: “Sankara came here, and he gave his speech to the youth and pronounced that ‘a cat is a cat.’ In other words, naming the real character of this regime. Right after that they imprisoned Sankara.” Indeed, it was a risky move, and fellow officers expressed trepidation about the provocative speeches. Philippe Ouedraogo recalled: “We were taken by surprise when he soon embarked on his anti-​ ­imperialist speeches, which became more and more virulent. It may not have been the most strategic thing to do at that point, but that’s what he did. It was really the sharpening of the anti-​­imperialist message in Sankara’s speeches on March 26 and then May 14 that precipitated his arrest.”24

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On May 17, Guy Penne was in Ouagadougou. As President François Mitterrand’s adviser for African affairs—a position he held from 1981 to 1986—Penne was in charge of the françafrique neocolonial networks in Africa. Before he left Paris, French journalists reported on Penne’s intention to remove Sankara from power. Then, upon his arrival, Afrique-​­Asie and others described a “strange scene” at the international airport, as journalists were restricted from filming or photographing Penne. For many, the unusual secrecy portended some kind of political maneuver. More broadly, France was on the verge of embarking on its largest military intervention in postcolonial Africa, escalating French support for Habré in Chad against the Qaddafi-​­backed rebels. But in Upper Volta the mission was far simpler: the French were propping up Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo, Colonel Somé, Michel Kafando, and others in their bid to remove Sankara.25 On the morning of May 17, a group of armored vehicles encircled Sankara’s residence. Seeing a tank’s gun barrel aimed at his home, he knew it was futile to resist. He called Philippe Ouedraogo, who recounted: “Around four o’clock in the morning I was awoken by a call from Thomas. He told me that Kamboulé’s forces had surrounded his house. He had talked to Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo, but he wasn’t feeling reassured. I told him not to leave the house yet because he couldn’t be sure what was planned. Then I started calling around to get information.” Sankara passed a message to Valère Somé, who promptly dashed to Pô. “I got there, but Blaise hadn’t arrived yet. He had fled Ouaga upon his return from Bobo and was making a back-​­road trip to Pô. Right away, I saw Hyacinthe Kafando,” Somé remembered. “I looked in his eyes and told him, ‘I’ve been sent by Captain Sankara. He’s been arrested. Get the soldiers ready for combat.’” Sankara was taken into custody, and after his arrest, a young man who worked at Sankara’s residence, Seydou, got on his bicycle and rode over to the Sankara family home. Paul Sankara said: “Seydou came over in a panic and told us something was happening with Thomas. I took my bicycle and went over there. I saw the tanks from the distance, and I saw the armored vehicles. I immediately went to the police station with Mariam. We were unable to see him.” Sankara was soon whisked away to the airport. En route to Ouahigouya, he learned that Zongo and Lingani had also been detained. But he had no news about Compaoré. Sankara recalled: “The authorities didn’t speak of him; I was therefore left to interpret their silence as a confession of assassination. I admit to having had low morale, all the more so if at the same moment civilians had been arrested in my name.”26

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Colonel Somé’s military units were deployed around Ouagadougou. The Libyan embassy was encircled, and the Libyan ambassador was promptly expelled. It was common knowledge that the main putschists were Colonel Somé, Minister of Interior and Security Harouna Tarnagda, Captain Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, and Minister Michel Kafando, a civilian who was described by Afrique-​­Asie as being “very close to the French neocolonial milieu.” As the arrests unfolded, Kafando was actually in Washington. A secret US cable on May 17 reported that the French planned to deny that “Guy Penne’s arrival last night means they are responsible for the preemptive conservative coup,” adding: “We will take a similar line if attribution is laid at our doorstep because of FONMIN Kafando’s meetings in Washington today.” Moreover, days later, Kafando was making deals in Paris. According to Le Monde, Kafando announced in Paris that Upper Volta’s military aid program was “being accelerated and the cooperation agreement revised,” which many interpreted as a French reward to Upper Volta’s political class for getting rid of Sankara. Although France firmly denied involvement in the May 17 arrests, the circumstances, timing, and available evidence all suggest that they played some role, and the US embassy was clearly kept informed of efforts to remove Sankara.27 Far to the north, in Ouahigouya, on the first night of Sankara’s imprisonment, a soldier burst into his room and fired machine gun rounds. Fortunately, Sankara had moved his bed to the opposite side of the room, and the action saved his life. “During his detention, people wanted to liquidate him,” Fidèle Toé explained. “There was a moment where they fired into his cell. He told me that he had changed the position of his bed and that he got under the bed.” The CSP regime later pretended that it had been a simple accident. But Sankara was certain that the order had come from the head of the regiment. He survived, and soon the incident reinforced the popular image of him as an invincible hero. After his brush with death, Sankara went on a hunger strike aimed at ascertaining the situations of his colleagues. In the process, he eventually learned that Compaoré had made it to Pô.28 After the arrests, the PAI leader Adama Touré was contemplating Mao Zedong’s discussion of how “bad things can be turned into good things.” Rather than hanging their heads in defeat, Touré suggested, they now had the opportunity to “acknowledge the errors, and the political and tactical deficiencies,” and to ultimately reassemble and unite the progressive forces. He anticipated that the putschists’ actions of May 17 would have the

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unintended consequence of galvanizing support for Sankara. Philippe Ouedraogo spent May 17 collecting information on the situation and planning the next move. Ouedraogo explained: “We got in contact with the various organizations aimed at delivering a riposte. We heard that Guy Penne was secretly in town the day before and that the French played a role in prompting Sankara’s arrest. So we decided to move quickly to rally the people.” Their response aimed at showing the international community that the people were unified in opposition to Sankara’s arrest. Valère Somé was back in Ouagadougou and was meeting with fellow ULC leaders. “Gilbert Kambiré and I wrote the leaflet signed ‘the Commandos of the Revolution,’” Somé remembered. “We raced around the city throwing the leaflets out of my bag. Then we got in touch with Philippe Ouedraogo, and at night went around in his car, planning the popular march.”29 Three days later, on May 20, the protest march started at the PAI-​­LIPAD headquarters in the Zogona neighborhood and proceeded toward the city center. Soon the major roads were clogged with demonstrators. It was the largest mass gathering in the country’s history. As the protesters proceeded through the main arteries of Ouagadougou, increasing numbers of students poured into the streets from the different schools. One young woman, Edjou Kantiébo, recalled: “I was demonstrating in the march against the arrest of Thomas Sankara. We were all disgusted and angry. Sankara had given us such hope. We were determined to free him.” Walking, riding their mopeds and bicycles, or perching on their mules, they came out in support. Civil servants, students, urban workers, small-​­scale itinerant traders, artisans, day laborers, and the unemployed—all flowed like a giant river toward the center of Ouagadougou. One city dweller, Boubacar Diawara, explained: “We mobilized when we heard that they were going to kill Sankara. There had been a popular movement already growing in Upper Volta. But when Sankara was arrested, they called for protests and we began distributing leaflets demanding the liberation of Sankara. We were all united. Sankara was our symbol.” The protest movement was limited to the capital; there was no peasant insurrection or generalized revolt across the country. But in the country’s second city, Bobo-​­Dioulasso, clandestine activist groups formed in the days after May 17, as one resident, Charles Sangare, remembered: “After May 17, in Bobo, we had no protest marches. But we held secret meetings, mainly in our homes, to discuss what was happening and to figure out how to organize ourselves. We wanted to save Sankara. He was a great hope for us.”30

From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister  |  105

With popular protests eroding its political hegemony, the old guard lashed out, finding ideological support from Western observers. Le Monde emphasized the threat of the protests to French interests, as it was reported: “To the cries of ‘Down with Imperialism,’ these students damaged cars belonging to Europeans with rocks, in particular in the proximity and the courtyard of the French embassy.” US embassy cables referred to Sankara’s supporters as “street urchins” who were “engaging in random acts of violence.” In this vein, President Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo sought to belittle the protesters. He made a brief statement over the radio saying that a “group of children” had “spread out in the streets to demonstrate their discontent following the recent events of May 17.” He called on their parents to “assume their responsibilities.” Confronted by the civil unrest, Colonel Yorian Somé ordered mass roundups, while President Ouedraogo justified the actions at a press conference: “The removal of Sankara is a problem of ideology. The PAI has used Sankara and Lingani to spread its own ideology. We have been in the process of following step by step the PAI’s plans which would end up with a communist society.” Trumpeting their anti-​­communist line, the government promptly dismissed PAI members of the government and arrested the leaders. “We were all sitting around at Adama Touré’s house, drinking tea and talking about the events of May 17, Sankara’s arrest and our next moves, when they burst into the house and arrested us,” Soumane Touré recalled. “They took everyone.” Following the arrests, the PAI sent delegations of party members to the commando base in Pô to receive military training for the coming revolution.31 In short order, a French-​­brokered deal led to the freeing of all political prisoners, including the PAI leadership, Sankara and Lingani, on May 30. Upon hearing the news, throngs of protesters surged into Sankara’s neighborhood, even climbing over the walls into his courtyard. “Informed of his liberation, the youth of the city stormed his modest residence,” Alfred Sawadogo described. “Everyone wanted to see him.” Afrique-​­Asie reported that news of Sankara’s liberation “had an extraordinary effect,” as supporters passed by his home night and day in order to express their “sympathy, their loyalty, their support.” It was clear that Sankara had won over the population. In the battle of ideas, the old guard had been outmaneuvered. But even as the protests ebbed, peasants were filled with anxiety as they waited for the rains, and famine loomed on the horizon. Indeed, Sankara later described the environmental context leading to the revolution as one in which people “watched their mothers, fathers, daughters and sons die,

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with hunger, famine, disease and ignorance decimating them.” It was a period when peasants “watched ponds and rivers dry up,” trees withered away, and the “desert invaded with giant strides.” For Sankara, it was only by looking at these realities that one could understand “the legitimate revolt that was born.” However, although the drought contributed to widespread suffering, there would be no major peasant component to the social movement. In fact, few rural peoples were aware that a revolution was brewing. Instead, the revolution was led by a small group of a few thousand urban intellectuals, workers, labor leaders, students, and junior military officers in Ouagadougou.32 With apparent calm restored, the government moved to deal with the growing threat in Pô, and so senior military officers asked Sankara to negotiate. On June 6, he took his moped to meet with Compaoré in Pô, where many civilians harbored romantic ideas of national liberation via armed struggle. By that time, they were receiving arms from Libya via Ghana, while numerous adventurers entered the fray, such as Vincent “Askia” Sigué, whose sole purpose in life became protecting Sankara. However, within days of his return to Ouagadougou, Sankara was rearrested, along with Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani and Henri Zongo. Reacting to the news of their arrest, Compaoré wrote a letter to his senior officers, questioning “the arbitrary and illegal arrest” of his colleagues and stating that the commandos of Po, or “patriots,” were prepared to fight “foreign mercenaries and [French] legionnaires.”33 As tension rose, Compaoré was summoned to Ouagadougou. Negotiations proceeded apace in order to liberate Sankara and Lingani. Then, according to US intelligence, Colonel Somé sent troops to Pô in a bid to arrest Compaoré. But on June 15, when Colonel Somé’s forces arrived in Pô, the commandos “dispersed into the countryside,” a US cable reported, and there were no armed clashes. Seeking to avoid bloodshed, Compaoré finally came to the capital, having been assured that he would be “treated correctly.” Finally, on June 16, Sankara and Zongo were freed. But on the night of their release, a violent explosion rocked Ouagadougou. The main ammunition dump in the capital, located near the military commissary, went up in flames. The massive clouds of smoke and orange glow could be seen for miles from outside the city. It was later revealed that the commandos of Pô had sabotaged the arms depot, which had just received a fresh delivery of weapons and ammunition from France.34

From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister  |  107

What followed was a six-​­week chess match. The old guard reinforced their own elite units, knowing that President Ouedraogo had the full support of Western governments. In mid-​­July, when US ambassador Julius Walker was in Paris meeting with Mitterrand’s director of African affairs, Jean Ausseil, at Quai d’Orsay, Ausseil indicated the “importance France places on Qadhafi’s setbacks in Upper Volta and CAR [Central African Republic].” Ausseil went further, stating that Libyan expulsion from Upper Volta was “even more important than recent and current events in Chad,” as it denied Qaddafi’s strategic designs in West Africa. Then the French floated the idea of offering Sankara advanced training at the War College in France. In a cable to Washington, Walker reported that Ausseil thought the move would be “effective in removing a dangerous element from Ouagadougou and would not have the effect of giving Sankara an overseas base . . . I told him I thought it was important to remove Sankara [from Upper Volta].” Sankara agreed to the War College training, but it was a stratagem to buy time. By then, his colleagues had infiltrated the lower ranks surrounding Colonel Somé, and so they were able to follow the colonel’s plans. This knowledge allowed the progressive officers to deploy their own ruses, such as feigning the appearance of nonchalance. Right up to August 4, progressive officers made a point of being seen out at night in the maquis, dancing and socializing.35 During this period of standoff, Compaoré came on the radar of French and US intelligence. Foreign service officials invited him to the US embassy for discussions regarding the IMET program. The aim was to identify military officers viewed as “up and coming.” US political officer Rodney Huff, who ran the program in cooperation with the Defense Department, described his meeting with Compaoré: “I can still remember sitting in the office, the two of us, and as I looked at Compaoré I just had this feeling that this guy was going to move up the line. He was one of these people who had a presence . . . I sensed that he really was determined to make an impression. He wanted to be top dog.” In the end, Compaoré never participated in the IMET program, but US officials kept in contact with other former IMET participants as a way of influencing politics. Moreover, the United States was keeping in “close contact with president Ouedraogo” and was in “continuous dialogue with the French” about concerns over “the leftward drift” of Sankara.36 On the afternoon of July 14, as the entire political class was celebrating Bastille Day at the French embassy, Commander Abdoul-​­Salam

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Kaboré returned from France. The second-​­highest-ranking officer among the progressive soldiers, he was the crucial link between Ouagadougou and Pô. “I was soon traveling back and forth between Ouaga and Pô, transmitting plans, information, and weapons,” Kaboré remembered. “I was able to move much more freely because I had been in France for so long that the security and intelligence services didn’t even recognize me.” As the ongoing political war of position gave way to war of maneuver, Sankara, Lingani, and Zongo met in the capital to coordinate with civilians. According to Adama Touré, Sankara and Lingani met with PAI leaders on July 25 to finalize their coup plans and assign tasks for civilian militants. They took up the issue of postcoup political organization and the important question of who the head of state would be. Many were aware that Compaoré, as the main military author behind the coup, harbored dreams of being the “number one.” But at the meeting of OMR military officers on July 31, the “Quartet” agreed that Sankara would be the most suitable president. Given his charisma and undeniable leadership qualities—and his role in mobilizing civil society—fellow officers, and the PAI-​­LIPAD leadership, thought that he would provide them with the widest popular support after taking power.37 One PAI political leader explained: When they set out to take power, Sankara emerged as the leader. He was already viewed as a national hero, and he was loved by the young people. We also discovered in him a comrade who had considerable facility for verbal expression, and that was why he emerged at the front of everyone. We all agreed that he was the best at expressing the ideas of the revolution, and he had close ties to our organization, the PAI. He shared with us the aim to move the country in a progressive direction and to break the links of dependency with France. It was this spirit that moved the youth above all, the message of anti-​­imperialism, which Sankara represented.38

On the tactical level, civilian activists kept up constant surveillance of the regime’s forces and movements and were quick to report any troop deployments or changes. “From our side, we promised to keep up the pressure and mobilize the people,” Philippe Ouedraogo recalled. “We were given the role of maintaining surveillance of the various military posts, so our colleagues were fanning out across the city to keep watch on any developments. The plan required our people to guide them through the city in the darkness. And we had comrades who worked at SONABEL, the power company, and we arranged for the electricity to be cut.” Arrangements were

From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister  |  109

made to cut telephone networks in order to prevent outlying areas from communicating with the capital. Sankara’s uncle Mousbila Sankara, working at the National Telecommunications Office (ONATEL), described his role: “A few days before they planned to march on Ouagadougou, Thomas asked me to cut certain telephone networks, especially the lines connecting the road from Ouaga to Pô, and other lines between neighborhoods in Ouaga, to prevent them from passing information.”39 One of the myths of the August 4 coup was that it was a preemptive action of self-​­defense, perhaps a way of suggesting that Sankara was a reluctant participant in the coup and thereby preserving a pristine and saintly image of him as being not especially interested in political power. However, those who were involved directly in the coming frontal attack made it clear that they intended to take power all along. Indeed, the coup was initially planned for July 31, and then it was delayed as Compaoré was not yet ready. It was then set for August 2, but it changed again to August 4. Finally, there were tactical and symbolic reasons for choosing August 4. It was the eve of Independence Day, and a successful coup would benefit from Independence Day parades scheduled for the following day, therefore maximizing popular mobilization. Sankara was also drawn to the symbolism of August 4, as it was the day that feudalism was abolished in France during the revolution of 1789. The final coup plans were in place. Spirits were high among the civilian leftists and the progressive officers as they anticipated sweeping the corrupt old guard from power and finally putting in place a government that represented the interests of the people.40

Notes 1. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 63–64; Touré, Une vie de militant, 73–80; Jaffré, Biographie, 115. 2. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2015; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Andriamirado, Sankara, 43–49; Ziegler, Terre qu’on a, 232. 3. Peter Hall, interview, September 3, 2014. 4. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 25, 2015; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 75. 5. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015. 6. Afrique-​­Asie, November 22 and December 6, 1982; Andriamirado, Sankara, 43–47; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 63–73; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015.

110 | Thomas Sankara 7. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Carrefour Africain, November 12, 1982; Thomas Hull shared the contents of the telegram to VOA; Afrique-​­Asie, December 6, 1982; Le Monde, January 12, 1983; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 72–73. 8. Afrique-​­Asie, December 6, 1982; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Otayek, “Burkina Faso,” 18–19; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 70; Jaffré, Biographie, 119–132. 9. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 21, 2013; Touré, Une vie de militant, 80–81. 10. L’Observateur, January 4, 1983; Carrefour Africain, February 11, 1983; Jaffré, Biographie, 124; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 77; “La politique en Afrique noire: le haut et le bas,” Politique Africaine 1 (1981); Politique Africaine 8 (1982); and Politique Africaine 9 (1983). 11. Carrefour Africain, February 4, 1983; L’Observateur, February 2, 1983; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 12, 2013; Touré, Une vie de militant, 81–86; Balima, Légendes et Histoire, 352–353; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 15–17; Jaffré, Biographie, 123. 12. Afrique-​­Asie, December 20, 1982; January 17, 31, 1983. 13. Afrique-​­Asie, February 28 and March 14, 1983; Jaffré, Biographie, 120–124. 14. Afrique-​­Asie, April 11, 1983; Touré, Une vie de militant, 83–85; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 53. 15. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 29, 1983; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, May 3, 1983, FOIA. 16. Afrique-​­Asie, November 22, 1982; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 33–34; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, May 3, 1983, FOIA; Peter Hall, interview, September 3, 2014; Jaffré, Biographie, 124–127. 17. Afrique-​­Asie 293, April 11, 1983; see RFI, “Qui a fait tuer Sankara? Le ‘Vieux bélier’ et le jeune capitaine,” ­r fi​.­f r; Ki-​­Zerbo, “Non-​­alignement et cultures”; Köchler, Principles of Non-​ ­Alignment. 18. “Discours prononcé au Sommet des Non alignés de New Delhi,” ­t homassankara​.­net; Jaffré, Biographie, 193–194. 19. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 382–383; Etienne Zongo, interview, September 2000; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Jaffré, Biographie, 127; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 441. 20. Afrique-​­Asie, April 11, 1983; Carrefour Africain, April 2, 1983; Laclau, On Populist Reason, 67–128; Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 55–60, 106–113, 229–238; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 51–64. 21. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 51–64; Lenin, Imperialism. 22. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 51–64. 23. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 6 and July 15, 1983, FOIA; SecState-​ ­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga, May 4, 1983, FOIA; “National Intelligence Daily” (NID), CIA, March 24 and May 7, 1983, FOIA; Englebert, La Révolution, 74; Touré, Une vie de militant, 86–87; Andriamirado, Sankara, 59; Julius Walker, ADST interview, April 2, 1992; Chester Crocker, ADST interview, June 5, 2006. 24. See “Discours de Thomas Sankara en direction de le jeunesse, 14 mai 1983 à Bobo-​ ­Dioulasso,” on ­https://​­w ww​.­t homassankara​.­net​/­discours​-­​­de​​-­t homas​-­​­sankara​​-­en​-­​­direction ​​-­de​-­​­le​​-­jeunesse​-­​­14​​-­mai​-­​­1983​​-­a​-­​­bobo​​-­dioulasso​/; Bob Marley, Uprising (Island Records, 1980); Charles Sangare, interview, March 17, 2013; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Afrique-​­Asie, June 6, 1983; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 77.

From Political Prisoner to Populist Prime Minister  |  111 25. Afrique-​­Asie, June 6, 1983; Andriamirado, Sankara, 62–63; Englebert, La Révolution, 75; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 74–75. See also Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 483–501. 26. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Afrique-​­Asie, June 6, 1983, and September 26, 1983. 27. Le Monde, May 25, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 17, May 19, and July 15, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, October 4 1983, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, June 6, 1983; see also Englebert, La Révolution, 75; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 74–87; Andriamirado, Sankara, 67–74. 28. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 12, 2013; Afrique Asie, September 26, 1983. 29. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 94; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 110. 30. Edjou Kantiebo, interview, March 7, 2013; Boubacar Diawara, interview, March 10, 2013; Charles Sangare, interview, March 17, 2013; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 78; Andriamirado, Sankara, 69–71. 31. Le Monde, May 24, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 27 and July 15, 1983, FOIA; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 78–80, 175; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Carrefour Africain, July 1983; Afrique-​­Asie, June 6, 1983. 32. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Afrique-​­Asie, June 20, 1983; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 13; Jaffré, Biographie, 138–139; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 254–255. 33. Valère Somé, interview, March 14, 2013; Pascal Sankara, interviews, July 13, 2015, and December 27, 2014; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 81–84; Afrique-​­Asie, July 1983; Bamouni, Burkina Faso; 176–178. 34. Afrique-​­Asie, August 1, 15, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 27 and June 14, 16, 17, 1983, FOIA; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 87, 178–179; Andriamirado, Sankara, 74; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 13. 35. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, June 24 and July 18, 27, 1983, FOIA; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Niamey, June 24, 1983, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 14, 2013; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 81–84. 36. Rodney Huff, interview, December 17, 2015; Le Monde, June 8, 15, 1983; SecState-​ ­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Niamey, June 24, 1983, FOIA. 37. Abdoul Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 98–99; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 82–84; see also Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 79; Jaffré, Biographie, 140–145. 38. Luc Joseph Traore, interview, March 3, 2013. 39. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015. 40. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview with Jaffré, August 2000; Abdoul Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 13, 2013; Touré, Une vie de militant, 98–99; see also Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 86; Jaffré, Biographie, 146.

5 THE “REVOLUTION OF AUGUST 4” AND THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT

“O

n the morning of August 4, 1983, I carried a message from Ouagadougou to Pô, telling Blaise that we were going to take power on this day,” Commander Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré remembered. Donning civilian clothes and driving with a female companion as part of his disguise, he slipped out of Ouagadougou, delivered the coup plans, and returned to the capital. “Then we waited until nightfall to launch our plan. August 4 was the eve of Independence Day, and on this occasion the president would give an address to the nation in the evening.” With the top military brass sequestered to listen to the speech, it was the best opportunity to take power. Within moments of hearing the news, Blaise Compaoré and the commandos of Pô sprang into action. But the country’s elite fighting unit had only one serviceable military vehicle, so they requisitioned a dozen trucks from Lavallin, a Canadian construction company that was building roads in the area. A few of the company’s drivers even volunteered to drive to Ouagadougou, not realizing what operation they were supporting. One of them would die. In Ouagadougou, President Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo knew something was in the air. He reached out to Sankara hoping to find a peaceful resolution. “We were at the home of Thomas. We were ready to make war,” Kaboré remembered. “Then Mariam came into the room and said that the president was calling. He said that he had a proposal. Blaise was already en route, but they decided to go see Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo.”1 Sankara showed up at President Ouedraogo’s home, where Colonel Tamini, Captain Henri Zongo, and other officers were discussing the situation. Ouedraogo offered the possibility of stepping down from power as a way of facilitating a transitional government. According to Philippe

Revolution of August 4 and the People’s President  |  113

Ouedraogo, Sankara was amenable: “Sankara was trying to avoid any bloodshed, and maybe he was getting sentimental about Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo. He wanted to find a peaceful solution.” Compaoré, however, was determined to march on Ouagadougou. He saw his chance to play a decisive role in seizing power and even expressed his desire to be president, but he was opposed by his colleagues. As the president was giving his radio address, Compaoré and the commandos arrived on the outskirts of the capital. Other soldiers infiltrated Ouagadougou by taking on civilian garb and traveling aboard donkey-​­drawn firewood carts, civilian vehicles, and mammy wagons. Civilians took up strategic positions and waited at key intersections to help guide the commandos through the town after the electricity was cut. When, around nine o’clock, gunfire erupted, much of the population thought it was fireworks for the Independence Day celebrations. But the gunfire soon intensified, most of it “theater,” as a US embassy cable described: “Given the small number of attackers, there must have been a high degree of ‘theater’ produced by rapidly moving, relatively small groups of troops noisily opening fire.” Soon the military air base and artillery divisions were overtaken. The armored division of Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé was vanquished, but Kamboulé managed to escape and make his way to Côte d’Ivoire, which he would use as a base when trying to overthrow Sankara.2 The assault on the president’s home, led by Vincent Sigué, resulted in the heaviest fighting. “It was around my home that there would be the most deaths. Overwhelmed, they surrendered and it was Sigué who, filled with pride, came to arrest me. Captain Blaise Compaoré showed up around 10:00, and we exchanged a few words. Then towards 11:00 Thomas arrived,” Ouedraogo recounted. “He guaranteed my security and that of my family; and said that he was ready to organize my evacuation and that of my family.” Unfortunately, President Ouedraogo fell terribly ill, so Sankara worked to find a doctor. Ouedraogo was allowed to see a physician in France, but upon his return he was placed under house arrest.3 Around 1:30 a.m., Sankara sat down to address the nation at Radio-​ ­Ouaga. This first declaration had the ring of another postcoup pronunciamento, followed by military music. In it, Sankara reminded his listeners that the middle-​­rank, noncommissioned officers and paramilitary forces had been compelled to intervene in the interest of “restoring independence and liberty” to the country. He delegitimized the old regime for “serving the interests of the enemies of the people,” namely “foreign domination and neocolonialism.” He spoke of “a surge of patriotism” but neglected to

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mention the crucial role played by the civilian leftists. This omission foreshadowed the eventual falling-​­out between certain civilian groups and the military faction. Sankara announced the formation of the National Council of the Revolution (CNR)—drawing on the Algerian model—as the central governing body and immediately called for the formation of Cuban-​­style Revolutionary Defense Committees (CDR) to defend the revolution. In a break with Western democratic electoral systems, Sankara stated: “It goes without saying that the political parties are dissolved.” The objective was not to hold elections for elites to play out their political games but to “defend the interests of the Voltaic people” and to achieve “economic and social progress.” Sankara closed the address by declaring the “great patriotic battle for the radiant future of our country,” punctuated with a slogan borrowed from Che Guevara: “Homeland or death, we will overcome.”4 On the morning of August 5, there were massive celebrations and marches. Since it was Independence Day, official parades converged with revolutionary supporters along Independence Avenue. Men and women of all ages strolled or bicycled down the main street, waving Upper Volta flags, revolutionary banners, and leafy branches. The national radio was broadcasting continuous revolutionary programs. By midmorning, the crowds headed for the presidential palace, where they assembled. Sankara drove around the city, stopping to talk to people along the way. At a certain point, he emerged from the vehicle, and people carried him on their shoulders, chanting revolutionary slogans. Then as he went back to the car, as Sankara’s aide-​­de-camp Etienne Zongo remembered, he discovered a man sitting in the driver’s seat. “What are you doing in my car?” Sankara asked. The man, “Abdoulaye,” insisted on serving as his chauffeur. “But I don’t even know you,” Sankara said, rebuffing the offer. The man persisted, and Sankara finally acquiesced and allowed the stranger to drive him around town. Just like that, former postal clerk Abdoulaye Gouem joined the revolution as Sankara’s driver. Eventually, a commando from Pô, Der Somda, took over as Sankara’s driver, but Gouem remained part of Sankara’s inner circle. Both Gouem and Der Somda would be killed alongside Sankara on October 15, 1987.5 Sankara made his way to the presidential palace, where he met with his military colleagues. Civilian leftist leaders organized a spontaneous rally in support of the CNR. Philippe Ouedraogo described the moment: “The day after August 4 was an incredible event. Everyone went into the streets, and they marched to the presidential palace. Sankara, Lingani, Zongo and

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Blaise were on the balcony of the palace, waving and congratulating the people. It was remarkable. It left quite an impression, seeing the enormous crowds.” Adama Touré recalled that August 4, 1983, was “one of the most beautiful days of my life.” He saw a possibility that the country would move in the direction of socialism: “For the last 21 years I had militated for the coming of revolutionary power in my country, in particular since my adhesion in 1962 to the Communist Party for the establishment of socialism in Upper Volta, for which the revolution of August 4 was but one step for me.” Indeed, while Sankara strived to keep the words socialism and communism at arm’s length, others in the CNR clearly imagined a socialist state in the making.6 Ordinary people who lived through this time mostly described it as days of great hope and enthusiasm. A lycée student at the time remembered: “The day after August 4, we went out into the streets to express our joy and excitement about the revolution. It was a time of euphoria. Thomas Sankara brought such hope to the young people.” But others recalled considerable fear and uncertainty. Merchants, business owners, and the old political class worried that they would be punished with more taxes or have their property seized. The Catholic clergy fretted about the religious implications of a “communist take-​­over.” There was also Muslim mistrust of the CNR, owing to veiled criticisms of Muslim religious authorities in the media. Many Muslim merchants soon fled, moving their commercial activities to neighboring countries. In certain ways, the mixed emotions cut along generational lines, as the young people embraced the revolution, whereas their parents, traditional chiefs, foreigners, and the elders sat on the sidelines and feared for the worst. “The elders were often against the revolution. They didn’t understand a lot of what we were doing. They didn’t like that the Moro Naba and chiefs were being demoted. But many of the chiefs were not really traditional; they had been empowered by the colonial state and given new powers over people, which they didn’t want to give up,” explained Mousbila Sankara.7 Accounts have diverged over who took the initiative in creating the Revolutionary Defense Committees. Adama Touré stated that the idea had been discussed at the time of the July 25 meeting between Sankara, Lingani, and the PAI leadership. However, Philippe Ouedraogo and Valère Somé recalled first hearing of the idea on the night of August 4. Moreover, one grassroots PAI leader in Ouagadougou recalled: “On the night of August 4, 1983, after Thomas Sankara made his declaration of the revolution, we went

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out in the field putting in place the CDRs. We knew that once Sankara took power, we risked immediately being attacked by the forces of imperialism and the counterrevolutionaries.” Indeed, as in Cuba, the CDR system in Upper Volta initially aimed at preparing civilian militants to help “defend the revolution.” This meant training and arming CDR members (usually with simple machetes and clubs) to form militias and establish checkpoints. But soon CDR crews got involved in public works projects, repairing and paving roads in the major towns, cleaning neighborhoods, planting trees, and distributing food in the regions hit by drought. Nudging aside the traditional chiefs, they became the grassroots structure of the revolutionary state in the rural hinterland; they were the main hubs for the diffusion of revolutionary policies, organizing development projects and raising political consciousness. In time, this system was extended to secondary schools and universities, military garrisons, civil service departments, and private businesses. As the first secretary-​­general of the CDR, Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré oversaw its formation. Kaboré remembered: “The idea came from Cuba. Thomas asked me to be the head of the CDR. I had the difficult job of forming them. So from that moment I was out in the neighborhoods, with Pierre Ouedraogo as my assistant, setting up the local CDRs.” Eventually, however, it was decided that Kaboré, a pharmacist by training, was more suited to be the minister of public health. His replacement was Pierre Ouedraogo, a young aviation lieutenant. At the time, little was known about Ouedraogo, who had just returned from France. But the appointment immediately provoked a strong reaction from the labor leaders.8 Soumane Touré, as head of the left-​­wing CSV labor confederation, seemed the perfect fit for the position, and many assumed he would get the nomination. He immediately questioned the move to appoint an inexperienced military officer to play such a crucial role. “I said to Thomas, ‘What’s this business appointing a military officer with no experience in organizing people as the head of the CDR?’” Touré stated. “‘These are civilians. There’s nobody else in this country that knows organizing civilians better than us.’ The soldiers did not even understand the civilian milieu anymore. They’d been living in camps for years. We were worried about the creation of militias, like in Mali.” Touré was eventually imprisoned by the military faction, and so his testimony reflects lingering bitterness, but his view was shared by many others on the civilian left. Moreover, as it soon became clear, Pierre Ouedraogo was out of his depth, and as a result, the

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CDR system was taken over by opportunistic individuals who abused their newfound positions of power.9 The differences ran deeper, revealing the intensity of the disagreements and debates over the kind of revolutionary government various groups were imagining. Aside from disputes with the military, Soumane Touré also found himself in constant conflict with the university students recently returning from France. “I thought that the young students coming back from France lacked a certain maturity and experience,” Touré recalled. “They seemed stuck in their eternal intellectual debates, which reflected the divisions within the international communist movement. They had not been involved in the labor movement or had appreciated the realities of labor struggles.” But the main issue was representation. Despite its junior position on the political scene, the ULC pushed for as many ministerial positions as the well-​­established PAI-​­LIPAD. The latter was determined to prevent this parity. In the middle of everything, Sankara worked between the opposing groups, surrounding himself with his close friends and indicating his reluctance to place governance over friendship. But the internal factionalism would only grow as competing groups vied for greater roles in the revolutionary leadership, and Sankara’s military colleagues made further moves to marginalize civilian leftists.10 Soon after the coup, Colonel Yorian Somé and Colonel Fidèle Guebré were arrested. Then on the night of August 7, the curfew-​­imposed calm of Ouagadougou was shattered by the sounds of automatic weapons. The following morning the story circulated that Somé and Guebré had been killed “while trying to escape.” Many were shocked at the news. “The death of my uncle, Yorian Somé, was my first shock of the revolution,” Valère Somé soberly recalled. “It deeply marked me. Above all, because the reality of what happened was very different from the official version.” It’s unclear who was responsible for the killing. Most have pointed to Compaoré, who was in charge of security at the time. But the murders contradicted Sankara’s aim of a bloodless revolution and set a bad precedent, as a US embassy cable observed ominously: “By executing his own most feared rivals, he changed the rules of coup making in Upper Volta and may well fear the new rules might some day be applied against him.” Indeed, the executions of the two colonels stoked anger among the old political class, virtually guaranteeing that a follow-​­on coup attempt was inevitable.11 As the nucleus of the CNR took shape, Sankara moved to deal with the traditional Mossi power structure. As Claudette Savonnet-​­Guyot observed,

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the offensive against the Mossi chiefs went further than previous regimes. Although Maurice Yameogo had diminished the power of the chiefs, never had the role and place of the chieftaincy been “so brutally called into question.” One of the first revolutionary actions was to cut off electricity to the Moro Naba’s home for unpaid bills. This “war on the Mossi chiefs” and their responses stand out in oral sources.12 One former CDR delegate in Ouagadougou stated: Sankara sought to overthrow the whole social order. He was waging a war on the chiefs, and so he was viewed badly by them. He was against the backward way that chiefs governed and how they had special unearned privileges. So the government had the Moro Naba’s electricity cut for nonpayment. But the Mossi chiefs retaliated. The agent at Sonabel in charge of cutting the power, he died suddenly in front of the Maison du Peuple in a car accident. People believed that he was killed mystically, because it was an “accident.” In the people’s imagination, they thought that the Moro Naba had him killed by mysticism. In the villages, the Mossi chiefs also infiltrated the CDR structure. They sent their sons or their loyalists into the CDRs to fight for their interests and keep control over the village.13

On August 17, Sankara held a meeting and invited all the former presidents and leading political figures, including Maurice Yameogo, Sangoulé Lamizana, Saye Zerbo, and many others. The message was rather simple: they were free to live out their lives in peace and security, but their former political parties were dissolved. Two weeks later, the socialist FPV leader, historian Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, was summoned to a meeting with Sankara, who encouraged him to participate in the revolution. But, although the two men shared a progressive vision for the country, Ki-​­Zerbo chose exile in Dakar and went over to active opposition. Snubbed by the country’s leading intellectual, Sankara engaged in public attacks on him, revealing the intergenerational animosities between the young revolutionary leaders and their elders. Observers on the left saw it as unfortunate that Sankara and Ki-​­Zerbo were unable to find common cause.14 Because of constant threats of a countercoup, Sankara and the CNR set up headquarters in the walled compound of the Conseil de l’Entente complex. For weeks, Sankara was living and sleeping at the Conseil, making forays to meet with various civilian leaders at night. In addition to the quartet of Sankara, Compaoré, Lingani, and Zongo, other prominent young officers within the CNR included Boukary Kaboré, Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, Pierre Ouedraogo, Laurent Sedogo, Hien Kilimité, Daouda Traore,

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Michel Koama, and Christophe Saba. With its military position fortified in the capital, the CNR moved to purge the military ranks, sending senior officers into early retirement and replacing them with younger, more loyal captains and lieutenants at the head of all military units. The position of high command of the armed forces was created, with Commandant Jean-​ ­Baptiste Lingani as chief. The CNR established new military units in Fada-​ ­N’Gourma and Gaoua. Compaoré was put broadly in charge of internal security. And yet military officers did not arbitrarily promote themselves to higher ranks after taking power, and neither did Sankara, who remained a humble captain until the end.15 In terms of structure, the CNR was composed of three organizations: the military’s Revolutionary Military Organization (OMR), with Commander Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré as its spokesman, and the two civilian parties, the African Party of Independence (PAI) and the Union of Communist Struggle-​­Reconstructed (ULCR), which was renamed after a schism. The far-​­ left Albanian-​­ modeled Communist Party of Upper Volta (PCRV) refused to participate in the revolution. Eventually around sixty associates made up the CNR, but their numbers shifted over time. At its core was the Political Bureau, with its eighteen members. The exact composition of the CNR was kept secret for “reasons of security.” They officially subscribed to “democratic centralism”: there was free debate within the CNR, but once a decision was made on the basis of a simple majority vote, the CNR was supposed to be “united in action.”16 However, in reality the CNR was not much of a decision-​­making body. Although Sankara and other leaders promoted an image of the CNR as the “central political organ,” holding robust debates and then making decisions, former CNR members recalled that the process was less dynamic and more top-​­down. Part of the problem was that the CNR was composed of mostly military officers—especially the NCOs—who had not studied politics, economics, or law and yet heavily outnumbered the university-​ ­educated civilians. CNR member Etienne Zongo recalled: “When we proposed something, we had to really explain it, and so many members felt that the CNR was not the place for intellectual debate. I had the impression that decisions had already been made beforehand.” But when the government took action, it did so as the “CNR,” which became shorthand for the entire state apparatus. A US State Department analysis similarly reported that while the “key decision makers” were CNR members, there was “no evidence it acts as a formal decision making body.” Moreover, unlike in other

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revolutionary governments, “there is no indication of a classic party structure operating clandestinely and dictating policy to a politically subordinate government. Nor do we believe such a phenomenon could exist in this small gossip-​­ridden town without becoming widely known in a short time.” Four years later, another cable reported: “Decisions of ‘the CNR’ sometimes emerge from the president’s office without anyone having noticed a meeting of any sort. . . . At times the CNR is only informed of important decisions, sometimes before, sometimes after they are made.” In contrast, the Council of Ministers was viewed as the “key institution” in “virtually every area of government,” one that “coordinates a wide range of decisions.” Meeting every Wednesday for daylong sessions, the council itself focused mainly on producing decrees and other formal business while “leaving a wide range of latitude for Sankara to make personal decisions in other areas, notably foreign affairs.”17 Indeed, given the importance of the Council of Ministers, there was intense competition over allotting ministerial positions. A central issue continued to be representation of the different groups. There were also concerns about the government appearing too “communist.” Therefore, some military officers opposed the nomination of Adama Touré as minister of information. They were worried about the image that Touré—being known widely as a pro-​­Soviet communist—projected to foreign countries. They were also concerned that Touré, as their former professor at the military academy, wielded too much influence over his former cadets. Finally, after PAI members threatened to withdraw their participation entirely, the military faction reluctantly agreed to allow Touré into the government. When the first government of the CNR—the Council of Ministers—was made public, it included fifteen civilians and five military officers among its ministers and top leadership. As an indication of the generational shift in power, the average age of the ministers was just thirty-​­two. Sankara was named head of state; Blaise Compaoré was designated the “number two,” as “Minister of State, Delegate to the Presidency.” Rounding out the quartet, Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani was named minister of national defense and Henri Zongo was minister of economic promotion. The PAI-​­LIPAD provided six ministers, including Adama Touré (minister of information), Arba Diallo (foreign affairs), and Philippe Ouedraogo (equipment and telecommunications). Three ministers were drawn from the ULCR. Sankara’s friend Fidèle Toé was named minister of work, social security, and public services, and his adopted brother Ernest Nongma Ouedraogo became the minister of

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interior and security. Valère Somé, a key figure within the Political Bureau, chose to focus on “theoretical issues” as a political adviser to Sankara rather than taking a ministerial post.18 At the first few meetings of the new Council of Ministers, Sankara took the opportunity to remind government leaders that they were revolutionary role models. Government officials were required to demonstrate an “extremely modest lifestyle,” according to Sankara, as a reflection of the “real situation of the people.” Ostentation and conspicuous displays of wealth and privilege were abolished. “We stayed very modest, even as ministers,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré said. “During my whole time as a minister of health for four years, I only ever took a salary as a soldier in the military. I had a simple Renault car. Often I could not even afford to pay for electricity and water. We set an example for the rest of the country.” Ministers were no longer driven around in luxury Mercedes or Cadillac cars. The entire government fleet of luxury vehicles was sold—with the proceeds going to schools and health clinics—and replaced with modest, fuel-​­efficient Renault 5 or Peugeot 205 cars. Moreover, government officials now had to travel on a shoestring, flying in economy class and staying in cheap hotels. Alternately, diplomats and political leaders—including Sankara himself—lodged and shared collective meals together in their embassy compounds in order to save money. Lacking a presidential jet, Sankara often traveled by “airplane hitchhiking,” catching a free ride with other heads of state or diplomats or taking commercial flights. “Our ministers travel economy-​­class and have an expense allowance,” Sankara said. “Adopting more modest lifestyles, but also through better management of the funds we have, and by preventing their misappropriation, we’ve been able to generate some surplus that allows for modest investment.” In certain ways, he had simply brought his own frugality into public office and made it official policy, using even the smallest cost savings for improvements in people’s lives.19 In fact, when Sankara came to power, the state coffers were empty, and so he made a decision to immediately impose austerity measures, slashing the salaries and privileges of government officials. It was a sort of “structural adjustment” avant la lettre. As one US cable later reported, Sankara’s “austerity measures, proudly introduced without outside coaching, would make even the IMF happy.” However, in contrast with many governments that resorted to austerity measures at this time—usually by cutting health care, education, and other social programs while preserving the privileges of elites—Sankara did quite the opposite, forcing elites to make sacrifices and

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ensuring that austerity helped the rural poor. His efforts were long overdue in Upper Volta. Since independence, forms of clientelism had resulted in an extremely bloated, and yet inefficient, bureaucracy with some thirty thousand civil servants. As bureaucrats established sinecures and overstaffed their offices with kin, civil service wages grew to as much as 60 percent of public spending. In addition to cutting salaries, the CNR reduced housing allowances and certain privileges, such as the use of government vehicles and subsidized gasoline. “We’ve lowered salaries. State officials have lost up to one month’s income. Government employees have had to give up some of their benefits,” Sankara said, justifying the move. “These are the kinds of sacrifices we impose on members of government.” However, even after salary reductions, civil servants in Burkina Faso were still paid more than their counterparts in neighboring countries. In overhauling the bureaucracy, the CNR also targeted for dismissal those engaged in corruption, absenteeism, or other infractions. “As minister, I was in charge of the dismissals. We followed the letter of the law,” Fidèle Toé recalled. “There had been so much corruption that we didn’t even know where to begin—theft, pilfering, fraud, and absenteeism. You had civil servants who had died and yet someone was collecting their salary.” As a result, the dismissals caused “a ripple effect of unhappiness through extended family structures,” reported a US embassy cable. Civil servants lived in perpetual fear of being suspended or sanctioned for counterrevolutionary comportment.20 Although he had the people’s well-​­being at heart in most of his decisions, we must acknowledge that Sankara brought considerable military discipline to governance. Once the revolution was in full swing, he was known for his “surprise visits” to various ministerial offices, aimed at making sure government employees were at their desks on time and that their offices were clean. Many civil servants, ministers, and high-​­level officials did not appreciate this sort of rigor. The director of national television and communications, Serge Théophile Balima, provided an example of Sankara’s rather draconian policy on tardiness: “He implemented punishments that were inappropriate for adults. If you came late to work, just 7:05, there was a notebook at the president’s office and they wrote ‘7:05,’ you’re late, and you’re punished and have to work the weekend, come in on Saturday and Sunday and work all day. That happened to me, and it was enforced whether you had some car problem, or traffic, or you had to drop your child at school. . . . If you were the slightest late you were punished like a child. It was really excessive.”21

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Indeed, the military-​­style discipline that Sankara wanted others to emulate often fell flat for those around him. Alfred Sawadogo drew attention to Sankara’s perfectionist impulses within the context of the morning flag-​­raising ceremony. He reported that one morning, as the ceremony was performed, Sankara watched from the balcony of the presidential offices. As it ended, Sankara yelled out, “It’s lazy! Those who don’t want to take part in the raising of the colors then don’t come! That would be better! How can you raise the colors with your head down as if looking at your shoes? The gaze must follow the ascension of the flag all the way to the top. The anthem must be intoned with an ardent tone and not mumbled like you’re doing.” His colleagues were bewildered. Most civilians were not accustomed to such military discipline.22 Despite this penchant for order, Sankara showed a willingness to try new things. For example, at a time when few African heads of state were even thinking about desktop computers, and many would not integrate computers into governance for another decade, Sankara embraced the new technology. In 1984, he procured a computer through the US embassy and was soon learning how to use it and having all the department heads trained. In other domains, he showed considerable spontaneity and intellectual flexibility. In contrast with his military colleagues, who “could not accept taking advice or instructions from civilians,” Fidèle Toé remembered, Sankara “entered into the details with civilians and debated things openly.” However, there has been some disagreement over Sankara’s real willingness to take the advice of others. This was partly rooted in the fact that most advisers or ministers were reluctant to contradict him. Some critics have even stated that Sankara’s own will to power and confidence led him to ignore others’ views.23 Adama Touré, in his somewhat jaundiced memoir, recalled: “Sankara was very protective of his authority and of his initiatives, and firmly convinced, contrary to appearances, that he was not an ordinary man like the other leaders of the revolution. He wanted to be viewed as innovative in all domains of life in the country, and did not accept sharing credit with other revolutionaries for measures that he judged particularly spectacular. . . . He didn’t tolerate contradictions that always appeared to him as a deliberate will to challenge his qualities as a great visionary.”24 Most concur that Sankara was impatient and that he detested the glacial pace of bureaucracy. For him, the revolution was about learning to “work fast, think fast, act fast, and make decisions with full responsibility,”

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as Sawadogo summed up. And so Sankara wanted to be in contact with the person who knew the most about a given subject without unnecessary levels of political filtering or bureaucratic intermediaries seeking to get credit for things.25 Fidèle Toé explained: Thomas had a new style of leadership, something people hadn’t seen before. When there was some problem to be resolved, he had the ability to find very practical and creative solutions. Thomas would think outside the box, saying, “Why can’t we do it like this?” In our system, when there was a dossier that was urgent, we called it “red.” This meant it had to be addressed immediately. He had the raw documents forwarded to him. He would read the dossiers in detail. Our revolutionary structure was such that it allowed us to work fast. He had the feeling that there was no time to waste.26

Sankara was entirely committed to the cause of the revolution, and as a result, his personal life suffered. Once her husband became president, Mariam Sankara recalled, he felt intense pressure to work constantly and barely had time for his family. He was absent from home for days or weeks at a time, often traveling abroad. This led him to jokingly refer to Mariam as “his widow” and Philippe and Auguste as “his orphans,” which suggested a kind of fatalism, a sense that he might die prematurely owing to the risks he was taking. While Mariam ran the household, Captain Etienne Zongo handled everything else because “the president did not have time to occupy himself with such personal problems like managing his family,” as Zongo said. There was much to be coordinated, especially for a political leader who never seemed to sit still. Occupying an office next to the president’s room, Zongo was the gatekeeper. Nobody met with Sankara, or even reached him by telephone, without his aide-​­de-camp’s awareness. “Thomas Sankara was someone who spent all of his time working. And he slept very little,” Zongo remembered. “He was very demanding, but at the same time, he was a man with a heart. He worked very hard, but after work, he became jovial, he joked with others, he chatted with everyone, told stories.” Indeed, Sankara’s endurance and work pace were legendary. He kept a rather erratic schedule, often took spontaneous road trips out to rural areas in the middle of the night, and sometimes worked till dawn. As a result, he took naps and fell asleep during meetings, as his colleagues remembered. His entourage often commented that “when the Captain takes a siesta that means it will be a long night.”27 In his daily routine, Sankara woke up early, exercised, and arrived at the office long before anyone else. He brought his alarm clock to his office,

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and back home, every day, as he did not wear a watch. When he was away from his office, he had the habit of asking people what time it was. Ironically, although inured to military discipline and punctuality, he was known to have an expansive relationship with time, throwing himself into activities and conversations with abandon and often running late to meetings and events. In any case, once at the office, he usually spent twenty minutes in silence, perhaps in meditation, or “concentration,” as he called it. He never used the air-​­conditioning—and diplomats often complained about the unbearable heat. He was meticulous in his correspondences, carefully editing outgoing letters with a pencil in hand, correcting any mistakes in his compact handwriting, and making sure to use both sides of a sheet of paper in order to save resources. His office was a demonstration in simplicity and function: the curtains were plain white textiles woven by local women, and the chairs were basic wooden stools; according to Sawadogo, Sankara did not want to “provide comfort for his visitors, who had the tendency to remain too long when the seats are comfortable.” His armchair was covered with a large cloth bearing the effigy of Che Guevara; there were elements of Marxist iconography around the room, a bust of Lenin on his desktop, and on his shelves prominent collections of the works of Lenin and Marx-​­Engels. In fact, his office was a working library; books were constantly coming and going. He was always distributing books to his friends and colleagues after he had read them and encouraging those around him to read. He traveled with a suitcase full of books, reading on the plane, in his hotel room, and whenever he had a quiet moment.28 Although Sankara read prodigiously and omnivorously, he was rather opaque when discussing his precise intellectual influences. We have seen the centrality of Marxism and leftist revolutionary writings to his thinking, but it’s less clear what he was reading while president. In an interview, he acknowledged that he read the books of Charles de Gaulle and François Mitterrand and occasionally indulged in the spy genre, such as Frederick Forsyth’s books, which shed light on the “duplicity of the great powers,” he said. But he preferred books that dealt with “concrete problems,” such as the organization of labor and development, or works on military strategy. In his scarce downtime, he usually played guitar, and before bed, he switched on the radio or television.29 Sankara remained churchgoing and reportedly prayed quite often. When asked about his faith in 1986, he explained: “My religion is my faith in what is irrational, profound, and unexplainable for humans. Faith inhabits me. I believe in something.” He saw Jesus Christ as a “revolutionary”

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whose message was “capable of saving us from the real misery we lived in, as a philosophy of qualitative transformation of the world.” But, as we have seen, he had a more universalistic view of religion, and he drew inspiration from various faiths and forms of humanism. He considered both the Bible and the Qur’an among the most influential books in his life. However, Sankara had little time for the occult religious practices that were offered to him. Many African political leaders dabbled in forms of “witchcraft” as a way of staying in power. In fact, rumors alleged that Compaoré maintained close ties to powerful occult priests. Sankara scoffed at such practices and told his advisers that he was “not someone who wore protective amulets.” But colleagues and family members were constantly taking it upon themselves to find ritual specialists to protect him. On one occasion, his uncles met him in Paspanga with a ritual priest who brought in a black male goat for sacrifice. Sankara told the story to his advisers: “At the moment when I groped around to find this black goat in the darkness, the beast, while bleating resoundingly, charged at my legs and escaped through the small door behind me.” Sankara laughed as he finished the story. “And then there was a pursuit to catch the goat in the family courtyard.”30 Even as president, Sankara continued to live a Spartan life, eating simple dishes of rice or millet with sauce. His favorite food was fried plantains (aloko). When he traveled to rural areas, he shared tô (millet dish) with villagers or ate cans of sardines. He assiduously avoided alcohol and even coffee. While others drank beer, he contented himself with a glass of water or perhaps a Fanta diluted with water. But he enjoyed sharing meals with friends and hosting colleagues at home. “Almost every Wednesday, after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, the military faction went over to Mariam’s house and we would have lunch,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré remembered. “She would prepare the meal for us. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an ordinary meal. But that was the attraction of Sankara, his simplicity.” Indeed, while Mariam was far less idealistic than Thomas in terms of revolutionary politics, she was equally disinterested in luxury. When Thomas had visitors over to discuss politics, she usually retired to the bedroom with the boys, but in navigating domestic life, according to Andriamirado, it was Mariam who “had the last word.”31 In reality, Sankara treated his home, the presidential palace, like a military camp, a base of revolutionary operations, often blurring the lines between his private and public lives. There was a constant stream of friends, colleagues, and journalists passing through, discussing, debating, planning,

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and sharing meals. And yet, paradoxically, he sought to maintain distance between his own family and politics. Few of his family members, except Pascal and Paul, were involved in the revolution. “For Thomas, revolution or politics was not a family business,” Paul Sankara remembered. “He didn’t want to push any family or friends into the revolution.” But when Sankara had big decisions to make, he often visited his father to get advice. He also sought solace in conversing, praying, and singing with his mother. And yet he shielded Mariam from politics. Given his commitment to women’s issues and rights, some were surprised that he did not incorporate her more into the revolution. But family friends observed that she preferred to stay out of the spotlight. Mariam has also stated that Thomas often did not want her to attend political events or travel with him because he preferred to maintain a certain image of modesty. Even diplomats commented on the fact that they rarely saw Mrs. Sankara at public events.32 In contrast to most African political elites, Sankara did not use his new position of power to change his family’s fortunes. Paul Sankara explained, “Before the revolution, leaders used the state to enrich themselves. Thomas wanted to break with this all. So he was very clear with the family. He told us all that anyone, including family, engaged in corruption would be arrested. He warned us not to take gifts from anyone because they would use these gifts to get something in return.” When older sister Florence Sankara was detained on suspicion of “trafficking identity cards,” Thomas did nothing to prevent her arrest. She was finally released but only after her innocence had been established. He observed soberly: “There must be no privileges in this country. If my sister had been found guilty, she would have to stay in prison. Justice must be the same for all.” Furthermore, Sankara’s family received no special favors or employment advantages. His mother, Marguerite, still worked in the local market of Paspanga, and Mariam maintained full employment at the Shipping Company of Upper Volta. According to Andriamirado, given her seniority and experience, she should have been named the director of the company, as many expected, in 1986. But Thomas discouraged her from taking the promotion because he wanted to avoid claims of nepotism.33 Stemming from Sankara’s intense frugality and revolutionary idealism, criticisms have arisen. His older sister Marie-​­Denise was highly critical of him for not helping out his parents. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo hauled him over the coals for “leaving his little brothers and sisters in poverty.” Others expressed regret that he allowed Compaoré to burrow into the Sankara

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family. “Blaise came here every week, and he ate in the same plate as our father,” Valentin Sankara remembered. “Many in the family didn’t like or trust Blaise. It was like Blaise was trying to take over, trying to be Joseph’s son.” Pascal Sankara recalled that, in contrast with his brother, Compaoré often showed up with gifts, such as a goat or sack of rice, for the family. This kind of gift giving was extended to Sankara’s personnel. Etienne Zongo remembered that while Sankara “refused to give out monetary gifts to those in government,” Compaoré was “continually seeking to buy people’s loyalty, even members of the presidential guard.” This seemingly trivial habit suggested a deeper divergence in approach between the two friends. As we shall see, Compaoré later expanded his tactic of buying loyalists, promising a restoration of elite privileges as a way of taking power.34 By the same token, Compaoré and Sankara complemented each other. They were opposites that attracted. They likely sensed that the other possessed qualities each was lacking. Sankara was bold, intense, extroverted, and intellectual, whereas the taller and more athletic Compaoré was a networker who worked best in the shadows and projected an impassive, reserved, but calculating persona. Sankara found in Compaoré a calming presence and reliable sounding board. In fact, they spent much of their leisure time together, met every day for lunch, and shared most dinners. Before Compaoré got married in 1985, he practically lived at the Sankara house, which led Mariam to jokingly refer to Blaise as her co-​­épouse (co-​ ­wife). Because of their closeness, Sankara trusted Compaoré completely and gave him wide latitude in public affairs and presidential security. A bachelor with multiple girlfriends, Compaoré had very little of Sankara’s preternatural work habits and idealism, and he maintained considerable freedom, often plying daily between Ouagadougou and Pô.35 At just thirty-​­three years old, the “People’s President” was the man in front of the cameras, giving speeches and interviews with journalists. And yet Sankara was repeatedly deflecting attention away from his role. In one press conference, he even joked when asked about recent political events: “It is really a shame that there are observers who look at political problems as if they were comic strips. There must be a Zorro. There must be a star. . . . It is a serious error to have looked for one man, a star, whatever the cost, even going so far as to create one.” Indeed, the popular image of Sankara as the face of the revolution was actively being constructed in the press, facilitated by Sankara’s close friendships with journalists.36 The editor at Jeune Afrique, Hugo Sada, remembered:

Revolution of August 4 and the People’s President  |  129 At Jeune Afrique, I was able to observe the Sankara myth in the making, how he was constructing his image and how it was being constructed. He was a new personality, so he was a very interesting subject to cover, with his popularity and polemics. He was controversial. So of course he was very attractive journalistically speaking, and many journalists were seduced by Sankara, they were partisans, and wrote almost exclusively in favor of him. Sankara also constructed his political personality along the lines of popular leftists, in the tradition of great heroes, like Lumumba, and Che Guevara. In the university milieu in Paris, for example, on the walls you would often see the images of Che Guevara alongside the photos of Sankara.37

At a time when much of the Western press was highly critical of Sankara, these journalistic and academic allies provided a much-​­needed counterweight. They gave voice to the people of Upper Volta and put the revolution on the map for fellow Africans. Certainly, there was considerable hero making, providing fodder for an emerging hagiography. But they also transmitted what Sankara told them in long probing interviews.38 Sankara was charming and persuasive in private meetings with diplomats. A US embassy cable in December 1983 described him in the following way: “His one-​­on-one personal charisma is superb, marked by the born politician’s ability to convey an impression of intense interest in what the other person is saying.” Known for his “combination of eclecticism and political energy,” he was seen as “charismatic, an elegant dresser, a ‘clean desk man.’” However, his public persona could be quite different, as one cable observed: “He responds to crowd stimulus like a gospel revivalist and says things he probably wouldn’t have considered in quieter moments.” US diplomat Robert Pringle went so far as to describe Sankara’s government as a “revolutionary theater state.” And Sankara seemed to concur, referring to his own role in the political “theater.” In any case, the disparity between his private and public personas presented certain diplomatic challenges, as we shall see.39 Many have commented on the new political culture in Ouagadougou, with its ubiquitous revolutionary slogans and rituals. In quintessential Third Worldist style, the young revolutionaries engaged in arcane debates over Maoism, Leninism, and Trotskyism, as radical political pamphlets proliferated around Ouagadougou. Moreover, from the moment he took power, Sankara fashioned himself as a revolutionary, constantly improvising; recycling ideas, symbols, and motifs from previous revolutions; and seeking to construct an authentic new identity for the people. But his success in popular mobilization had much to do with his ability to listen to people’s demands and to pick up on grassroots issues and rhetoric.40

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Sankara’s speeches and rallies became happenings. People tuned in over the radio or sought to hear him speak in person. He was an expert at feeding off the crowd, taking his cues from below, and listening to the ways that people articulated their aspirations. He often invoked images and stories that spoke to deeper truths, hopes, and anxieties. He was constantly coining new phrases, using figurative language. “This is a pedagogic style, the product of our reality,” Sankara explained. “The speeches are directed to listeners who are accustomed to the oral tradition of African civilization, where speech progresses with many twists and turns. I most often speak to peasants, so I let my spirit flow in the form of dialogue, debate, and exchange of views.” According to Burkinabé historian Roger Bila Kaboré, Sankara’s words were “made from frankness and sincerity . . . cut through with humor, with jokes, anecdotes, lyricism, anger, enthusiasm, spirit, play on words.” On the rare occasion that Sankara was forced to read a speech, he felt “out of touch” and constrained. As a result, colleagues who wrote speeches for Sankara often saw the scripts discarded once he took the podium.41 In spite of his oratorical skills and charismatic appeal, Sankara had no interest in cults of personality. However, wherever he traveled, he was met with supporters clad in Sankara T-​­shirts who chanted his name. A New York Times reporter, in November 1983, described the scene in Ouagadougou: “Many young people in the capital now call each other ‘comrade’ and wear Chinese cotton T-​­shirts silk-​­screened with Mr. Sankara’s image and the country’s motto: ‘Father or death, we shall overcome.’” US embassy personnel reported similar T-​­shirts being “sold in the Ouaga market,” and not being distributed by the revolutionary state. Popular songs at the time praised him: “Sankara is not corruption. That’s why we follow him. Sankara is not scamming (magouille). That’s why we follow him. Sankara is not bourgeoisie. That’s why we follow him. Sankara is not imperialism. That’s why we follow him.” The director of press, Paulin Bamouni, and director of television, Serge Balima, both contributed to the over-​­personalization of Sankara’s role in the revolution. The state newspaper, Carrefour Africain, made Sankara the centerpiece of its stories. The government issued a postage stamp bearing his visage. However, even without state promotion of Sankara’s image, the people spontaneously supported him. As PAI-​­leader Adama Touré reported on his visit to Gaoua: “All along my travels, the spontaneous joy and welcome of the masses was extraordinary in the meetings. . . . They chanted Sankara’s name and invited him to personally visit

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these localities. I had never seen in such a long time the population being so involved in politics.” Indeed, in certain ways, Sankara represented the “great heroic personality,” or “man of destiny,” that Gramsci observed. In “the art of politics,” the old system was being replaced by a new “political organism” built around a charismatic individual.42 However, Sankara was often irritated by the focus on him and adamant about keeping the focus on the people. In a high-​­profile speech in 1986, he beseeched the people to stop praising him. “We must put a stop to forms of praise that are expressions of inadequately suppressed, inadequately extinguished, reflexes on our part. That song, for example, ‘O CNR, Thomas Sankara, may he forever be president!’ it’s not good,” he said to wide applause. “We should banish empty slogans—tedious, uselessly repetitive, and ultimately irritating slogans—from our demonstrations.” Germaine Pitroipa, high commissioner of Kouritenga Province, recalled that Sankara wanted images of the people, not himself, in self-​­representations of the revolution. During one visit to her office in Koupela, he explained: “It’s not because of my photo that the people are going to respect our revolution. If the people are convinced of the revolution, then they will respect us.” In fact, Sankara eventually outlawed portraits of himself in public settings, on billboards, or in government offices. Nevertheless, references to Sankara were everywhere. And when people turned on the radio, they often heard his voice.43 One such radio listener was a young Peace Corps volunteer, Marc Dubois, who remembered: Out in places like Nouna, Sankara was the symbol of the revolution. He was this unassuming, healthy young guy. The people really wanted to see him, even though Sankara kept pushing the emphasis back to the people. There were certainly no government efforts, edicts, and stuff to put up posters of his face in the office. There were no teams of press people and communications people actively building the cult of personality as often happens in Africa. It was more like he was a hero for a lot of people, and it grew among the people on its own. And then after he died the cult of personality kept growing.44

In popular memory, many recalled with pride how their president fought for their interests rather than his own. Citizens took pride when they saw Sankara eating in small local restaurants in poorer neighborhoods. He was viewed as a “man of the people” who spent his time in rural areas having marathon palavers with peasants. Much of his leisure time was spent in public, playing sports with colleagues on a weekly basis and playing guitar with the new revolutionary bands, and doing so as an ordinary citizen. One

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supporter recalled: “Sankara was someone who was down to earth and made himself accessible to the people. He rode his bicycle around town without his guards—I saw him many times with my own eyes—and he often surprised people by just showing up places, or stopping along the roadside to chat with people. He worked hard and had this extra force inside him. He was the example of how to work for the country, not for himself.” Despite such positive images in local understandings and popular memory, it’s also clear that Sankara’s toughness and revolutionary idealism caused resentment for many, especially those in the civil service. As we shall see, unwilling to give up their privileges, civil servants and traditional chiefs would eventually begin undermining the revolution, just as Upper Volta’s neighbors took measures to stop the perceived revolutionary “contagion” from spreading. The revolution had just begun, but its enemies were quick to organize. From the night of August 4 until Sankara’s death, it would be constant struggle.45

Notes 1. Abdoul Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 87–90; Andriamirado, Sankara, 81–86; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 5, 1983, FOIA. 2. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August and September 2000; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 5, 1983, FOIA; Afrique-​ ­Asie, August 15, 1983; Touré, Une vie de militant, 97. 3. Madiéga and Nao, Burkina Faso, 283–286; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 11, 2013; Andriamirado, Sankara, 81–86. 4. Afrique-​­Asie, August 15, 1983; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 38–39; Jaffré, Biographie, 151. 5. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 5, 1983, FOIA; Etienne Zongo, interviews, August and September 2000; Afrique-​­Asie, August 15, 1983; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 87–90. 6. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 99. 7. Boubacar Diawara, interview, March 10, 2013; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Otayek, “La crise de la communauté musulmane”; Otayek, “Burkina Faso.” 8. Touré, Une vie de militant, 99; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Luc Traore, interview, March 4, 2013; Abdoul Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 81–96, 140–142. 9. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 94. 10. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015. 11. Afrique-​­Asie, October 10, 1983; Le Monde, August 12, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 5, 1983, and December 28, 1983, FOIA; Valère Somé, interviews, March 17, 2013, and August 22, 2015. 12. Savonnet-​­Guyot, “Le Prince et le Naaba”; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 31, 1983, FOIA.

Revolution of August 4 and the People’s President  |  133 13. Ablasse Segda, interview, March 6, 2013. 14. Ki-​­Zerbo, A quand l’Afrique?, 135–136; Pajot, Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, 84–85; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 265; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 142–143. 15. Abdoul Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August and September 2000; Paul Yameogo, August 27, 2015. 16. Andriamirado, Sankara, 88–91; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 86; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2012. 17. Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 28, 1983, and July 2, 1987, FOIA. 18. Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 142–143; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 206–207; Kaboré, Histoire, 581–583; Le Monde, August 27, 1983; Touré, Une vie de militant, 102–113. 19. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Andriamirado, Sankara, 176–194; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 104–105, 197–201; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 138–139. 20. Luc Traoré, interviews, March 4, 2013, and August 31, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 11, 2013; Sawadogo and Wetta, “Impact of Self-​­Imposed Structural Adjustment”; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, November 7, 26, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, January 13, 1987, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 196–200; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 93–94; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 21–23. 21. Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 17–57. 22. Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 100–102. 23. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, February 4, 1984, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 30, 2015; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 86–93. 24. Touré, Une vie de militant, 107–117. 25. Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 21–35, 45–46, 64–73. 26. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 30, 2015. 27. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 27, 2016; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016, and May 9, 1997; Etienne Zongo, September 2000; Justin Damo Baro, personal communication, March 6, 2013. 28. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014; Andriamirado, Sankara, 114, 184–199; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 70–79. 29. Jeune Afrique, March 12, 1986; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016. 30. “Entretien avec Thomas Sankara,” l’Autre Journal, April 3–8, 1986; Jeune Afrique, March 12, 1986; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016; Mariam Sankara, interview with Jaffré, May 9, 1997; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 12, 2013; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 27, 2016; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 108–111. 31. Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 70–79; Andriamirado, Sankara, 94–95. 32. Paul Sankara, interview, July 19, 2014; Mariam Sankara, interview, May 9, 1997; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 27, 2015; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Andriamirado, Sankara, 114, 184–199; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 70–79. 33. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2015; Pauline Sankara, interview, July 13, 2015; Florence Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Andriamirado, Sankara, 196–199.

134 | Thomas Sankara 34. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 27, 2016; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 24, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, September 2000; Marie-​­Denise Sankara, interview, 1994. 35. Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, September 2000; Mariam Sankara, interview, May 9, 1997. 36. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 69–75; Video on daily motion, under “T.Sankara: Conference de Presse.” Last accessed 2015. 37. Hugo Sada, interview, April 20, 2013. 38. Afrique-​­Asie, August 29 and October 13, 1983; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 69–75. 39. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 22 and December 28, 1983, FOIA. 40. Dubuch, “Langage du pouvoir”; Malley, Call from Algeria, 75–76; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014; Afrique-​­Asie, October 13, 1983, and May 20, 1985. 41. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 217; Kaboré, Histoire, 156; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 241–278; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 75–78. 42. Afrique-​­Asie, March 26, 1984; New York Times, November 18, 1983; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 28, 1983, FOIA; Kaboré, Histoire, 157; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 151–152; Andriamirado, Sankara, 195–197; Serge Balima, interview, January 2006; Touré, Une vie de militant, 122–123; Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 210–223, 429. 43. Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 13, 2013; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 288–289. 44. Marc Dubois, interview, August 23, 2014. 45. Augustine Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Deme Yameogo, interview, August 22, 2015; Issa Baro, interview, March 18, 2013.

6 “THIS MAN WHO UNSETTLES” Confronting the Neocolonial Order, 1983–1984

S

hortly before the Franco-​­African summit on October 3, 1983, the French were contemplating a possible military intervention to unseat Sankara. On September 23, US ambassador Walker met with Jean Ausseil, the director of the “Africa Department” at Quai d’Orsay, the French counterpart to Chester Crocker, Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for ­African affairs. The main subject on the agenda was Sankara’s ties to Libya, and given that Upper Volta was well outside the American sphere of influence and primary security concerns, US intelligence was leaning heavily on French expertise. In a secret cable on September 28, Walker relayed the conversation to Washington, mentioning “Ausseil’s (Please protect fully) discussion of French willingness to use military muscle (either theirs or that of Voltan expats) in case Sankara falls strongly under Libyan domination. If Libyan military forces are introduced to Upper Volta, this could trigger a French response.”1 In fact, when US secretary of state George Shultz reached out to the French government for an evaluation of “Sankara’s Libyan connections,” the French reported that several opposition figures, such as Michel K ­ afando and Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, had escaped to Abidjan. In response, US officials in Paris wrote to Washington: “We are intrigued by the tone [the French Africa director] used in mentioning the various leaders who have escaped . . . [and who] could present a force to attempt to bring down Sankara. Quai did not let on to any French plans to help in that direction. However, France had been trumpeting the earlier removal of Sankara as a major victory.” Moreover, at CIA headquarters, analysts warned that France might be forced to intervene after coming “under strong pressure

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to do so by the conservative, pro-​­Western presidents of Ivory Coast, Togo, and Niger.” Indeed, within a week of the August 4 coup, the governments of Togo and Côte d’Ivoire alerted US officials to Sankara’s ties to Libya and Ghana and expressed concern about the “threat from leftist regimes.”2 Weeks earlier, Sankara had summoned the diplomatic corps to the presidential palace on August 8 and read a handwritten text reinforcing the CNR’s intention to maintain reciprocal relationships with countries on the basis of equality rather than the old “imperialist” arrangements. Later on the afternoon of August 8, Sankara met with the US ambassador Julius Walker, seeking to clear up any suspicions of Libyan influence. According to US embassy cables, he emphasized that he was “not controlled by Libya and will be doing and saying things which Qadhafi will not like.” In response, Walker thought that Sankara could be swayed to “adopt a more moderate posture.” In fact, Sankara’s relationship with Qaddafi was quickly evolving. “At the beginning, Qaddafi helped us by sending arms through Ghana, but he soon realized Sankara was not going to be his disciple,” Valère Somé explained. “Immediately after August 4, the divergence between Sankara and Qaddafi began because of this refusal.” And yet Western news reports placed singular focus on Sankara’s strong connections to Libya. Le Monde highlighted the role of Libya in the coup and the fact that Libyan planes had been landing in Ouagadougou, while the Times of London described Sankara as “sympathetic to Libya” and “influenced” by Marxists. The New York Times, referring to Sankara as “a pro-​ ­Libyan paratroop captain,” stated that whereas Jean-​­Baptiste Ouedraogo was “Western-​­oriented,” Sankara had “pledged today to end what he called the ‘domination of foreigners and neocolonialism’ in his country.” Sankara was characterized as “a committed Marxist-​­Leninist” who had “made several trips to Libya.” These factors were “expected to fuel fears in Western-​ ­oriented African capitals.”3 On the evening of August 21, Sankara gave his first extensive international press conference at the presidential palace. Journalists witnessed before them “a great charmer who knew the importance of the media’s role,” and “a leader with clear ideas, who knows what he wants for his people,” as Afrique-​­Asie reported. Once again, Sankara brushed aside concerns over Libya. When asked whether the military would eventually cede power to civilian rule, he reminded everyone that the goal of the CNR was to democratize power: “We are convinced that the best way to limit the usurpation of power by a group of individuals, military or otherwise, is to place the

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responsibility in the hands of the people from the outset. . . . Consequently, the best way to avoid the army usurping power by and for itself is to already have the people sharing this power. . . . It is about the military living with the people, suffering with them, and fighting by their side at all times.” Then, when asked about freedom of the press, he said: “I am still attached to freedom of speech. I’m simply saying that every Voltaic will always be able to defend freedom, to defend justice, and to defend democracy.” Unfortunately, his attachment to freedom of speech would be undermined when the military faction consolidated power and shut down the free press just nine months later.4 In the meantime, Sankara and fellow members of the CNR, such as ­Lingani, Arba Diallo, and Adama Touré, were working around the clock, meeting foreign dignitaries and diplomats in Ouagadougou and abroad. Adama Touré, minister of information, led a delegation to Côte d’Ivoire, whose president, as Touré observed, “never tolerated an obstacle or opposition to his political hegemony in the region.” As a regional economic powerhouse, Côte d’Ivoire had tremendous clout among neighboring francophone states and exerted considerable influence on French policy toward West Africa. Furthermore, roughly one-​­third of Upper Volta’s workforce was resident in, or migrating annually to, Côte d’Ivoire each year. Immigrant worker remittances made up around 15 percent of Upper Volta’s GDP; most imports arrived via the port of Abidjan and traveled on the Abidjan-​­Ouaga railway. A US embassy cable commented on “the relative ease with which Abidjan could cut the flow of this indispensable revenue and the absolute control it can exercise over the highway and the single railway to the coast,” which made Upper Volta “entirely dependent” on Côte d’Ivoire. The feeling of utter dependency was undoubtedly at the crux of Sankara’s antipathy toward Houphouët-​­Boigny, who initially sought to integrate Sankara into his clientelist networks, giving financial support to the CNR in its first few months, providing funding to upgrade the telephone grid in Ouagadougou, and tolerating arrears for maintenance of the shared railway line. By all accounts, the Ivoirian president even liked Sankara and hoped to take him under his wing as a way of improving his standing with the Ivoirian youth. But, in contrast, Sankara would not accept being the junior partner, and he rarely missed an opportunity to openly contradict Houphouët-​­Boigny in his bid to establish himself as a truly revolutionary leader. In fact, in the CNR’s initial “reassurance tour” across West Africa, aimed at explaining the revolution to neighboring African heads of state, Sankara deliberately

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avoided traveling to Côte d’Ivoire and only later reached out to Houphouët-​ ­Boigny when Omar Bongo convinced him that it was essential.5 On September 16, Sankara began his “reassurance tour” by heading to Mali—his first trip as president. Once in Bamako, Sankara and President Moussa Traoré agreed to bring the border dispute before the International Court of Justice. But Sankara also took the opportunity to inveigh against the “racist regime in South Africa,” call for “national reconciliation in Chad,” and demand “the withdrawal of Israel from occupied Arab territories.” Malian officials were reportedly taken aback by Sankara’s rhetoric. Sankara was then en route to Niger on September 22. Despite the appearance of diplomatic niceties, President Kountché “expressed concerns that Upper Volta may be used as a base for Libyan subversion of Niger,” a secret US embassy cable reported. Just a week later, on September 30, Sankara met with Rawlings in Pô, which, according to Le Monde, led to “worries of the ‘moderate’ countries of the region, such as Ivory Coast, Togo and Niger, [fearing]  .  .  . attempts to destabilize their territories, [and] the constitution of a front of progressive countries.” Sankara and Rawlings organized joint military maneuvers, dubbed “Bold Union,” the following month. On another diplomatic front, Cuban vice minister of external relations Oscar Oramas met with Sankara twice in Ouagadougou and then visited Banfora to discuss possibilities for sugar cane development. Oramas had been close to Amilcar Cabral, one of Sankara’s great heroes. In fact, Oramas had managed Cuban aid to the PAIGC and even wrote a book about Cabral. In any case, following on the heels of these meetings, the narrative of Sankara as a potential “agent of destabilization” in the region gained traction in the press and within diplomatic circles.6 Soon after the August 4 coup, the IMF sought to entice the young revolutionary government into an agreement, offering an initial tranche of credit worth $14 million. But according to a US embassy cable, the IMF/ World Bank was finding Sankara’s government “uncommunicative” and “hard to involve in economic dialogue, even by African standards.” IMF personnel contrasted Upper Volta’s “cool response” with that of Niger, where reforms had been recently initiated under an IMF agreement. Furthermore, since 1979, Senegal had entered into an IMF agreement and was viewed as a model for economic liberalization. Sankara publicly positioned himself against such agreements and declared that the CNR was receiving “no financial aid.” But this was misleading, as France was still contributing $55 million to $60 million per year in “technical assistance,” “development,”

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and even “budget support.” With little aid coming from the Eastern Bloc, the CNR needed huge amounts of continuing economic assistance from France and the wider capitalist world. Therefore, three months into the revolution, IMF/World Bank officials in Ouagadougou reported a more “pragmatic, open atmosphere and plenty of scope to do business,” which included the “fascinating spectacle of a radical regime seeking private sector solutions.” It was even reported that the “revolutionary objectives of the Sankara regime should mesh neatly with World Bank objectives.” Minister of Finance Justin Damo Barro indicated that the government was already meeting IMF conditions with its recent austerity moves, such as reducing salaries and firing civil servants. Thus, the CNR was far more pragmatic than its public statements might have suggested. Even the revolutionary government of Jerry Rawlings in Ghana had been in negotiations with the IMF since 1982 and was now finalizing a deal as part of the “Economic Recovery Program.” These more pragmatic openings by the CNR contradict the prevailing image of Sankara as being an uncompromising opponent of such neoliberal measures. Over the next few years, he would continually revisit these options. In fact, by 1985, he stated unequivocally: “We’re not opposed to private enterprise as long as it doesn’t infringe upon our honor, our dignity, and our sovereignty.”7 Within Upper Volta, grassroots processes were shaping the revolution’s trajectory. As competition over control of the CDR system deepened, PAI-​­LIPAD activists began to carry out “revolutionary actions,” seeking to dislodge directors of companies and organizations, whom they viewed as “reactionaries.” Imagining that they were on the verge of implementing the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” they battled to bring businesses and government agencies under worker control. On September 13, PAI-​­LIPAD militants stormed the country’s electric company, VOLTELEC, removed the director, and put workers in charge. Then on September 16, while Sankara was in Bamako, LIPAD members detained the director of television, Serge Théophile Balima, accused him of being a counterrevolutionary, and told him that his programs were too “bourgeois.” But, as Balima explained, there was simply no budget for the technicians and material required to make original revolutionary programming. The PAI-​­LIPAD faction suggested that Balima contact the embassies of China, USSR, and Albania, but none of them were forthcoming with appropriate programs. “So what we did is produce programs of debate and discussion, but unfortunately it’s not what the people wanted,” Balima remembered. “They wanted soap operas

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and television dramas, but these are not revolutionary.” In the end, Sankara threw his support behind Balima.8 Tensions grew between the PAI-​­LIPAD and military factions, particularly as the head of the CDR, Pierre Ouedraogo, began putting in place CDRs within businesses, governmental offices, and various enterprises. Soumane Touré and many union leaders opposed this plan, as it meant that CDRs were effectively replacing the unions. “We had gotten involved right away in creating CDRs, and we were most active in this way,” Touré explained. “We had local networks in every neighborhood, school, workplace. But the soldiers didn’t want us controlling too much. They saw that we already had control of many labor unions and student groups. The rivalry came from this problem.” Members of the military also saw CDRs as a threat to their structures and chain of command. Captain Paul Yameogo expressed what many soldiers felt about the CDR system: “The relations between CDRs and the army could be difficult, because CDRs would try to supplant the position of military officers. They even tried to take my office at one point, and I had to tell them this was the military domain.” Moreover, those in the military watched as respected officers had their careers ended, while hapless teenagers with Kalashnikovs manned CDR checkpoints. As one Sankara supporter, and local CDR leader, explained: “I was the CDR head in our neighborhood. We responded to the call of Sankara and supported him. But I came into the CDR as a former soldier, and I can tell you that one of the serious errors was giving the responsibilities of security to civilians. How can you really give weapons to civilians and task them with providing security? There were also many in the CDRs, especially the family of the chiefs, who sought to sabotage them from within and exploit their positions of authority.”9 Within this context of internal factionalism and seeming ideological inconsistency, Sankara called for the drafting of a major statement of policy, known as the Political Orientation Speech (Discours d’Orientation Politique), or DOP. One representative from each of the three major groups was called on to help produce the document, including Philippe Ouedraogo (PAI-​­LIPAD), Valère Somé (ULCR), and Blaise Compaoré (OMR). According to Ouedraogo, PAI-​­LIPAD proposed defining the revolution as a “popular revolution of national liberation,” or an “anti-​­imperialist revolution.” But Somé thought the label “anti-​­imperialist” and the idea of “national liberation” were too limiting. He suggested the phrase “Democratic and Popular Revolution” (Révolution Démocratique et Populaire), drawing on

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the revolution in Mozambique under Samora Machel. It was not surprising, given the influence of Machel on Somé and Sankara, especially Machel’s embrace of “the people” as a central pillar in Mozambique’s revolution, and the considerable overlap between Machel and Cabral in terms of ideology. In any case, the Political Orientation Speech became the revolution’s most comprehensive political program. Distributed widely and routinely referenced, it spelled out the aims of the revolution.10 On October 2, Sankara delivered the speech, which was rebroadcast over television and radio, and so most observers assumed that he wrote it himself. It has been cited as one of the prime examples of his political thought. But, as is the case of many other high-​­profile speeches, it was the product of a collective writing endeavor. Ouedraogo was nominally in charge of guiding the process because of his seniority, but he was soon swamped with other ministerial tasks and simply could not devote much time to it. At the same time, Compaoré lacked the requisite education and writing skills. That left Valère Somé, the revolution’s in-​­house theoretician, who eventually wrote the speech in the days before Sankara’s departure for Vittel. “When I sat down and wrote the DOP, Sankara was eager to get the draft, so he sent a soldier, Jean Diabré, to come to my office at UNICEF to pick up the pages as they were written and have them typed over at the Conseil de l’Entente,” Somé recalled. “I wasn’t even reading what I wrote. I wrote quickly by hand and gave the pages to the soldier. Finally, on a Saturday morning, I was at home, and Sankara sent a driver to get me. We went to the Conseil de l’Entente, and he said immediately, ‘Let’s finish this thing now. We need to announce our political positions before Vittel.’” Inside the Conseil de l’Entente, Somé wrote while Sankara watched and made comments. Sankara took each page and started correcting the errors. Meanwhile, Philippe Ouedraogo, Soumane Touré, and Blaise Compaoré passed through to add their own thoughts. In this way, the political program was collaboratively produced, with Somé as the main author.11 In many ways, the political program represented a distillation and refinement of positions that the African students in France had been debating for the previous two decades. But it was also a fresh departure from certain socialist itineraries and typical statements of Marxist-​­Leninist leaders in Africa. Somé offered his view: “If you analyze the Political Orientation Discourse, nowhere do we talk about communism. We were conscious that our revolution could not go toward pure socialism. We were living in a backward rural Third World country in which the socialism of Marx wasn’t

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possible. We didn’t use European models, or the Soviet model, for analyzing our situation.” Rather, according to Somé, they drew inspiration from the leading exponents of Third Worldism, such as Cabral, Fanon, Nkrumah, Che, and Mao. But while they were pro-​­peasant, the revolution was still an elite project lead by a small group of intellectuals. “If anything, ours was a bourgeois revolution,” Somé added.12 The revolution was building on its predecessors; it was following a well-​­established revolutionary tradition and drawing on prevailing theory. Cabral had observed in his 1966 “Weapon of Theory” speech in Havana that “nobody has yet successfully practiced revolution without a revolutionary theory”; just so, Sankara spoke of “knowing how to link revolutionary theory to revolutionary practice.” In the speech, he emphasized: “We must immerse ourselves in the study of revolutionary theory. Theoretical study deepens our understanding of phenomena, clarifies our actions, and protects us from a good many assumptions.” There were other echoes of Cabral, such as in the assertions that national liberation and revolution were not “exportable commodities,” that they were “local, national products” influenced by external forces. As Sankara stated: “Each revolution presents original features that distinguish it from the others. Our revolution, the August revolution, is no exception. It takes into account the special features of our country, its level of development, and subjugation by the world imperialist capitalist system. Our revolution is a revolution that is unfolding in a backward, agricultural country . . . evolving from a colony into a neocolony.” The neocolonial system was viewed as an extension of colonialism, in that the instruments of power, such as the neocolonial army, were used in “safeguarding the interests of imperialism and its national allies.”13 The “Revolution of August 4” was presented as the culmination of popular struggles, the “marching forward” of “fighting people” mobilized “as one” with the aim of ridding society of social injustice. In placing the revolution within the context of Upper Volta’s postcolonial history, Sankara explained that August 4 was the heir to the “deepening of the popular uprising of January 3, 1966.” Otayek echoed this understanding, stating that August 4 was the “logical and ultimately inevitable outcome of a long evolution spanning several years,” emphasizing that it represented a major rupture with the past, in that it called into question the old power hierarchies. But Pierre Englebert observed that these earlier popular uprisings and coups d’état were rooted in rather different contexts and varying motives. Nevertheless, the young revolutionary leaders appropriated these earlier

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struggles and presented them as part of a “rising tide” of “democratic and revolutionary forces.” As in other revolutionary processes, after consolidating power they developed an account that simplified and condensed the history, carefully pruning away much of the contingency and the various competing visions.14 One of the signal sections of the speech was its analysis of social classes. And yet in many ways it also presented a distorted picture of the social situation, a rhetorical strategy for legitimating the revolutionary government. In reflecting on the speech, Somé explained: “For us, the central contradiction was imperialism, notably French imperialism, which was allied with its agents within our country and exploited our people. We were trying to unite the people, including the bourgeois class, and in effect lead a democratic and popular revolution. We spoke about who the ‘enemies of the people’ were, that being imperialism and corruption. When we arrived in power, we said, ‘Down with feudalism.’ But there wasn’t exactly feudalism. And there wasn’t much of a working class. We had all come from the petty bourgeoisie.”15 Indeed, the leaders were “organic intellectuals,” but few of them had issued from the peasantry or working class. In the speech, however, among the “enemies of the people,” there were the “parasitic bourgeoisie,” who benefited from neocolonialism and engaged in “massive corruption, embezzlement of public funds and properties, influence-​­peddling and real estate speculation and practicing favoritism and nepotism.” The “enemies of the people” included the commercial bourgeoisie, which comprised the major business owners, who enriched themselves through corrupt business practices, such as grain speculation. Finally, the “reactionary forces,” primarily traditional chiefs and religious leaders, were considered “backward” or “feudal” forces that likely opposed the revolution.16 In opposition to these “enemies” were the “people,” which included the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, and the lumpenproletariat. The majority were peasants, described as the “wretched of the earth,” invoking Fanon’s famous phrase. As in Fanon’s analysis and Maoist conceptualizations, Sankara emphasized the peasantry as the main driver of the revolution, “its principal force,” variously described as “expropriated, robbed, mistreated.” But in contrast to Fanon, Sankara presented the peasantry, with its ties to “small-​­scale production,” as an “integral part of the category of the petty bourgeoisie.” Viewed as a “very unstable social layer,” the petty bourgeoisie vacillated between “the cause of the popular

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masses and that of imperialism.” The petty bourgeoisie included mainly small shopkeepers, civil servants, students, labor leaders, intellectuals, and artisans. Indeed, the fact that most of the CNR members and grassroots activists were considered “petty bourgeois” represented a potential vulnerability in the revolutionary struggle, as the “petty bourgeois intellectuals,” upon taking power, could “give free rein to its natural tendencies to become ‘bourgeois,’ to allow the development of a bourgeoisie of bureaucrats.” Thus, to achieve revolutionary objectives, the petty bourgeoisie had, in Cabral’s words, only one path forward: “to strengthen its revolutionary consciousness, to repudiate the temptations to become ‘bourgeois’” in order to identify with “the deepest aspirations of the people.” But this was not a workers’ revolt; it was a petty bourgeois revolt against French imperialism. As Sankara himself later acknowledged in an interview with Radio Havana, “We have a working class that’s numerically weak and insufficiently organized. And we have no strong national bourgeoisie either that could have given rise to an antagonistic working class. So what we have to focus on is the very essence of the class struggle: in Burkina Faso it’s expressed in the struggle against imperialism.” And so, in this struggle, the petty bourgeoisie were seen as the linchpin of the revolutionary process. Sankara’s view of the petty bourgeoisie would evolve over time; he would eventually come to see them as impediments to the revolutionary struggle as he shifted more emphasis to the peasantry.17 Situating the revolution in the late Cold War, Sankara pointed out that the international revolutionary movement was “coming apart day by day” and that “nascent revolutionary movements” could not expect much in terms of “stimulus and practical support” from the socialist bloc. Thus, Upper Volta would have to depend on the “full participation” and “consistent mobilization” of its people. The plan was to “decentralize and spread out administrative power,” and to this end, the CNR passed a decree dividing the country into twenty-​­five provinces, which were then subdivided in departments, arrondissements, and villages. A year later, another decree further divided the country into thirty provinces. Because it gave further definition to the government, the CNR was described as “the power that plans, leads, and oversees political, economic, and social life on a national level,” one whose “guiding principle” was “democratic centralism.” Within this Marxist-​­Leninist framework, “lower bodies” were subordinated to “higher bodies,” but the “principle of elections” was the rule at all levels, with the exception of the CNR itself. In this form of direct democracy, the

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elected “local political bodies,” Revolutionary Defense Committees, were considered the “representatives of revolutionary power in the villages, the urban areas, and the workplaces.” As the “schools” of revolutionary thinking and decision-​­making, they were responsible for politically educating their comrades while serving as the connection, or “relay,” between the CNR and the “popular masses.” For Sankara, the main idea behind the creation of the system was to “democratize power.” These structures were effectively replacing the chieftaincy and various religious authorities that had mediated the relationship between peasants and the state.18 The revolution was seeking to forge a “new consciousness” and to “build a new society,” in which every citizen was the “architect of his own happiness.” To facilitate this process, Sankara called for a reform of the army in a more democratic direction: “From now on, besides handling arms, the army will work in the fields and raise cattle, sheep, and poultry. It will build schools and health clinics.” The roles of women were also targeted for revolutionary transformation. “The revolution and women’s liberation go together,” Sankara declared, invoking Mao. “It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky.” The goal was a society in which “women will be equal to men in all spheres.” Many outsiders were more interested to hear about the CNR’s foreign policy orientations. But on this front, Sankara’s speech provided scant detail. Written in haste, the section on international relations amounted to little more than a bulleted list, stating that the revolution was “an integral part of the world movement for peace and democracy, against imperialism.” The national economy was variously described as “independent” and “self-​­sufficient,” but there were certain ambivalences around foreign investment and trade. The words socialism and communism were not used in the speech, but Sankara spoke of a “planned” national economy, with a central focus on food self-​­sufficiency and the battle against “unfair competition from imports against our local products.” The emphasis was on smallholders, rather than large-​­scale projects, as Sankara explained: “The CNR will harbor no illusions in gigantic, sophisticated projects. To the contrary, numerous small accomplishments in the agricultural system will allow us to transform our territory into one vast field, an endless series of farms.”19 Having wrapped up the Political Orientation Discourse just before dawn on October 2, Sankara hitched a ride to France aboard President Kountché’s plane, accompanied by a small entourage, which included Philippe Ouedraogo and Arba Diallo. But in Paris, Sankara was met with a

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surprise. Instead of Christian Nucci, the minister of cooperation, meeting him at the airport, it was Guy Penne, the head of the secretive “Africa Cell.” Just five months before, Penne reportedly had been instrumental in having Sankara arrested, and now he had been sent to receive the young revolutionary. Sankara suddenly found himself alone with Guy Penne for the car ride into Paris. He took the gesture as an affront. Even US diplomats took umbrage to the move, reporting: “What possessed the French to have Penne meet Sankara confounds us here unless it was a calculated insult.” Sankara then learned that he was to be seated at the dinner table next to Chadian president Hissène Habré, who was at war with Libya-​­backed rebels. Sankara refused to attend the dinner, and he was about to leave the summit altogether. Wanting to avoid a diplomatic flap, Mitterrand dispatched his son, Jean-​­Christophe. Sankara was finally mollified, and the following morning, accompanied by Jean-​­Christophe, he arrived at the conference dressed in military fatigues, prepared for political combat.20 The annual Franco-​­African summit, inaugurated in 1973 by Georges Pompidou, was in certain ways a parade of African heads of state paying homage to France, a modern-​­day demonstration of neocolonial vassalage. For the third consecutive year, the war in Chad took center stage at the conference. October 1983 was just two months into the so-​­called Operation Manta, which saw the largest French intervention in Africa since the wars of decolonization in Algeria. Officially, French troops were on a training mission in Chad. But a secret US cable reported that France had “dispatched elite combat troops under the guise of ‘trainers’ to Chad beginning August 9.” The Vittel Conference thus aimed to negotiate a path to ending the war. And yet the key partner required in such a negotiation, Muammar Qaddafi, was absent. In Qaddafi’s absence, Sankara was treated as his surrogate.21 In Vittel, under a white dais overlooking the 1,100 acres of green lawns and parks at Club Med, President Mitterrand received one by one the thirty-​­eight heads of state or representatives of African countries. Soon the Sankara-​­Mitterrand handshake in Vittel was on the cover of Jeune Afrique, with the headline “Sankara: Cet Homme qui Dérange” (Sankara: This man who unsettles). In companion articles on the conference, such as “Les Sages et L’Enfant Terrible” (The wise and the unruly child), the focal point was the relationship between “the elders,” such as Mitterrand and Houphouët-​ ­Boigny, and the “leaders of a new style . . . beginning with the Voltaic head of state Thomas Sankara,” who “upended habits.” The story described Sankara’s effect on the conference: “His hot-​­headed temperament, his uniform,

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his eyes often astonished or outraged. . . . In this meeting of wise heads of state, he clashed. Sankara speaks a new language, without political banalities, he wants to command the respectability of his country and dreams of a different society. The eruption of a new generation of Africans on the international scene . . . disturbs the elders.” Sankara was viewed as a young iconoclast challenging the system. Those who attended the conference with Sankara remembered his provocative presence. Philippe Ouedraogo explained: “I was there in Vittel with Thomas at the meetings. And Sankara made quite a stir by showing up with his pistol, which he put on the table in front of him. He was so young, and he had just done this coup. And the journalists were curious and drawn to him. But he was also very controversial.”22 However, unlike other African heads of state, Sankara was approachable in his populist style, making himself readily available to journalists. When he held a press conference on October 4, he disarmed journalists with his charisma, candor, and wit. He understood that he was battling misunderstandings and that the revolution was bound to “shock” the West, as he said, “in the sense that there is a new language, that shocks, perhaps, in the sense that the machine is a bit disturbed . . . and the language is a bit cutting, but it is the language of truth, revolutionary truth.” It would not be the last time that Sankara would invoke the “machine.” He was drawing on the language of his forebears, such as Aimé Césaire, who similarly railed against imperialism and the capitalist system, the “machine for crushing, for grinding, for degrading peoples.” Sankara was now blatantly throwing sand in the gears.23 The reaction was immediate. While Sankara was in Vittel, news broke that the Syndicat National des Enseignants Africains de Haute-​­ Volta (National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta, or SNEAHV) in Upper Volta had issued a press release strongly condemning the CNR, printed in the conservative newspaper, L’Observateur, on October 3. It was part of a coordinated strategy of Ki-​­Zerbo and his French allies. The SNEAHV statement put Sankara in a difficult position. When one French journalist asked about it, Sankara tried to clarify. “This FPV with the Professor Joseph Ki-​ ­Zerbo at its head supported the reactionary regime,” Sankara explained. “He organized and fomented the coup of November 25, 1980 with Colonel Saye Zerbo. . . . It was this regime that banned the right to strike in Upper Volta. . . . It is this regime [that has chosen] to liquidate the Voltaic revolution in order to bring their supporters of the CMRPN back into power.”

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Sankara sought to explain to the journalists how these political elites were part of the “bourgeoisie” within Upper Volta, whose power extended in a “chain” all the way into the bowels of the bureaucracy, the administration, and the army. As before, he invoked the Leninist idea of the “bourgeois state,” whose two characteristic institutions, the bureaucracy and the standing army, were intricately connected through “the thousand threads” to the bourgeoisie.24 When journalists raised the issue of Libya and the revolutionary threat to neighboring countries, Sankara replied that the “risk of contagion” was unfounded and that “we have no intention of exporting the revolution. . . . It is not a product for sale. It’s for local consumption.” He also noted, in an oblique reference to France’s secretive ties to Libya and dealings over oil contracts, that there were leaders who have “relations with Libya of Colonel Qaddafi, but maintain them in a discreet and well-​­hidden manner.” In this light, Sankara asked: “Who is the pawn? Is it us, Upper Volta, who can today tell Colonel Qaddafi what we think, what we want, and what we don’t want, because it’s done openly, or those who have to hide it. . . . Who is the pawn?” The French television and newspaper coverage of the conference placed an inordinate amount of emphasis on Sankara’s ties to Libya. In the agenda-​ ­setting media, journalists mocked Sankara’s positions and undermined his efforts to appear amicable, as Le Monde opined: “One understands better the astonishment of Captain Sankara: he realized in Vittel that humor is not a quality of a head of state.” In the following months, there would be a stream of articles in the mainstream French press attacking the revolution and overstating Sankara’s ties to Libya.25 But there were also efforts to provide a more sympathetic image of Sankara. The Guinean journalist Siradiou Diallo conducted the most in-​ ­depth interview with Sankara while in Vittel. His “Sankara: Cet homme qui dérange” became one of the most-​­read articles on Sankara and shaped popular images of Sankara in the francophone world. Diallo described Sankara as a simple man “without artifice” who expressed himself in “a calm and levelheaded voice,” which served as a contrast to the depictions of him as “hot-​­headed” and “irresponsible.” Through their long-​­running conversations, Diallo observed that Sankara “had read much and reflected on the plight of Third World peoples. Thomas Sankara without doubt read Marx, Lenin, Mao, Giap and Guevara.” It was clear that Sankara was cut from a different cloth than such putschists as Samuel Doe. Diallo also opined that Sankara was “far from being a communist,” that he was “not the puppet

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of Yuri Andropov or Colonel Qaddafi,” nor was Sankara “anti-​­French, anti-​­American or anti-​­Western.” For Diallo, Sankara was more accurately described as a “nationalist” and “patriot,” putting “his energy, his knowledge and his convictions in the service of progress in Africa.”26 In this interview, Sankara gave greater shape to his political thinking. Across Africa, he had seen postcoup governments and their pseudorevolutionary leaders imposing authoritarian forms of governance and clinging to premade ideological formulas, clumsily imposing abstract models. As if responding to Fanon’s observation that the “great danger that threatens Africa is the absence of ideology,” Sankara ruminated: “There is no politics without ideology. For us, ideologies offer a guiding light, a tool of analysis allowing us to define the realities of society. But we must not use the people to test the veracity of such and such ideology.” He bristled at the assumption that there was a kind of “spiritual father,” like Qaddafi or others, behind the revolution. According to Sankara, he and fellow progressives were “far from being political illiterates, incapable of thinking” for themselves. “It is a constant practice of Eurocentrism to want to find spiritual fathers of the Third World: Lumumba and Nasser inspired by Moscow, Nyerere by China,” Sankara explained. “I can assure you that, for our part, we are not tied to any bell tower.” Although he was a committed anti-​­imperialist, he added nuance: “[Imperialism] is not a country or a race. It’s a system of exploitation that is found everywhere. It is based on facts, practices, and attitudes towards people. . . . [But] our fight against imperialism does not belong to an anti-​­Westernism.”27 Before flying out of Paris, Sankara was invited to a “mini-​­summit” at the Ivoirian president’s home in Marnes-​­la-Coquette, France, where Sankara found himself surrounded by his political elders, the presidents of Niger, Togo, Benin, and Guinea. It was a tense session. The elders set about challenging their young colleague; they wanted to “gauge him, weigh him, test him, to reveal what his weakness would be,” Afrique-​­Asie wrote. They were “more than ever determined to wear down their young colleague.” For the old guard, Sankara was a young upstart in a political arena based heavily in seniority. They were willing to work with him, but he would have to earn his place at the table. Indeed, the age gap between them was considerable. For example, Houphouët-​­Boigny, born in 1905, was forty-​­four years older than Sankara. Even the younger of the fellow heads of state were considered “elders.” In many ways, they would decide his fate and the fate of the revolution.28

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Sankara headed back to Ouagadougou, once again sharing a plane with President Kountché. On the way, Kountché was informed that there had been a coup attempt in Niamey, the third attempt against him. Western circles suspected that Qaddafi was involved. Le Monde went a step further, pointing to Sankara, “who doesn’t hide his sympathies for Colonel Qaddafi.” A week later, on October 13, the Nigerien minister of foreign affairs, Daouda Diallo, met with US assistant secretary Chester Crocker and disclosed that Libya had been behind the coup attempt and that “Sankara was operating under the sway of more radical members of the CNR.” Diallo warned that Sankara might turn to “aggressive moves against his moderate neighbors in Mali, Ivory Coast and Niger.” There was concern to keep Niger, with its massive uranium deposits, out of Libya’s orbit. Indeed, the cables coming out of Niger, where there was an active CIA station in Niamey, unlike Ouagadougou, considerably misled Washington about the threat that Sankara posed.29 Robert Pringle, deputy chief of mission in Ouagadougou, explained: “Our neighboring US Embassy to the north, in Niamey (Niger), kept sending reports to Washington about what a dangerous radical Sankara was. . . . The Nigerien president, Seyni Kountché, was a crusty general, somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun and a great friend of the Free World, the antithesis of our own young Thomas, whom he detested. He kept telling Ambassador Casey what a dangerous scoundrel Sankara was, and Casey, hanging on his every word, reported all his remarks whole cloth to Washington, copying his cables to us.”30 Sankara understood that his relationship with Qaddafi was costing him considerable political capital, and so he worked to strengthen ties with other North African states, while taking distance from Libya. In the coming months, he was immersed in meetings with representatives of the Algerian government, which had been one of the first foreign governments to offer its support for the revolution. Sankara traveled to Algeria in March 1984 and took a side trip into the Polisario-​­controlled Western Sahara, where Algeria had long supported Polisario in its war against Morocco. In Laayoune, Sankara met with the secretary-​­general of Polisario, Mohammed Abdelaziz, and officially recognized the Sahrawi Democratic Arab Republic. Soon Algeria was providing much more aid and diplomatic support than Libya, and without the added political baggage. In the meantime, tensions grew between Sankara and Qaddafi.31 The ambassador to Libya, Mousbila Sankara, recalled the changing relationship:

“This Man Who Unsettles”  |  151 At first the rapports between Qaddafi and Sankara were pretty good. Qaddafi supported our revolution, providing arms, and he helped to resolve certain economic problems early in the revolution. But problems quickly emerged because Qaddafi wanted us to use his Green Book. So he sent Libyan agents to come and popularize the Green Book. But Thomas wasn’t interested in it. We were more aligned with the revolutionary practices of Cuba. . . . Although the French press represented Thomas as a friend of Qaddafi, they were not close. Qaddafi was someone who expected others to follow his orders. But Thomas refused this.32

In fact, Sankara bluntly and publicly criticized Libya’s involvement in Chad. He called for all foreign forces to withdraw from Chad and even hosted one of Habré’s ministers in Ouagadougou, which drew considerable heat from the Libyans. In essence, Sankara was trying to play the role of mediator between the belligerent parties, but Qaddafi refused to accept Upper Volta’s neutrality and eventually ended economic support of the CNR. The Libyan leader then cultivated relationships with other military members of the CNR, such as Blaise Compaoré. More than three years before Compaoré’s coup, a US embassy cable reported that Compaoré was already working with Qaddafi and that Compaoré was “certain to stage a coup in the near future  .  .  . with the possibility of Libyan support.” The cable continued: “Libya might try to capitalize on such a split.  .  .  . [But] no one, including the French, is certain of Compaoré’s political leanings and his role within the government leadership. He remains an enigma.” In 1984, this was the earliest indication that Compaoré might mount a coup with Libyan support. Interestingly, according to Etienne Zongo, it was also during this time that Compaoré developed an operational relationship with Captain Mbara Guerandi, a Cameroonian dissident who Compaoré had befriended at the military academy in Yaoundé. After Guerandi’s failed coup against Paul Biya on April 6, 1984, he fled to Ouagadougou and found himself in Compaoré’s inner circle, providing security expertise. He became Compaoré’s key conduit to Libya, where he procured secretive financing for Compaoré.33 On October 29, weeks after his diplomatic baptism by fire in Vittel, Sankara was in Niamey to attend the Summit of the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). Sankara was supposed to assume the head of the organization for a year. But Houphouët-​­Boigny forcefully opposed his nomination and instead designated Moussa Traoré. In the local press in Ouagadougou, there were denunciations of Côte d’Ivoire. The Ivoirian

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government responded by imposing a press boycott of all information on Upper Volta, stating: “We have decided to block the path to communism.” Rather than escalating the feud, Sankara told his top officials to cease provoking Houphouët-​­Boigny. But CDR head Captain Pierre Ouedraogo pursued further provocation at the border town of Niangoloko, where on November 14 he denounced the Ivoirians as “the guardians of imperialist interests” and “watchdogs.” Sankara was reportedly irked by the action, and at the next Council of Ministers meeting, he told everyone to “stop insulting the crocodile,” in reference to the Ivoirian president.34 During this time, the CNR announced the news of a purported plot to overthrow the CNR. Soon after, security forces killed a “white mercenary,” who along with a group of others was discovered near the Conseil de l’Entente in the middle of the night. On November 7, Le Monde reported that the man was carrying stolen French identity papers. According to the state-​­run Carrefour Africain, on November 18, the mercenaries were preparing to “plunge Upper Volta into a bloodbath and hence as a consequence justifying foreign intervention.” US embassy cables confirmed the incident. Within this context of coup rumors and plots, Sankara learned of the killing of Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary prime minister of Grenada, on October 19. Then, on October 25, the US military invaded the island on a “rescue mission” to protect American students. In fact, the Reagan administration had grown concerned about the island’s ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union and had seen a golden opportunity to combat communism in the region. According to historian Odd Westad, the invasion of Grenada was a “breakthrough for a more offensive strategy against revolutionary regimes.” Connecting the coup plots to the invasion of Grenada, Carrefour Africain alleged that the United States was similarly “involved in complex machinations to destabilize Upper Volta.” It condemned “the extremely execrable action of American imperialism.”35 Coming under pressure from the radical left wing of CNR, and the rhetoric in Carrefour Africain, Sankara suddenly veered and took a public stand against the invasion of Grenada, while expressing his support for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Soon Ambassador Walker was standing in front of Sankara’s desk, reading a diplomatic note that in essence stated that Sankara “didn’t know anything about the situation in Central America” and had “gone too far.” According to US cables, Walker threatened to cut aid programs, to which Sankara responded that Upper Volta would “not accept this blackmail” and “would refuse American aid if necessary.” And yet a couple

“This Man Who Unsettles”  |  153

of weeks later, Sankara reached out to Washington, writing a letter directly to President Reagan, expressing his “satisfaction with the invaluable contribution of the Peace Corps volunteers to the socio-​­economic development of our country.” Foreign Minister Arba Diallo was dispatched to Washington, where he informed US officials of “disinformation” campaigns issued from the Soviet Union that disrupted Upper Volta’s relationship with the West. Indeed, the Soviets were engaged in “active measures,” even planting stories in the local press, to influence opinion and sow discord.36 In a follow-​­up meeting with Walker on November 28, Sankara made his positions clear. He told the ambassador that he had “personally stopped additional Libyan arms aid after the August 4 coup.” But, according to the meeting minutes, he also confronted Walker over possible US efforts to destabilize the CNR. He reminded the ambassador of the so-​­called Baxter Affair, the recent expulsion of US diplomat John C. Baxter for “subversive activities.” It’s possible that Baxter was working under official cover for the CIA, as he had allegedly “consorted with anti-​­GOUV [government of Upper Volta] conspirators.” Sankara accused the United States of supporting Frederic Guirma and Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, who were “plotting against Sankara” from their base in Côte d’Ivoire. Walker immediately denied any US involvement in such plotting, but in his secret cable back to Washington, he requested “categorical re-​­confirmation we are not supporting any anti-​­GOUV [Government of Upper Volta] plotting.” Indeed, Sankara’s suspicions were nor far-​­fetched. The CIA’s clandestine wing was often running operations without communicating with the State Department. It’s also important to note that, at that time, the CIA was involved with dissident Ghanaians trying to destabilize the PNDC government of Rawlings in Ghana. Abortive coup attempts against the Rawlings government in 1983 and 1984 were traced back to the CIA, whose agents had been compromised in 1985 when a female CIA employee was arrested for passing documents to her Ghanaian contact. The CIA director even launched an ill-​­fated operation aimed at overthrowing the government in revolutionary Ethiopia, but Mengistu’s security forces thwarted it in December 1983. Thus Sankara had no reason to doubt that the CIA might try similar operations targeting his own government.37 Importantly, both Ghana and Upper Volta were now nonpermanent members of the UN Security Council, and the CNR would promptly start voting with Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ghana against the United States, even cosponsoring a Nicaraguan draft of the “Resolution on Central America” in

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the General Assembly. The State Department suddenly took a keen interest in the country. In a secret cable to Ouagadougou, Secretary Shultz highlighted the main American concerns. First, he stated, “We don’t want the Libyans or the Soviets to have free run of Upper Volta for their purposes.” Then he emphasized that Upper Volta was “going to be a member of a small and important club” and that its actions at the UN would be “extraordinarily visible.” He stated that policy would focus on “moderating” Sankara’s government and encouraging “reasonable voting behavior in the security council.” But he warned that the United States would likely encounter an “excess of Third World zeal.” Finally, he thought that, given the drought in the Sahel, the US had a “moral obligation” to provide aid for “one of the world’s poorest countries.” As we shall see, the drought conditions and famine were about to worsen in Upper Volta, just as political and military threats to the revolution loomed on the horizon. For Sankara, the two years ahead would be packed with constant travels, and he would have multiple opportunities to address international fora, such as the UN General Assembly. As such, Sankara was very much in the public spotlight during his first two years in power, and it played a role in broadcasting the events in Upper Volta and Sankara’s speeches to a much wider audience.38

Notes 1. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 28, 1983, FOIA. 2. SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, August 5, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, August 6, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 8, 9, 1983; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEbassy-​­Abidjan, August 9, 1983, FOIA; NID, CIA, August 6, 10, 1983; NIC memorandum from the director of Central Intelligence (DCI), August 18, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Lomé to SecState-​­WashDC, August 10, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Abidjan to SecState-​­WashDC, August 17, 1983, FOIA. 3. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 9, 1983, and August 8, 1983, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; New York Times, August 5, 1983, and August 7, 1983; Le Monde, August 9, 10, 1983; Times, August 6, 1983; Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1983; Cohen, Mind of the African Strongman, 17–30. 4. Afrique-​­Asie, August 29, 1983; Dailymotion, “T.Sankara: Conference de Presse,” last accessed March 27, 2015, at ­https://​­w ww​.­dailymotion​.­com​/­v ideo​/­x1c4rx; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 69–75. 5. Jeune Afrique, December 28, 1983; Le Monde, September 15, 1983; Touré, Une vie de militant, 108–109; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 1, 2, 7, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 11, 1984, and July 17, 1985, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, August, 22, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; see also Cohen,

“This Man Who Unsettles”  |  155 Mind of the African Strongman, 17–23; McGovern, Making War in Côte d’Ivoire; Bamba, African Miracle, African Mirage, 69–115. 6. Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, September 16, 29, 1983, FOIA; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 125–126; Afrique-​ ­Asie, December 5, 1983; Le Monde, September 22, 1983, and October 22, 1983; AMEmbassy-​ ­Bamako to SecState-​­WashDC, September 26, 1983; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEbassy-​­Abidjan, August 15, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 4, 1983, FOIA; see also Gleijeses, “The First Ambassadors: Cuba’s Contribution to Guinea-​­Bissau’s War of Independence,” 45–88. 7. SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga, August 17, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, November 10, 1983, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 199, 210–211; Shillington, Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, 101–127. 8. Afrique-​­Asie, September 12, 1983; Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983; SecState-​ ­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, September 16, 29, 1983, FOIA; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 114–115; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006. 9. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Moussa Ouedraogo, interview, March 12, 2013; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 17, 1983, FOIA; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 90–94. 10. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; see also Machel, Le Processus de la Révolution; Alpers, “Struggle for Socialism.” 11. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; “Valère Somé,” Libérateur 41, October 20, 2007. 12. Valère Somé, interviews, March 12, 2013, and August 28, 2015. 13. Valère Somé, interviews, March 12, 2013, and August 28, 2015; “Discours d’orientation politique” (DOP), in Sankara, Oser Inventer, 46–68 (henceforth I will provide page numbers from the English version in Thomas Sankara Speaks cited as “DOP”); Cabral, “Weapon of Theory,” in Unity and Struggle, 122–123. 14. DOP, 77–79; Otayek, “Avant-​­propos”; Englebert, La Révolution, 97–109; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 17–20. 15. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015. 16. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; DOP, 80–82, 88. 17. DOP, 84–89; Fanon, Wretched, 23; Cabral, Unity and Struggle, 134; Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 167–187; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 69–165; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 384. 18. DOP, 90–94; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 144, 183–185. 19. DOP, 94–103, 106–109. 20. Afrique-​­Asie, October 24, 1983; Jaffré, Biographie, 171; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 144; Jeune Afrique, December 28, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, October 4, 1983, FOIA. 21. Le Monde, October 1, 1983; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, September 16, 1983, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, October 24, 1983; Bat, Syndrome Foccart, 483–501; Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa, chap. 7. 22. Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015. 23. Ibid.; “Conference de presse de Thomas Sankara,” Vittel, October 4, 1983, on ­t homassankara​.­net; Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 60–61. 24. “Conference de presse de Thomas Sankara”; Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984; Andriamirado, Sankara, 129; see also Lenin, State and Revolution, 26.

156 | Thomas Sankara 25. Le Monde, October 4, 7, 8, 21, 1983. 26. Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983. 27. Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983; Martin, “Ideology and Praxis,” 77–90; Fanon, Toward the African Revolution, 186. 28. Afrique-​­Asie, October 24, 1983. 29. Jeune Afrique, October 19, 1983; Le Monde, October 8, 1983; AMEmbassy-​­Niamey to SecState-​­WashDC, October 7, 1983, FOIA; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga, October 15, 1983, FOIA. 30. Excerpt from “Draft Memoir” by Robert Pringle, courtesy of the author, 11–12; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014. 31. Carrefour Africain, April 6, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, April 19, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Nouakchott to SecState-​­WashDC, April 6, 1984, FOIA. 32. Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015. 33. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 13, 1983, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, February 9 and June 9, 1984, FOIA; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; see also Jaffré, Biographie, 179. 34. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, November 28, 1983, FOIA; Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983; Jeune Afrique, November 23, 1983; Afrique-​­Asie, November 21, 1983; see also Andriamirado, Sankara, 130–133, 228, footnotes 18 and 19; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 30. 35. Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983; Le Monde, November 7, 1983; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 31 and November 7, 1983, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 150; Westad, Global Cold War, 345. 36. Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 162–163; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 22, November 8, and February 15, 1983, FOIA. 37. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 6, 1983, FOIA; New York Times, July 12, 1985; Washington Post, November 27, 1985; Shillington, Ghana and the Rawlings Factor, 114–115; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 456–457; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015. 38. SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga, November 7, 1983, FOIA.

7 THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY, 1983–1984

T

he West African Sahel entered the dry season in the wake of another catastrophic drought that had lasted from 1983 to 1985. Crops failed, livestock herds were decimated, and whole villages were emptied as climate refugees fled for relief centers. “The coming of the Revolution of August 4, 1983 has coincided with rainfall deficits bringing about particularly bad harvests this year across almost the entire country,” the state-​­run newspaper Carrefour Africain reported. “Today the rural masses are already confronted with famine.” Facing a national emergency, the CNR communicated its plight to Western donors. Soon, food aid was arriving in massive shipments. In fact, across the wider Sahel, the humanitarian aid effort was tremendous, constituting what the UN called the “greatest peace-​­time relief operation in history.” Within Upper Volta, the CNR set up a “Revolutionary Solidarity Fund” and encouraged civil servants to donate part of their salaries to the relief effort. Although the contributions were paltry, Sankara saw it as an important national effort. Although he maintained publicly that “he who feeds you also imposes his will,” he saw no reason to reject food aid in such a situation of duress as long as it “respects our independence and our dignity.” In the coming months, Sankara would launch a nationwide effort to increase the availability of water as a way of achieving greater self-​ ­sufficiency. “Development requires solving a series of different problems,” he observed. “First, we must master the water problem.” Thus, a Ministry of Water was established in 1984, and over the next year the revolutionary government, working with local CDRs and NGOs, managed to build 250 new water retention structures, 1,980 wells, and 3,350 boreholes. “We put a lot of emphasis on self-​­subsistence, and on water. Because where you have water, you have life,” Germaine Pitroipa recalled. “We had dozens of projects for small dams to channel water for peasants to farm, wells, and such.” These

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efforts were especially beneficial to women, who often had to walk many kilometers to procure water for the family.1 Despite the self-​­reliance push, the number of NGOs in the country increased significantly during the revolution, and most of them were French. Sankara welcomed the work of NGOs, but he acknowledged their “good and bad” sides. Their lack of transparency and refusal to “share necessary information” often frustrated him. He also thought that they got too involved in local politics and made mistakes owing to their “patronizing attitude” vis-​­à-vis Africa. He even suspected that some NGOs served as “spy agencies for imperialism.” But rather than stopping their activities, he set up a special office for overseeing and coordinating them, under the direction of Alfred Sawadogo. NGOs were asked to shift their focus to areas of dire need, such as water holes, wells, water retention devices, and anti-​ ­erosion efforts. Sawadogo recalled the positive strides during the revolution: “Never had there been a moment as favorable for the action of NGOs as this period, when the needs of the communities were in step with the policies preached by the state.” Indeed, even as fiercely “hard and pure” anti-​­imperialist militants called for the expulsion of foreign NGOs from Upper Volta, Sankara understood that such an act would constitute a major setback for the revolution. As a result, both NGOs and local CDRs played important roles in development projects. Moreover, Sankara placed greater emphasis on people taking ownership of development, seeing them as the major stakeholders in local projects.2 The CNR moved swiftly to address the deeper structural issue of food security, emphasizing self-​­reliance. On April 26, 1984, Sankara initiated the expansion of irrigation in the Sourou Valley. Located in the western part of the country, it had long been targeted for agricultural development based on irrigation canals branched from the Mouhoun (Black Volta) River. Rather than start from scratch, Sankara encouraged ministers to dig through the government archives to find old projects worth resurrecting. “Thomas came to me and said, ‘Go find the documents on this project,’” Fidèle Toé remembered. “When the technicians told Thomas that it would take two or three years for the Sourou irrigation project, he went back to the Sourou Valley and just hung out there for a month to get the work done.” The military brought in the necessary material and equipment, and peasants provided the labor, as each village in the vicinity took its turn working on the dams and canals. Sankara spent weeks in the Sourou Valley, following the work and mobilizing the people. The project would bring

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twenty-​­four thousand hectares under irrigation and add considerably to the country’s grain production.3 In seeking greater food sovereignty, the CNR promulgated one of the most controversial decisions of the revolution: the “civil servants to the fields” policy. Government workers, from ministers at the top to the very lowest civil servants, were mobilized to work on collective farms. Some embraced the policy; they felt “reborn” in the fields through their “solidarity with the people.” The military also began producing their own food. “One of the marching orders was that the military get involved in agropastoral activities and farming. In the military camps, the soldiers had their fields, their chickens, pigs, and livestock,” Captain Paul Yameogo recalled. But many civil servants, soldiers, and ministers did not appreciate this decision, which called to mind the collective farms of the Soviet Union. They often sought to finagle their way out of their labor duties. But only one minister was bold enough to outright resist the policy. According to a US embassy cable, Captain Henri Zongo “refused to have members of his ministry participate in the planting and cultivation of ‘collective fields.’” In certain provinces, high commissioners and prefects also rejected the policy. Popular resistance to such military-​­style mobilizations of work crews became more common over the years.4 Even as the young revolutionaries struggled to bring the country together in a time of critical food shortage, acrimonious debates and tensions deepened within the CNR, partly owing to PAI-​­LIPAD’s efforts to reclaim control over the revolutionary process. Emboldened by their perceived hegemony, PAI-​­ LIPAD militants mobilized workers and party members to seize buildings belonging to the Post and Telecommunications offices, arresting the director, whom they accused of corruption. Other groups of PAI-​­LIPAD activists, armed with Kalashnikovs, tried to take over the mayor’s office in Ouagadougou. Many suspected that Soumane Touré was behind the action and that he was planning a follow-​­on coup with labor union support. In response, Valère Somé wrote to Sankara, urging him to break with the PAI. “You must persuade yourself that the quicker we are done with this Organization [PAI] and its annex (LIPAD), the better it will be for the Revolution,” Somé wrote. “Today know one thing: in losing the PAI-​­LIPAD leaders (it’s not certain their base will follow), you will conquer for the Revolution the countless masses.” To this end, he advised Sankara not to fear “crossing swords with our friends of the PAI.” In Somé’s mind, the struggle for unity was becoming a matter of life and death. But

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he misread the situation and exaggerated the threat of the PAI. In retrospect, Somé later regretted the falling-​­out with the PAI, as it fundamentally weakened the civilian left vis-​­à-vis the military, which grew insidiously in strength.5 Within the military there were emerging factions and ongoing disagreements over how power should be shared and organized. Most seemed to agree that a single party would serve to gain control over the tendentious civilian left. “After August 4, there was perpetual conflict between the civilian parties,” Commander Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré explained. “It was this division that pushed us in the military to embrace the idea of a single party. But Thomas and I had resisted for a long time the idea of a single party, because ‘the Party’ would create these potentates, and Thomas wanted to avoid this.” When Sankara met with PAI and ULCR representatives in December 1983 to discuss the formation of a single party, the discussion turned antagonistic. PAI leader Soumane Touré provided his perspective: “As the military began moving towards creating a single revolutionary party, we said that we weren’t in agreement with that. Since the time of Maurice Yameogo, we had said no to the one-​­party state. We saw it as a confiscation of our freedom. We opposed it in principle and had fought against it within our labor union movement.” As the exchanges heated up, Touré said that he confronted Sankara in the following way: “We have created our party for mobilizing the people in the revolution. It has nothing to do with the kind of military Bonapartist moves that are being made by your military colleagues. But by affronting us in this way you will be losing much support.” The PAI leadership walked out in protest.6 Sankara remained ambivalent about the idea of a “vanguard party.” In conversations with J. P. Rapp, he stated: “We don’t intend to focus our thought and concerns on the notion of a party. That could be dangerous. We’d be creating a party in order to conform to revolutionary dictums [and] from the moment you begin to base yourself on no more than a minority, the masses become disconnected from the struggle you are waging.” But around the time of the rupture with the PAI, he also acknowledged the internal bickering that threatened to divide the civilian parties. In an interview with Afrique-​­Asie, he explained that the “leftist organizations” were deeply split, owing to generational and ideological differences. He thought that the civilian parties were still too influenced by the old Sino-​­Soviet disagreements, which ended up “disorienting the left.” Moreover, he understood that one of the perennial challenges was slackening enthusiasm. For

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that reason, he was convinced that the revolutionary leadership had to stay responsive to people’s needs, knowing that durable change came from below. As he said in an interview with Jeune Afrique, “I consider myself as someone who has the duty to respect the wishes and the demands of the people. I will do as I am told by the people.”7 Development projects were being undertaken, with particular focus on addressing the peasantry. These projects picked up steam in 1984 as the CDR system grew in size and scope. After muddling through a chaotic beginning, eight months into the revolution the new “CDR Statute” finally laid out the various types of local CDRs, each with nine democratically elected delegates. It defined the governing structures from “the base,” composed of local CDRs, up through the departmental and provincial committees and councils, to the national level with its General Assembly and Executive Bureau. In the provincial rural setting, a high commissioner named by the CNR served as the main administrative link between peasants and the CNR. These provincial hubs of the revolution projected new state powers and initiatives into surrounding villages. Elections were held at all levels, except the Executive Bureau, and CDRs were granted local autonomy on questions “relevant to their competence.” Elections were decided by simply counting the number of supporters lined up in front of their preferred candidates. However, while the CDR Statute provided a clearer organizational flowchart, it did little to reform the system or limit abuses.8 As the revolutionary state addressed food security and used the CDR system to mobilize the people, it turned its attention to the question of corruption. On December 31, 1983, Sankara was hanging out with the Swiss academic Jean Ziegler and Malian journalist Mohamed Maïga and preparing his speech for the opening of the Popular Revolutionary Tribunals (TPRs). As Sankara and Maïga went back and forth in debate, Ziegler observed: “Between the young captain and the journalist, I sense a dramatic complicity: the journalist wants the president to succeed, survive, to win his daring wager of creating here, in the heart of Africa, a more just, free, and democratic society.” Indeed, Maïga had spent considerable time in Upper Volta, covering Sankara and the emerging revolution for Afrique-​­Asie. He had become an ardent supporter of Sankara’s efforts to clean up the system. Then suddenly, the day after meeting with Sankara and Ziegler, Maïga was dead, having collapsed in the hallway of his cousin’s home. The CNR marked his passing with days of mourning and vigil. Minister of Information Adama Touré soberly eulogized: “Maïga had been our spokesperson. . . . He made

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our country known.” Two days later, it was with a heavy heart that Sankara opened the first official session of the Popular Revolutionary Tribunals on January 3, 1984.9 The tribunals were inspired by other such systems, from the French revolution to the Cuban revolution—and more recently the “People’s Tribunals” established in neighboring Ghana in 1982, which aimed at ending corruption. The new revolutionary tribunals were composed of twelve CDR delegates, three judges, and three military officers and were presided over by a state magistrate. The judgments were made on the spot, without possibility for appeal. Defendants had no right to legal representation and were forced to defend themselves publicly. In most cases, they simply explained the sources of their illicit wealth and were then acquitted. Few were punished beyond public shaming. In this way, the tribunals were revolutionary theater; they made public the depth of corruption and used the spectacles of humiliation to clean up the system.10 In his speech, Sankara reminded the audience that the tribunals were the culmination of ongoing popular struggles. They were expressions of the people’s “revolutionary power.” He insisted that the courts would make justice more “democratic.” He thought the trials were also pedagogical in nature, taking on an “educational character through the explanations given to the popular masses.” The new courts were replacing the old legal system that had been used to “defend and uphold the interests of the ruling class.” It had been the “law of the richest”—in other words, of those who could buy their way out of legal trouble, either through bribing officials or hiring an attorney. In such a system, people were often “guilty of being poor.” The new justice system would fight for the oppressed and exploited. The tribunals served a crucial role in “constructing a new society,” by way of “issuing verdicts against socioeconomic and moral crimes.” As part of an effort to “moralize” public life, Sankara was blunt in stating: “These are in fact political trials.” At the end of his speech, Sankara invoked notions of revolutionary morality: “May the very next sessions in Ouagadougou open up a brightly lit path, at the end of which the skies of the universal revolution will shine the great sun of justice, shooting its powerful rays into the hearts of all those who hope.”11 The first to appear before the tribunal on January 3 was former president General Sangoulé Lamizana. His trial at the Maison du Peuple was filled to capacity, broadcast live via radio in multiple languages; trial proceedings were recorded and distributed on cassette as part of an emerging

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cottage industry. For days, Lamizana was forced to justify how the funds in his “special accounts” were used during his fourteen years in power. But listening to the trial over the radio, the public developed a certain compassion for the old general, as he patiently and painstakingly went over the accounts. After being publicly shamed in the process, Lamizana and his assistant were acquitted. But, as Afrique-​­Asie emphasized, the public character of the tribunals made them into happenings, moments for “reflection, not only on the past of Upper Volta, but also on the future.”12 As the Popular Revolutionary Tribunals drew up lists of potential targets, the old political class felt increasingly threatened. On May 3, 1984, they watched as former president Colonel Saye Zerbo was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Certainly, many were relieved when, after a year in prison, Zerbo, having converted to Christianity, returned to his home with his sentence commuted. But hundreds of others would soon find themselves in the same boat, usually convicted and placed under house arrest. The TPRs’ anti-​­corruption drive even ensnared French citizens and political elites from neighboring countries, as in the case of the Ivoirian minister Mohamed Diawara. The CNR was effectively dismantling the old clientelist networks while, according to Otayek, branding “the former leaders with a stamp of illegitimacy.” This reform of the judicial machinery meant that new revolutionary bodies were authorized to settle disputes that had traditionally been the preserve of chiefs and other customary authorities. The new courts were soon established across the country in the regional capitals, such as Bobo-​­Dioulasso, Banfora, Ouahigouya, Tenkodogo, Koudougou, Fada N’Gourma, and so forth. While the system was effective in eradicating corruption, it also generated widespread discontent.13 The old political class delivered a riposte, drawing on French support to destabilize the CNR. Following their incendiary statements at the time of the Vittel Conference, the teachers’ union, SNEAHV—which had supported the Zerbo regime—resumed its attacks on the CNR. Largely ignored within Upper Volta, the union was appealing to a French audience and banking on Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo’s prestige in French political circles. Members of the CNR saw the move as a blatant political stunt aiming to discredit the CNR’s relationship with the labor movement. The broadsides against the CNR escalated until March 9, when the secretary-​­general of SNEAHV, Jean Bila, was arrested with two other colleagues. Sankara was against draconian anti-​­strike measures, but he knew that strikes had long been used

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“to make and break governments,” as he said. Furthermore, on the day of the strike a special broadcast on French television was devoted entirely to Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo, who was considered a “dissident” in exile. According to Sankara, the broadcast was one piece in a larger effort: “[The French] were aiming to build this man up, to give him a certain credibility. It was a double maneuver aimed both at putting this kind of individual back in the saddle and destabilizing the situation inside the country.”14 Leading up to the planned strike on March 20, Commander Jean-​ ­Baptiste Lingani informed the French embassy that the CNR was expelling two French military advisers for “reasons of internal security.” The strike went ahead, and right away the national police compiled lists of the teachers. Within the CNR, a special committee, led by Minister of Education and PAI Leader Emmanuel Dadjoari, decided to suspend the teachers. The PAI leadership saw an opportunity to settle scores with the SNEAHV and to crush their rival, Ki-​­Zerbo. Sankara was reportedly dismayed. “The same night of the publication of the dismissal decision, Thomas Sankara came to see me at my home,” Valère Somé recalled. “We engaged in a heated discussion over the mistaken character of this decision. When he left around 23:00, we had both come to the agreement that the decision had to be reversed. The next day, March 23, he called a special meeting of the Council of Ministers in order to reconsider the decision. . . . [But] a majority came out in favor of maintaining the decision.” Sankara was forced to publicly defend a position he opposed. In preserving the image of unity within the CNR, he maintained that SNEAHV union leaders and the former political class had used the dismissed teachers like “shock troops” as “part of a destabilization plan aimed against both Ghana and our country.” The upshot was that 1,380 teachers were fired. In the aftermath, Sankara proposed that each individual case be examined in order to reintegrate as many teachers as possible. “Sankara was adamant about getting the teachers back, but the CDR Secretary-​­General, Pierre Ouedraogo, pushed back, saying that the process had to go through CDR channels,” Fidèle Toé explained.15 At the popular level, the dismissals were met with confusion and disapproval. According to Pascal Sankara, ordinary citizens held Sankara responsible. “The masses didn’t understand,” Pascal explained. “They viewed it as: ‘Sankara fired the teachers.’ That was all they heard.” For those in the teaching profession, it was an ominous sign. Marc Dubois, former Peace Corps volunteer and director of Médicins Sans Frontières, remembered the local reaction: “Sankara ended up firing all the teachers. Ironically, Reagan was

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doing the same kind of thing with the air traffic controllers. But many of my friends were teachers, and that strike reverberated way out in Nouna. It was a very important moment, in the sense that there was a kind of brutality to it.” As the revolution deepened and power struggles ensued, competing narratives emerged. Stories and events, such as the teacher dismissals, were kept alive and debated. They became weapons used by Sankara’s adversaries.16 At this time, on the economic front, the so-​­called “green bean scandal” erupted and reverberated in the local press for weeks. As part of the French destabilization effort, Houphouët-​­Boigny reportedly used his influence over Air Afrique to put pressure on Sankara, refusing to provide adequate flights to export Upper Volta’s green beans to France and elsewhere. In an interview, Sankara described: “A systematic boycott of exports from Burkina is organized in order to strangle us economically and cause problems between us and the growers.” Sankara explained that farmers had for a long time produced green beans specifically for export to France, and that this had always been done amicably in collaboration with the French-​­owned airline company UTA and the African multinational airline Air Afrique based in Abidjan. Then these airlines suddenly “refused to ship them.” Sankara explained: “As a result, tons of beans began to rot at the airport, since we had no facilities for storing and preserving produce.” Nothing could be done to “safeguard the income of the poor peasants who sweated blood to produce the beans.” Sankara was particularly disturbed that such a travesty would occur at a time of famine in the region, that food would be wasted for political reasons.17 Coming under intense pressure and facing internal divisions, Sankara called a CNR meeting to revisit the “necessity of fusing all the revolutionary energies at the heart of a single movement,” as Adama Touré recalled. On May 15, PAI leaders responded with a letter in which they gave their conditions, such as the stipulation that the “new political organization would have Marxism-​­Leninism as its ideology.” Up to this point, they had seen little evidence that the rules of “democratic centralism” were being followed. They warned against “precipitous and improvised policies” that threatened to alienate the population. A few days later, in the CNR meeting, conflicts were quick to emerge. According to Touré, Sankara was “visibly ill at ease” and felt “personally targeted.” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, functioning as the military spokesman, also took umbrage at the PAI criticisms. For the military faction, the disputes indicated an insurmountable generational divide.

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“We wanted to discuss things with Adama Touré as equals, but he continued to see us as his students and was always trying to guide us,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré recalled. “It became too difficult to maintain the rapports with him for this reason. Therefore, the first big internal conflict in the revolution was with the PAI. They saw themselves as our fathers and wanted to be in charge. We saw it differently, and eventually we forced them from power.”18 Soon after the meeting, the rivalry between PAI leaders and the military reached a boiling point. The occasion was an anniversary celebration planned to mark the mobilization following May 17, 1983. The PAI leaders saw it as an opportunity to commemorate their role in the revolution, and so Minister of Youth Ibrahim Koné held a rally on May 20. Pierre Ouedraogo, the CDR chief, responded by holding his own CDR-​­sponsored May 21 rally, but few bothered to show up. Feeling humiliated by his insipid event, Ouedraogo called for Koné’s removal, and late on the evening of May 21, Sankara acquiesced. PAI leaders were aghast, as Soumane Touré recounted: “After Pierre Ouedraogo organized their march and it was a flop, they reacted by dismissing Koné. From this moment, the military began a campaign to weaken the PAI in the media and across the country.” As the PAI leaders got up to leave, Touré turned to Sankara: “It’s understood then. This is an affair of the military against the civilians. It’s the military that wants to get rid of us. You have begun this. Don’t forget that we were your base and brought you to power. This is politics and the people won’t understand it.” But behind the scenes, the military faction had lost its patience with the PAI leadership, and many supported a final rupture. Blaise Compaoré had retreated to Pô and refused to return to Ouagadougou until the PAI-​ ­LIPAD had been purged from the government. In the meantime, a shadowy organization known as the Inter-​­CDR took to the local press to attack the civilian left. “At the heart of the Inter-​­CDR was a military group that was working in coordination with Blaise secretively,” Pascal Sankara recalled. “They were against the ULCR and PAI, and all the leftist civilian parties. It was mainly under the control of the military.”19 Just a week after the definitive fracturing of the leftist coalition, the CNR was confronted with a more nefarious plot. On May 27, as Sankara was scheduled to travel to Côte d’Ivoire for a meeting with Houphouët-​­Boigny in Yamoussoukro, a group of putschists was arrested in Ouagadougou. The coup plotters were mostly senior military officers who had been forced into early retirement. With backing from members of the old political class and Mossi leadership, their coup on May 28 was to coincide with Sankara’s trip

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to Côte d’Ivoire. Immediately upon learning of the arrests, the CNR began an investigation, and soon roughly thirty suspects were rounded up and subjected to torture and mock executions until they talked. Finally, it was determined that the coup leader was Colonel Didier Tiendrébeogo, who had recently been dismissed from his position. A former mayor of Ouagadougou under Lamizana, and a prominent Mossi officer, Tiendrébeogo was connected to the old Mossi power structure. Other coup leaders were Lieutenant Maurice Ouedraogo, Lieutenant Moumouni Ouedraogo, Lieutenant Moussa Kaboré, former adjudant-​­major of the gendarmes Barnabe Kaboré, businessman Adama Ouedraogo, and the airline pilot with Air-​ ­Volta, Anatole Tiendrébeogo. The CNR accused the coup plotters of being in league with Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, who had remained in Côte d’Ivoire since August 4, and with Joseph Ki-​­Zerbo in Dakar. The plotters had even put forward Ki-​­Zerbo as the man to replace Sankara after the coup. It was expected that Ki-​­Zerbo’s involvement would guarantee the intervention of French troops and French diplomatic support. In the military tribunal, when a guilty verdict was reached and seven officers were sentenced to death, Sankara protested the decision.20 Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré recalled: I was with Thomas at the time of the plot. Once the plot was discovered, they started gathering information. And we had a significant amount of material evidence, even bombs and weapons. So Thomas said to let the CNR structure judge the plotters. They judged them, and finally they sentenced them to death. Once the verdict was issued, we were in a meeting of the CNR, and we posed lots of questions to the committee in charge of the investigation. As we discussed the fate of the plotters, I remember the phrase that Sankara uttered in disappointment: “We are trying to lead a humane revolution here. We don’t want a revolution that eats its own children.”21

The CNR meeting turned ugly. Many civilian members walked out in protest. “I did not participate. I couldn’t do it, because my uncle had already been killed after August 4, and that marked me,” Valère Somé remembered. “I was still traumatized by that, and I didn’t want any part of more bloodshed. As for Thomas, he was not in agreement with the committee, but he couldn’t do anything about it.” In the midst of the political crisis, Adama Touré broke rank and talked to Agence France Presse. The conservative daily paper L’Observateur picked up the interview, in which Touré protested CNR actions. The article was interpreted as an affront to the CNR’s military faction, and Sankara immediately responded by calling his former history teacher and requesting a meeting. According to Touré’s memoir, he told

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Sankara: “Neither PAI nor LIPAD are, or ever will be, your enemies. Your enemies are located in your own entourage, among those who conspire against the two organizations.” Sankara acknowledged that some of the individuals in his entourage were “not sincere friends,” but he was still far from realizing that there were enemies in his own camp, such as Compaoré, who was spearheading the move to annihilate the civilian left and working to marginalize Sankara’s allies. As the conversation wrapped up and Touré left the office, Sankara saw Commandant Amadou Sawadogo, his friend from Bobo-​­Dioulasso, who had been tasked with organizing the upcoming August 4 anniversary. However, Sawadogo would be assassinated—in a military-​­style ambush while driving in Ouagadougou—a month later. The perpetrators were never caught. But his murder was a major blow to Sankara, and it once again reminded him of the growing dangers of the revolutionary power struggles.22 On June 10, the day before the coup plotters were executed, the offices of L’Observateur were burned to the ground. It’s uncertain whether it was an act of revenge for the publication of Touré’s inflammatory comments or a preemptive measure to muzzle criticism of the planned executions. But the country’s only independent newspaper, founded in 1973 and edited by the lycée professor and journalist Edouard Ouedraogo, was now effectively shut down. The CNR officially condemned the actions, and the military faction pointed fingers at PAI-​­LIPAD. But civilian leftists suspected that Pierre Ouedraogo had ordered the action as a way of consolidating control of information. In fact, just two months before, on April 5, the CNR had established its own official state-​­run daily newspaper, Sidwaya (The truth has arrived). As press freedoms disappeared, people in the streets took to calling the government newspaper Zirwaya, meaning “The lies have arrived.” Jeune Afrique editor Hugo Sada recalled that the burning of L’Observateur’s offices was viewed as an ominous sign. “There were moves against free speech, almost Leninist in its suppression, especially after L’Observateur was crushed,” Sada remembered. “For Burkinabe journalists, it was difficult, and a rather harsh opinion developed based on the lack of freedoms in reporting. Press was controlled by the state.”23 The following day, all seven putschists of the “plot of the Mossi plateau” were executed by firing squad. Four others were sent to prison. Pierre Ouedraogo stood firm on the decision, telling the New York Times that “profound change” had “always been accompanied by violence.” Blaise Compaoré defended the actions of the special military tribunal, while

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Sankara publicly justified the executions, saying: “We were in a particular situation that did not allow me to respond favorably to requests to pardon those accused. Justice had to take its course. . . . The logic of some situations leaves you no choice. This is a decision you must make alone. It’s distressing, painful. Agonizing.” Privately, according to family oral histories, Sankara was devastated. “When they executed the officers, Thomas came here,” Valentin Sankara recalled. “He took off his beret and sat quietly with tears in his eyes. Mother asked him what was wrong. He just said, ‘They executed the men.’” Others in the family bore witness to Sankara’s grief. Pascal Sankara remembered: “After the execution, he came to the house and spent an hour alone without speaking. He was very sad. He had pity for the soldiers and their families.” Ordinary people questioned the revolutionary government for “spilling Voltaic blood.” Many of the Mossi were particularly enraged, and for them it became a question of honor. Their anger would keep alive the rancor felt toward the revolution and deepen the narrative of Sankara being a usurper and not a “pure Mossi.” 24 Outside of Upper Volta, the image of the CNR as a violent military regime took hold, especially in Western news reporting. Le Monde lambasted the CNR in numerous articles, questioning the veracity of the coup plot allegations and insinuating that the “political executions” were part of a move to consolidate power. Other Western news sources suggested that the coup plot was a ruse to silence the political opposition and that the executions were a “warning” to other political opponents. This image of a brutal military regime was popularized in the French spy novel Putsch à Ouagadougou (Coup in Ouagadougou), published in 1984 by Gerard de Villiers, France’s preeminent author of espionage fiction. According to US diplomat Robert Pringle, when the book was published, it caused “a kind of literary political crisis.” In Putsch à Ouagadougou, a CIA assassin is sent to kill Sankara as part of a plan to overthrow the CNR. The plot fails, but the book itself generated a highly unfavorable image of the revolution. Sankara said very little about the book, but when it came out, he sent a signed copy to the US ambassador as a provocative gift.25 On June 12, Commander Lingani informed US ambassador Walker that the coup plotters claimed to have “sought assistance from the US embassy.” Lingani provided no proof of the allegations, but according to US cables, Walker confirmed that two of the plotters, Didier Tiendrébeogo and Barnabe Kaboré, had actually visited the embassy “under the pretext of seeking employment” after being forced into retirement from the military, adding

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that both of them had “relatives by blood or marriage working on the embassy staff.” It’s possible that the coup plotters had contact with US intelligence. The director of Africa analysis at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) remembered: “After they executed these officers for conspiracy to overthrow Sankara, and I think our own CIA may have had contact with some of them, Sankara thought the plot was backed by the US, but there was no US involvement.” The CIA was certainly involved in destabilization efforts in neighboring Ghana around that time, and, for Washington, Sankara was becoming one the bêtes noires of West Africa, alongside Rawlings. US diplomats jokingly called it the “Tom and Jerry Show” in cable traffic. In any case, the evidence suggests that the putschists were seeking coup support rather than operating as agents of foreign powers. But in the fallout from the accusations, Sankara’s relationship with Walker deteriorated, to such an extent that a US embassy cable reported: “The Sankara regime has few friends left in Washington.” To make matters worse, Sankara soon announced that Upper Volta was boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles for “political reasons,” though, as with other countries that boycotted the games, they did so in opposition to apartheid South Africa. In a statement, Sankara explained: “We should use these games, like any platform, to denounce our enemies and the racism of South Africa.” However, as a result, Sankara was soon reaching the nadir in his relations with the United States (see chap. 9).26 On June 23, 1984, Sankara took to the road for a ten-​­day trip, visiting numerous African countries, including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Gabon, Congo-​­Brazzaville, Nigeria, Burundi, and Madagascar. He wanted to shore up international support and repair the image of the revolution. But the tour mainly served to acquaint Sankara with African heads of state before the upcoming Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting, which took on added importance given Upper Volta’s position as a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council. Sankara’s press team and the state media used the trip to bolster Sankara’s tarnished image by touting him as a Pan-​­Africanist leader. Up to this point, he had said little about Pan-​­Africanism. Although he would eventually come around to proposing solutions to perennial problems, such as debt, based on African unity, he also had rather tendentious relationships with fellow African heads of state. His only close ally was Jerry Rawlings. After meetings with Mengistu Mariam in Addis Ababa, Sankara passed through Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he met with Julius Nyerere for two hours. Adama Touré

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recalled that Julius Nyerere warned Sankara about the Ivoirian president and encouraged him to be prudent and vigilant, but Sankara brushed it off, “estimating without doubt that all this advice was coming from heads of state [who were] not sufficiently revolutionary.” Indeed, by that time, Sankara viewed most of the older generation of “revolutionaries” and independence leaders as having sold out and lost their direction.27 In Madagascar, Sankara was the guest of honor for the country’s Independence Day celebrations. As with each stop on his itinerary, CDR members exited the plane first and, with the help of a loudspeaker, chanted revolutionary slogans to herald Sankara’s descent from the plane. The visit generated a warm welcome and extensive local media coverage, and Sankara was given numerous platforms for expressing his views on a range of issues, including the plight of the Palestinian people, the Iran-​­Iraq War, and denuclearization of the Indian Ocean region. But, according to observers from the US embassy at Antananarivo, President Ratsiraka seemed “uncomfortable with some of his guest’s more inflammatory attacks on the bourgeoisie.” Sankara was also in Gabon for a three-​­day stay under the auspices of Omar Bongo, who had developed a kind of paternal affection for Sankara. “Right away, we felt at home. There was paternalism,” Etienne Zongo remembered. “It was an emotional connection.” Indeed, Western diplomats were a bit puzzled by his visit to Libreville, given that Sankara and Bongo, a pillar of French neocolonialism in Equatorial Africa, were considered at opposite ends of the political spectrum.28 The highlight of the trip was Sankara’s visit to Mozambique, whose president and national liberation hero Samora Machel had been such a great inspiration for young revolutionaries. After their meeting at the Nonaligned Summit in New Delhi, Sankara had read Machel’s writings, and Machel had reciprocated by following the revolution in Upper Volta and providing vocal support. In Maputo, the two men spent much time together and had several multi-​­hour discussion sessions. There was a state dinner in honor of Sankara, and Machel was a gracious host, lauding the merits of Sankara. However, in response, Sankara set aside his prepared remarks and delivered a strongly worded criticism of Mozambique’s recent Nkomati Accord with South Africa, stating that it was a betrayal for many Africans. Machel appeared surprised by the comments, and after the national anthems, he turned and explained to Sankara that for a decade he had lived in the forests, eating weeds and lizards, while he fought to liberate his country. He said that he had signed the accord with South

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Africa because his people were tired of war and that he was now looking for peace. He added that nobody was giving him lessons in patriotism in his own country. Reporting on the “Mozambique incident,” Upper Volta’s Foreign Ministry was quick to provide an explanation, characterizing Sankara’s exchange with Machel as “an unfortunate misunderstanding.” But the ministry, according to a US embassy cable, also observed: “Sources say Sankara’s banquet speech had been carefully worded to avoid criticism of the Nkomati accords. But, they say, Sankara departed from the text. . . . One source noted Sankara’s criticism of an ‘elder statesman’ was a cultural mistake that might be difficult to rectify.” In a press conference following his trip, Sankara was frank in his discussion of South Africa, backing up his recent criticisms of the Nkomati Accord. Although his advisers indicated that he regretted his harsh words to Machel, now he reinforced them: “Racist South Africa will never cease being a poison, a thorn in the side of all Africans.  .  .  . That’s why while avoiding giving lessons or criticizing our Angolan and Mozambican comrades, we do remind them of their duty to fight against racism.” In any case, two years later, when on October 19, 1986, Machel was killed in a plane crash—which many suspected was the work of South African intelligence—Sankara was filled with regret. At the funeral, he struck a defiant chord, attacking imperialism, saying that Machel’s death must serve to “enlighten and strengthen us as revolutionaries,” that people should resist falling into “sentimentalism” and instead “stand firm, hand in hand with other revolutionaries, because there are other plots lying in wait for us.”29 Sankara’s homecoming was widely publicized in Ouagadougou and was celebrated as a great diplomatic success. Local press accounts in Sidwaya, Carrefour African, and Radio-​­Télévision crafted an image of Sankara as a Pan-​­Africanist hero. Observers in Ouagadougou were alert to the narratives, as a US diplomat reported: “Government controlled print and broadcast media have given widespread coverage to Sankara’s 10-​­day trip . . . [stories portray] Sankara as a second-​­generation ‘Pan-​­Africanist.’ . . . Photos of him with Machel, Ratsiraka, Bongo, and Mengistu reinforce this image. Some of the language has been so flowery it suggests a ‘Sankara cult’ may be in its nascent stages, a phenomenon which till now has been noticeably absent.” While the media efforts did not convince fellow African heads of state or diplomats, the image of Sankara as a Pan-​­Africanist hero resonated with the African youth. Indeed, in his ensuing press conference, the focus was on African affairs and Upper Volta’s relations with fellow

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African countries. Largely evading criticism of Côte d’Ivoire, Sankara drew attention to the “deep affinity” shared between his country and Ghana, and he spoke expansively about revolutionary solidarity: “Our revolution is an ideology that blows freely and is at the disposal of all those who feel the need to take advantage of it.” However, Sankara balked at the question of forming a “league of Black African states,” as suggested by Mobutu. Given his solidarity with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Western Sahara, and other countries not considered “black” in Africa, he protested the notion of a “two-​­color OAU,” as he explained: “We should be thinking of forming a single-​­color OAU. . . . [But] with regard to how we conceive of the OAU, there is no room for the color-​­sensitive. There is only one color—that of African unity.” Harkening back to an earlier era, one of Sankara’s diplomatic goals was building a “united front” of African and other nonaligned countries in opposition to “imperialism.” This meant eventually forging a united front against debt (see chap. 11) while challenging the conditions and politics of foreign aid; as Sankara stated: “Aid must go in the direction of strengthening our sovereignty, not undermining it.”30 Despite his public statements, Sankara knew that he could not break with France or Western donors at that time. CNR members were painfully aware that their country was heavily dependent on the former colonial power. France still remained by far the largest and most important bilateral donor in Upper Volta, contributing 40 percent of Upper Volta’s annual budget. This included $9 million in direct “budget support,” a fact that the CNR chose not to make public. There were also around three hundred French advisers and technicians still working in various domains across the country, and France was Upper Volta’s largest trading partner. Upper Volta’s debt to France was roughly $155 million and had fallen deeply into arrears. With very little to export, the biggest “industry” was foreign aid. In fact, there were more than a hundred different aid missions in the country, and around 90 percent of Upper Volta’s capital investment in development came from foreign aid. The major companies, hotels, and restaurants were still French owned, and they catered to the large expatriate community. As a symbol of this reality, one journalist reported that amid Ouagadougou’s “sprawl of corrugated metal shacks,” there were “old French colonial boulevards with a surprising number of tall, modern buildings inhabited mostly by aid and development bureaucrats.”31 There was a striking incongruity, then, between the CNR’s anti-​ ­imperialist rhetoric and the neocolonial realities that enveloped Upper

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Volta. The Mitterrand government certainly knew this. According to the State Department, the French were naturally “irritated by Sankara’s frequent anti-​­French petulance and by sporadic hostile actions” but were reportedly willing to “endure insults while providing Sankara with the aid he needs for survival, in the firm hope that like past African radicals he will calm down in time.” And, indeed, Sankara was unrelenting in his criticism of French policies. In his August 4 press conference, for example, he stated that “France has to learn to deal with the African countries, at least with us, on a new basis.” He expressed feelings of betrayal, using biblical references to obliquely call out French actions and subversion efforts. Seeing the “kiss of Judas” in Franco-​­African relations, he stated: “We’re aware that the Judases know who they are and perhaps, having been caught red-​ ­handed plotting against us, they’ll betray themselves . . . a person can deny everything, but their deepest intentions will come out in the end.” Sankara understood that the revolution was “stirring up the tranquil pond of Franco-​­African relations,” but he held the conviction that “dialogue with France must be frank.” In Paris, French officials at Cooperation and Michel Lévêque at the Quai—who would soon become the French ambassador to Libya—explained to US diplomats that such rhetoric had to be taken with a boulder of salt. They took the view that as long as Sankara’s words were not followed by actions, then the French would not need to reexamine relations with Upper Volta.32 Thus, Blaise Compaoré went to Paris in June 1984 to work on the Franco-​ ­Voltaic accords. But traveling with the controversial Zairian journalist Buana Kabué, who had made a “bad impression” on the French, Compaoré was kept at arm’s length. According to the US embassy in Paris, Mitterrand expressed his displeasure by refusing to receive Compaoré above the “technical level.” Then Compaoré traveled back to Ouagadougou with a French delegation for a second series of negotiations. Finally, in July, during a visit from Christian Nucci, minister of cooperation, to Upper Volta, the accords were adopted. Even as Sankara had dreams of autarky, the country had limited options. State coffers were empty, and the CNR was facing major budgetary problems. In a July 13 internal CNR memo, Minister of Finance Justin Damo Barro even warned Sankara that unless something was done to reduce the predicted deficit, it would “end in the stoppage of our national economy and endanger the accomplishments of the revolution.” According to the US embassy, the CNR memo portrayed “in stark terms a looming financial crisis that can only be addressed by budget support from bilateral

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donors or an IMF program.” The CNR predicted an operating deficit of $22.5 million for 1985, which would lead to the inability to cover costs, especially the wages of civil servants. Although Sankara was resistant to an agreement with the IMF, France’s budget support for 1985 depended on conditions. A US cable from Paris explained that the government of France “for the first time added IMF’s conditions to its own less onerous ones for annual structural assistance (read ‘budget support’). Because of poor financial management in Ouagadougou, this year’s 70 million francs will be available only if the GOUV [government of Upper Volta] complies with IMF demands.” Upper Volta’s compliance was kept secret, and Sankara kept up his anti-​­aid posturing in public settings. But many within the CNR were coming to see this growing contradiction, and resulting risk, as unsustainable.33 Political rivalries within the CNR finally led to the official expulsion of the PAI-​­LIPAD faction from government. On August 19, the CNR dissolved the first revolutionary government by decree, and it soon became an all-​­out confrontation between the PAI-​­LIPAD and military factions. In an interview for Radio France International, Soumane Touré did not mince words, directly attacking the CNR. In response, Touré and a few of his companions were held at gunpoint for several hours. A LIPAD leaflet described the incident, in which armed men showed up at Touré’s house in an unlicensed pickup truck and threatened them. Touré promptly fled Ouagadougou. Other key PAI members were purged from the government, including Adama Touré, Philippe Ouedraogo, Ibrahim Koné, and Arba Diallo, all highly respected and skilled ministers. Years later Arba Diallo reflected on the rupture within the CNR: “Sankara seemed subjected to multiple pressures from within his entourage. . . . The rupture that happened in May 1984 and was official in August 1984 was due, in my opinion, to the fact that the special relationship between the PAI and President Sankara was not also shared between the PAI and the military group [which] wanted to assert its hegemony over the regime.”34 Just as the PAI was expelled, other organizations were materializing, claiming to represent the “real revolution.” Former PCRV members of the far-​­left (pro-​­Albanian) group joined forces with certain military factions, and in early August 1984, they formed the Burkinabé Communist Union (UCB). Within a year of its creation, the UCB came under military control with CDR chief Captain Pierre Ouedraogo as de facto leader. Its other nominal leader, Watamou Lamien, replaced Adama Touré as minister of information and had Stalinist dreams of expanding state control.

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Both Clément Ouedraogo and Watamou Lamien would play central roles in engineering Sankara’s overthrow three years later. Alongside the UCB, the Burkinabé Communist Group (GCB), created in Bobo-​­Dioulasso in May 1984, infiltrated the ranks of Sankara’s internal opponents. The group’s leaders included Jean-​­Marc Palm and Jean-​­Pierre Palm, two of Compaoré’s most reliable henchmen, who began a secretive war of salacious leaflets targeting Sankara and feeding false information about Sankara to Western embassies. In essence, both “communist” parties were creations of military factions within the CNR that masqueraded as the “hard and pure” left and were used as political weapons to finish off the civilian left, especially the PAI. Seeking to present themselves as the “real revolution,” they turned their sights on Sankara and his allies in the ULCR.35 PAI leader Luc Joseph Traoré provided his analysis: When the link was cut with the PAI, the power remained in the hands of the military, and smaller leftist parties, like the ULCR. But these smaller parties did not have the weight to really oppose the military faction. So Sankara was at the mercy of them. An eventual coup against him was predictable. Once the rupture with the progressive forces was complete, his enemies, the military clans that were against his progressive ideas, were able to maneuver and defeat him. Because even though Sankara had been forced to cut ties with the PAI and the real civilian left, he was still trying to apply progressive ideas, but without the institutional support of these groups. He was always convinced of these progressive ideas. He was honestly trying to achieve the objectives of the revolution. But the problem was that many of military officers were simply trying to get rid of the civilian leftists and remove them from power. Unfortunately, that’s what happened.36

Indeed, when the new government was finally announced on August 31, not a single PAI leader was among the list of ministers. Former PAI ministers were promptly reassigned as managers of construction projects around Ouagadougou. Then two months later, Adama Touré, Arba Diallo, and Philippe Ouedraogo and eight other PAI leaders were arrested and imprisoned for “counterrevolutionary acts.” It was a regrettable turn of events for the political party that had played a leading role in bringing Sankara to power. In any case, henceforth, the dissolution of the government became an annual tradition. To keep the “revolutionary flame” alive, ministers could not get too comfortable in their positions of power or come to believe that they were “untouchable and immovable.” Invoking Lenin, Sankara summed up: “It is necessary that each of them knows that the Minister is but a servant and that every militant must be ready to serve in

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government. Because the office of Minister is neither a priesthood nor a sinecure.” Just as Lenin spoke of all officials as “public servants” being “subject to recall at any time,” Sankara envisioned a system in which government leaders returned to being modest citizens, rather than encouraging the further entrenchment of a ruling class that jealously guarded its privileges. And yet, we should note, this ethos was selectively applied. Sankara’s position was not “subject to recall,” nor were those of the quartet of leaders, most of the military leadership, or Sankara’s closest friends. But for Sankara, the decision to dissolve the government annually was “a revolutionary pedagogic formula,” even as it instilled a deep sense of anxiety and uncertainty. Sankara’s internal civilian enemies became more vocal; they decried the consolidation of power in military hands and criticized what they saw as arbitrary “revolutionary measures,” which had the effect of sowing fear within the bureaucracy.37 In a parallel move, the revolutionary government ramped up its efforts against the traditional chieftaincy. Local CDR delegates effectively supplanted the chiefs, who came to be viewed as “enemies of the people.” But in many villages, rural notables and chiefs were keen to participate in the CDRs and even subvert their original intentions. This infiltration of “reactionaries” led leftist activists to worry about the direction of the revolutionary movement. And yet in perilously allowing the relationship between the Mossi chiefs and the state to deteriorate, Sankara was tempting fate. According to Claudette Savonnet-​­Guyot, the Mossi had a well-​­k nown proverb, “Wendé [the Mossi supreme being] does not allow the chieftaincy to be humiliated,” and many thought Sankara’s government was doing just that. The Catholic hierarchy kept a low profile, but, according to Sawadogo, it was known that “the Catholic milieus did not hide their hostility to the revolution.” In fact, the challenges and difficulties associated with the revolution led many Catholics to seek deeper refuge in their religious lives. “To devote oneself to God was the surest refuge to exorcise evil,” Sawadogo explained. Certain “charismatic Catholic prayer groups” even prided themselves on “prayers towards freeing the country from the terrible Sankara.” The revolution was still widely popular, but resistance to revolutionary policies was growing. The rapidity of change was dizzying for many ordinary people, and especially for the elders. With chiefs and elders finding themselves in opposition, Sankara risked alienating powerful groups. Soon he would lose the support of left-​­wing labor unions. Even as he pushed harder to mobilize the people and inspire them to “take their destiny in their hands,” as he

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said, Sankara could feel political unity among the revolutionary leadership slipping beyond his grasp. In the year ahead, he would redouble his efforts; he would accelerate the revolutionary process. He threw himself further into addressing the plight of his country, forging ahead with new projects while embracing a more populist approach, bypassing the leftist parties and appealing directly to “the people.”38

Notes 1. Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983; UN Chronicle 22, no. 2 (February 1985); UN Chronicle 22, no. 8 (September 1985); UN Chronicle 23, no. 2 (February 1986); Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 125–126, 203–204, 290; Kaboré, Histoire, 584; Labazée, “Réorganisation économique,” 10–28; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 13, 2013. 2. Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984, and April 23, 1984; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 206–209; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 42–43. 3. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 25, 2015; Carrefour Africain, April 6, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 211. 4. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 25, 2013; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 117–120; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, June 18, 1986, FOIA. 5. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 103–114; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 138–141; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015. 6. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 95–130. 7. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 220–222; Afrique-​­Asie, March 26, 1984; Jeune Afrique, October 12, 1983; Martin, “Ideology and Praxis.” 8. Carrefour Africain, June 8, 1984; Englebert, La Révolution, 135–139, 238–254; Afrique-​ ­Asie, September 24, 1984, and February 13, 1984. 9. Afrique-​­Asie, January 16, 1984; Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 44–45. 10. Afrique-​­Asie, January 30, 1984; Andriamirado, Sankara, 154; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 19, 1983, FOIA; Kaboré, Histoire, 177–178; see also Gocking, “Ghana’s Public Tribunals,” 197–223. 11. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 110–119. 12. Afrique-​­Asie, January 30, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 179–181. 13. Otayek, “Burkina Faso,” 18–22; Jaffré, Burkina Faso, 113–126; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 25, 2013. 14. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, March 12, 1984, FOIA; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 223–224; Kabeya-​­Muase, “Retour au Burkina.” 15. Afrique-​­Asie, April 23, 1984; Touré, Une vie de militant, 143; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, March 16, 1984, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 117–119; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 223–224.

The Struggle for Unity  |  179 16. Marc Dubois, interview, August 23, 2014; Pascal Sankara, interview, March 21, 2015. 17. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 211–212. 18. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015, Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 120–121; Afrique-​­Asie, September 24, 1984; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 88. 19. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Carrefour Africain, May 25, 1984; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 95–96; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 119–120; Jaffré, Biographie, 204. 20. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 28, 1984, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984; Andriamirado, Sankara, 126–129. 21. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015. 22. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, June 9, 13, 14, 15, 20, 1984, FOIA; Touré, Une vie de militant, 130–136; Kaboré, Histoire, 217–219; Carrefour Africain, August 16, 1984. 23. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 209; Touré, Une vie de militant, 145–149; Kaboré, Histoire, 218; Hugo Sada, interview, April 29, 2013; Dubuch, “Langage du pouvoir.” 24. New York Times, July 22, 1984; Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 100–103; Jaffré, Biographie, 205; Andriamirado, Sankara, 126–129; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 229–231; Pascal Sankara, interview, March 21, 2015; Valentin Sankara, interview, August 18, 2015. 25. Le Monde, June 1, 14, 1984; Le Monde, July 6, 1984; New York Times, July 22, 1984; Pringle, “Memoir”; New York Times Magazine, February 3, 2013; de Villiers, Putsch à Ouagadougou; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 265. 26. Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Julius Walker, ADST interview, 98–99; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 5, June 13, 14, 15, 20, 1984; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga, June 16, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 134. 27. AMEmbassy-​­DaresSalaam to SecState-​­WashDC, June 27, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 9, 1984, FOIA; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, July 2006; Touré, Une vie de militant, 110–112. 28. Afrique-​­Asie, July 16, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Antananarivo to SecState-​­WashDC, June 29, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Libreville to SecState-​­WashDC, July 3, 1984, FOIA; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000. 29. Carrefour Africain, June 29, July 6, 13, August 10, 1984; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; AMEmbassy-​­Maputo to SecState-​­WashDC, July 5, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 9, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 120–135, 313–320. 30. Carrefour Africain, June 29, July 6, 13, 1984; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 9, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 120–135. 31. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, April 28, June 18, July 6, August 7, 1984, FOIA; New York Times, December 12, 1983. 32. AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, June 20, August 3, 1984, FOIA; “Burkina: Pressures on Sankara,” CIA-​­Directorate of Intelligence, August 1986, FOIA; Carrefour Africain, August 10, 1984; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 120–135. 33. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, June 18, July 6, 30, 1984, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, August 3, 1984, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984. 34. Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, September 24, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, August 25, 1984, FOIA; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Martens, Sankara,

180 | Thomas Sankara Compaoré, 95–99; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 210; Touré, Une vie de militant, 149–153; “Hama Arba Diallo répond aux questions,” t­ homassankara​.­net, accessed March 2016. 35. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 144–149; Kaboré, Histoire, 172–173; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 147–159. 36. Luc Joseph Traore, interview, March 4, 2013. 37. Philippe Ouedraogo, interview, August 31, 2015; Afrique-​­Asie, September 24, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 162, 581–585; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 31, 1984, FOIA; Carrefour Africain, August 23, 30, 1985; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 48–49; Lenin, State and Revolution, 32–48. 38. Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984; Jeune Afrique, November 11, 1987; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 84–114; Savonnet-​­Guyot, “Le Prince et le Naaba.”

8 “DARING TO INVENT THE FUTURE” Nation Building and the Promise of Revolutionary Change, 1984–1985

O

n August 4, 1984, Upper Volta was rebaptized as Burkina Faso. “We have decided to change names,” Sankara told an audience in Harlem two months later. “We wanted to kill off ‘Upper Volta’ in order to allow Burkina Faso to be reborn. For us, the name ‘Upper Volta’ symbolizes colonization.” In an anti-​­imperialist and nationalist move, the CNR chose a name that was inclusive for all citizens, a name that said something about the national character. It means the “Country of Honest People,” combining the Mooré honest person (burkina) with the Jula country or homeland (faso). Citizens adopted the demonym Burkinabé, which connoted integrity, self-​­respect, and the love of justice. It resonated with the population and filled many with a new sense of pride.1 The revolution was at its apogee in this second year, and Sankara was riding the crest of popularity. The state-​­run news made him the centerpiece of their coverage, as foreign journalists broadcast his message to an even wider audience—which corresponded with his high-​­profile travels to the United States, Cuba, China, and elsewhere (see chap. 9). This period saw many of the revolution’s signal achievements, as the powerful forces of hope and optimism were mobilizing the people. As one grassroots activist described: “In my mind, the revolution lasted only for two years, 1983–1985, the real revolution, before the divisions ruined everything. For two years, we worked together to liberate Burkina from imperialist domination and corruption, and to achieve self-​­sufficiency.” After the military faction consolidated its power, Sankara had a much freer hand to push ahead with various projects—building roads, schools, clinics, and so forth. Many of

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them were successful, and some failed or might best be regarded as symbolic gestures. But for Sankara, the “most important thing” was the “transformation of people’s attitudes” and the raising of political consciousness.2 To celebrate the first anniversary of the revolution, the CNR scheduled ten days of concerts, sporting events, and parades. Reggae star Jimmy Cliff graced the new Chinese-​­built “Stadium of August 4,” and at a certain point, Sankara came onstage with his guitar, accompanied by Jerry Rawlings on vocals. Afrique-​­Asie reported on the scene: “Locals and foreigners were able to dance in the popular balls of the capital’s neighborhoods, or in the military mess halls. Sankara and Rawlings, whose very informal attitude doesn’t surprise anyone, set a good example to the musical rhythms of a Cuban band coming from Havana.” As the revolution won over supporters among the youth in neighboring countries, Sankara assumed his role as a Pan-​­Africanist hero. “We started to see Sankara as a Pan-​­Africanist,” one youth supporter remembered. “When Jerry Rawlings came here for the celebrations, I saw him with Sankara, and they were dancing together at an event. Rawlings said that for Ghana and Burkina Faso, we were fighting the ‘same fight’ together. This would be the beginning of wider unification of African countries in our common struggle.” As part of the show of unity and the larger revolutionary theater, Burkinabé and Ghanaian soldiers paraded together down Avenue de l’Independence. In the ceremony at the new stadium, soldiers carried out choreographed moves on the playing field. Invoking the organized mass exercises of communist states, they formed a large star and raised a flag with a picture of Sankara at its center. As part of the scripted event, audience members across the stands held up colored placards spelling out “Vive le CNR.” Then, in his address to the nation, Sankara called for political “clarification” in order to unify the revolutionary movement. Speaking over the heads of elites to the workers and peasants, he said it was time to move beyond the “sterile theorizing” of left-​ ­wing parties to consolidate “people’s power.”3 After a turbulent first year, Sankara reached out more directly to the people. He found solace and inspiration in excursions to rural villages, far away from the toxic capital city politics. Concomitantly, he used his charismatic appeal to mobilize peasants in local projects or to help resolve disputes over land. Within Ouagadougou, he was known to travel around incognito, often wearing a Tuareg turban and robe. He liked getting people’s unfiltered opinions, and he was especially interested in the conversations of market women, given their close interaction with their resource

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base of wood, water, and grain. Alternately, Sankara rode around town on his bicycle in the evening, without his presidential guard, stopping frequently to talk to locals.4 In a 1985 interview, he explained: You have to take the time to listen to people and make a real effort to enter into every milieu, including those with little to recommend them. You have to maintain relations of all kinds—with the young, the elderly, athletes, workers, the great intellectuals, and the illiterate. In this way, you get a mountain of information and ideas. . . . We can become aware of our errors collectively and retrace our steps together. I must take steps to inform myself. I must break with protocol and everything that boxes us in. At times, too, I must say what I’ve discovered and denounce specific situations. This shakes things up. . . . Every week I answer fifty private letters, at the very least, asking me the most unimaginable and unanswerable questions. But we keep the lines of communication open.5

In striving to unify the nation, Sankara was particularly concerned about ethnic divisions and “tribalism,” which he viewed as a “plague in our country.” He feared that such divisions “could become an efficient instrument in the hands of reactionaries.” Thus, reaching out to all regions and ethnic communities was essential, especially at a time when the drought caused widespread population displacement and social tension. As an ethnic minority himself, Sankara embraced more inclusive political practices and brought more ethnic minorities into government. Although still dominated by Mossi, the CNR became a highly multiethnic governing body, with members belonging to Fulfuldé (Peul), Gourmantché, Samo, Lobi, Bobo, Marka, Gourounsi, and other smaller ethnic groups. A new system of identity cards removed any reference to a citizen’s ethnicity. The change was widely celebrated, as one man in Houet Province recalled: “Before the revolution, as a Peul, they saw me as a foreigner, and we were marginalized. The revolution changed that thinking. It really reinforced the idea that we were all Burkinabé. Sankara introduced the new identity cards, and you no longer had your ethnicity marked on the cards. It was a big change, especially for the non-​­Mossi.” In an effort to establish more direct contact with the people, the CNR divided the country into 30 regions and 250 departments, and this administrative-​­territorial redivision empowered ethnic minorities by giving them greater administrative control over local institutions of power.6 To help construct a new kind of nationalism, in which diversity and unity were both embraced, the CNR launched the National Week of Arts and Culture, which was hosted in the different regional capitals on a rotating

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basis: Ouagadougou (1983), followed by Gaoua (1984), and then biannually (Bobo-​­Dioulasso in 1986), alternating with the FESPACO film festival (1985 and 1987). Indeed, Sankara repeatedly emphasized the importance of culture and its role in the revolution. In his mind, given that social revolution was “the radical transformation of society at all levels,” this meant that “every revolutionary process must result in a cultural revolution,” that “the revolution, in our present context, is above all a mental liberation.” During Culture Week, the CDRs mobilized hundreds of different music groups, theater troupes, artists, dancers, sculptors, craftspeople, and filmmakers, who came together from the four corners of the country to share their regional expressive cultures with fellow citizens. “Popular Balls” were created in order to “revolutionize the role of music.” To generate enthusiasm, Sankara was often onstage for impromptu jam sessions. At the Gaoua festivities in December 1984, his informal band, Tout à Coup Jazz, even opened the ceremonies. But, as part of this initiative, the old “bourgeois” nightclubs were shut down, replaced by state-​­run venues, often military mess halls, that held concerts at a reduced price. With this democratized access to music, many professional musicians saw their ability to make a living diminished.7 Bebey Bissongo, who was recruited into the revolutionary youth band Les Petits Chanteurs aux poings levés, recalled: Sankara played an important role in bringing young musicians into the revolution. But at the same time, he preferred the military bands and gave new musical instruments to the military corps, the police, and so forth. Honestly the soldiers were not exactly musicians. It wasn’t good music. But the civilian groups could barely play around town anymore to earn money, because the military bands would offer to play for free. The Popular Balls offered revolutionary prices, 300 CFA, for the concert. Before it was 1,500 CFA to attend a concert. That was good. It was democratic. But the quality of the music went downhill.8

In a broader shift in political culture, the revolutionary government introduced new slogans, expressions, images, and modes of representation into the political lexicon. As we have seen, much of the rhetoric was drawn from the communist world, such as the use of comrade and certain Marxist social categories in public discourse. But over time, the revolution developed a “caricatural side,” as Robert Malley has observed. As the revolutionary state was purged of most of its educated and experienced Marxists, the military leadership sought to compensate by adding Marxist phrases to their statements. “The military guys spoke the language of revolution,

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but they didn’t really know what it meant,” US diplomat Leonardo Neher recalled. “They pretended to be Marxist, and to do Marxist thinking, but there was no Marxist logic in it. Particularly Blaise Compaoré. I remember he tried to pretend that he was doing a kind of Marxian analysis, and it was absolutely laughable. It made no sense.” Nevertheless, in other ways, it was a “révolution du verbe,” a symbolic and rhetorical revolution that brought innovations in language and political discourse. Neologisms were coined, and new concepts were adopted in local languages. Even for administrative actions, an ordinance was now called a zatu, a decree was a kiti, and a ministerial act was a raabo. Radio and television programming delivered content in indigenous languages, not just French. Political rallies were often accompanied by music and dance performances by troupes from various ethnic groups. As part of this movement to indigenize national culture, Sankara took to wearing Faso Dan Fani, the traditional homespun cotton garments. This kind of nativism was not a particularly original move. African leaders had been discarding Western suits and donning traditional garb or inventing new forms, such as Mobutu’s abacost. But the Faso Dan Fani fashion soon spread, generating a resurgence of artisanal handicraft textile production. Village cooperatives now generated revenue through the sale of handicraft textiles, and women were the primary weavers, which aided in their economic liberation. As a sort of “revolutionary badge,” Faso Dan Fani was a symbolic statement of commitment to the “consume Burkinabé” effort. Although no administrative directive obliged people to wear the clothing, those in the government knew that Sankara was “so attached to the principle of wearing local cotton cloth that no agent of the state dared to transgress this un-​­written law,” Sawadogo recalled. As a result, a cheap variety of Faso Dan Fani appeared in the marketplace, taking the name “Sankara arrive” (Sankara arrives), after Sankara’s legendary surprise visits to bureaucratic offices, which spurred civil servants to suddenly throw on their “Sankara arrive” garments.9 Four days after the revolution’s anniversary, Sankara announced a decree on agrarian reform, making all lands “national estate.” The new emphasis was on user rights, rather than simply those with “first-​­comer status.” In justifying the efforts to nationalize the land, Sankara cited the “complete anarchy of our grain distribution” and the plight of “thousands and thousands of peasants who were compelled to give up their land to usurers.” Several months after the decree, he further explained: “The land today belongs to the Burkinabé state . . . [and] the state can entrust

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the use, management, and cultivation of the land to one who works it.” Many embraced this idea that all national citizens should have access to land regardless of their ethnicity, and it spurred a movement of internal migrants seeking free land in more fertile zones. However, in many parts of the country, the CNR was “unable to implement the new legal prescriptions at the local level,” as Carola Lentz has argued. Management of land access remained largely under local control—mediated through indigenous institutions and authority structures—even as the new state laws “diversified the ideological arsenal employed in local struggles over property rights.” Beyond land reform, the CNR ended the chiefs’ rights to call on corvée labor among its people, thus whittling away at the local power of chiefs, and abolished the “head tax,” which all peasants had paid since the colonial period.10 The CNR had considerable success in pursuing local development and infrastructure projects. Prefiguring the Five-​­Year Plan of 1986, the Popular Development Program (PPD) coordinated the various local projects, which depended on the participation of ordinary people. Locals provided labor, and the PPD supplied materials. According to an analysis in the state newspaper Carrefour Africain, around 81 percent of the financing came from foreign donors, and 19 percent came from within Burkina. Over fifteen months, from October 1, 1984, to December 1985, the PPD succeeded in building 351 primary schools, 314 health clinics, 88 pharmacies, 2,294 new wells, and 274 local water reservoirs. It set up a network of grain banks for times of dearth, extended anti-​­erosion works to stem the spread of the desert, mobilized tree-​­planting campaigns, and created community vegetable gardens. The state distribution mechanism, Sovoncom (Société Voltaïque de Commerce), expanded commercial networks to smaller towns and rural areas. Eventually renamed Faso Yaar, the stores aimed to prevent grain speculation and price gouging.11 With the PPD in full swing, the military shifted its focus to development, and Sankara asked Paul Yameogo to take charge of the new program. “Thomas called me and said that he wanted to institute the SND, the National Development Service,” Yameogo explained. “Since we’d done Madagascar together, he had this idea. It was the same kind of thing, and he asked me to be in charge of directing the SND.” Under the SND, there was a broad conversion of activities from strictly military to agricultural production. Ordinary people marveled at the accomplishments and were happy to see the military, the “army of the people,” so involved in improving the lives

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of civilians. As one resident of Ouagadougou recalled: “The military became productive too. They weren’t just hanging out at the camps anymore earning money. They got involved in farming, and it was a real uplifting of the country. But sometimes this military character of things also hurt the revolution because civilians felt that they couldn’t say no to the military.” This use of military organization led to the CNR’s characteristic “commando-​ ­style” national campaigns to fight illiteracy, vaccinate children, build roads, and plant trees. Sankara was highly visible in these campaigns, often taking part in collective labor, as US diplomat Charles Twining explained: “There was a considerable element of self-​­reliance in their approach. On Saturdays, Sankara would go out with the entire government and work with the population. People would be there pounding sticks in the ground to build a railroad. The rails would go in all directions. They planted trees everywhere in the country in the face of the advance of the Sahara.”12 Among the commando-​­style campaigns, on November 25, 1984, Minister of Health Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré announced “Commando Vaccination,” aimed at immunizing three million children against the measles, meningitis, and yellow fever in just two weeks. Health ministry officials traveled to Colombia to study a similar operation underway and gleaned valuable advice from the Cubans. China, the Netherlands, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF provided the vaccines and covered much of the costs. It was a massive undertaking. Every nurse in the country was enlisted, using a pyramidal system of training to quickly get the personnel up to speed. In charge of the campaign, Minister Kaboré used radio, posters in local languages, and even traveling theater groups to inform the people about the upcoming campaign. At the local level, CDRs were tasked with carrying out censuses and distributing vaccination cards. Then, after starting virtually from scratch, the vaccination teams crisscrossed the country from November 25 to December 10, 1984. They were able to vaccinate 1.1 million children against measles, 2.6 million against meningitis, and 2.1 million against yellow fever. Burkina Faso was among the first African countries to embark on such a “high-​­voltage” immunization campaign, and it won praise from the international community and World Health Organization (WHO).13 Commando Vaccination generated momentum in the CNR’s wider effort to establish a modest national health care system. Sankara committed Burkina to the “Alma Ata” principles of the WHO, expanding primary health care services and adopting strategies recommended by UNICEF

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that focused mainly on women and children. Over the following year, PPD built roughly 7,500 local health clinics, at least one in every village. By 1986, there were 7,137 newly trained village-​­level health care professionals and 7,497 midwives. The campaign successfully put in place for the first time a basic health care structure in rural areas, shifting more resources from urban dwellers to the rural majority. Broadly, from 1983 to 1987, public spending on health care increased by 42 percent. In a parallel move, the CNR initiated “Mass Sports Day” to improve people’s health, targeting mainly workers and civil servants. Across the country, on every Monday and Thursday afternoon, citizens were released early from work and encouraged to engage in sporting activities. Sankara, who was often seen playing soccer or handball with various ministers, viewed sports as a way of getting people to take charge of their lives. “When you don’t have discipline, everyone has their faults, their vices, that come to the surface progressively, and it’s easier to let these vices take over,” he explained in a 1985 interview with Swedish public television. “So we must do exercise, we must do sports, to discipline ourselves, to achieve a certain mental, physical and psychological fortitude.”14 The most high-​­visibility commando-​­style project was the “Battle of the Rails.” Launched with great fanfare on February 1, 1985, the project was intended to construct a railway line from Ouagadougou to Dori—a distance of three hundred kilometers—in order to exploit the manganese mines in Tambao. Unable to procure external funding, the CNR mobilized the people in massive voluntary brigades. A journalist from Afrique-​­Asie reported: “Merchants, customs agents, soldiers, journalists, workers from diverse backgrounds take their turn with the pickaxe and the shovel. . . . It’s not rare to see Captain Sankara going to the worksite.” But after eighteen months of work, and thirty-​­three kilometers of track, the government ran out of rails, and the project was suspended. The dream of exporting manganese slowly faded. In fact, the only mining venture that produced revenue was the gold mine in Poura, after the CNR managed to procure foreign investment funds, mostly French. The company, Société de Recherches Minières du Burkina (SOREMIB), a public-​­private partnership, was soon exporting gold at a value of 24 billion CFA francs per year. By 1987, gold exports were valued at 74 billion CFA francs. Unfortunately, in due course, certain individuals in the CNR would eventually smuggle gold to Côte d’Ivoire for self-​­enrichment.15

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One of the perennial problems was the lack of adequate housing in urban areas, especially Ouagadougou, and the concomitant expansion of improvised dwelling spaces on urban peripheries. Sankara saw that addressing the issue of unplanned urbanization would require both urban building projects and more investment in rural areas. “All the shantytowns are being torn down in order to build decent housing in their place,” he said in an interview. “We are also attempting to reduce as much as possible the difference between city and country by developing in the countryside all the infrastructures to make rural life more pleasant and thus to slow down the rural exodus.” Now everyone was legally entitled to an urban lot. Soon, Ouagadougou became a massive worksite, with large parts of the city being rebuilt. Some older neighborhoods were razed completely, and as expected, people complained that they had been unfairly displaced. In a few cases, small mosques and churches had to be demolished and relocated, which provoked anger from local congregations. Another part of this urban renewal was the “clean town” campaign, through which the entire capital city was cleaned. Local CDRs mobilized residents, who poured out into the streets to clean up their neighborhoods, sweeping the streets and digging out open sewers. It became a weekly ritual as citizens picked up the broom as a symbol of taking responsibility for their country. An extension of this initiative, operation “white city,” mobilized people in groups to paint their homes and buildings white. However, the operation was widely resented, partly because the white paint was costly but also because during the next dry season the buildings were once again coated with the familiar orange patina of dust. Sankara saw the error, and the white city campaign was jettisoned.16 More broadly, peasants and workers expressed their discontent over the collective work groups. According to Afrique-​­Asie, in rural villages around Kombissiri, peasants complained about the excessive demands, while in Ouagadougou one worker told local leaders: “In twenty-​­three years, we have never seen such things, projects being done simultaneously. The people will not follow you very long at this pace.” When Minister Adama Touré visited a worksite in Gaoua during the farming season of July 1985, he was confronted with similar views. A family friend stated to him: “The people are not happy and compare the current labor on the construction worksites in town to forced labor of the colonial period.” A US embassy cable echoed this view and provided some insight into the CNR’s top-​­down revolutionary process: “Sankara rapidly if unwittingly reveals a heavily paternalistic

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streak . . . stimulating the inert masses, anesthetized by generations of feudal then colonial leadership, toward heroic feats of production. To accomplish this, he is convinced, will require a great deal of mobilization and organization from above.  .  .  . In a revealing slip, he compared his vision of the work of the CDRs with French colonial projects done with forced labor.”17 As the revolution was hitting full stride, Sankara developed a penchant for making snap decisions without much CNR debate. Even his staunchest defenders and close friends have acknowledged these errors in hindsight. One such case occurred on December 31, 1984, when Sankara announced that tenants would no longer be paying rent for residential properties. Hoping to lighten the burden on the poorest citizens, he stipulated that all payment for renting houses and apartments would be suspended. Given that Burkina had no major industries to nationalize, the main “class interests” were those of property owners, mainly landlords. Sankara’s hero Lenin had called for such measures, “to let houses without rent is bound up with the complete ‘withering away’ of the state,” and Sankara knew this well. But he also drew inspiration from the concrete examples from Libya and revolutionary Cuba, which provided rent-​­free housing for certain social groups. In an interview, Sankara justified the decision: “When we say rents no longer have to be paid, the worker benefits. But the union leaders had houses that they rented out, so they could not be happy.” As anticipated, although the decision was applauded in some quarters, it generated considerable resistance among property owners and civil servants. “When Thomas declared that rentals would be free for the year of 1985, he made the decision in a hasty manner, announcing it in his speech over the radio,” Fidèle Toé recalled. “Perhaps he could have taken more time to analyze it and given people six months to prepare. There was a lot of discontent stemming from this measure.” In fact, because of the backlash, the experiment lasted only a year, and it further embittered the “petty bourgeoisie.”18 The war on the petty bourgeoisie was in evidence the following week, when on January 8, 1985, the Popular Revolutionary Tribunal of Ouagadougou took up a case tied to the National Social Security Fund (CNSS) in order to investigate the mismanagement of funds. Under scrutiny was Sankara’s colleague and PAI leader Soumane Touré. Convinced that a political maneuver was in the works, Touré—secretary-​­general of the CNSS and head of the largest labor confederation, the CSB—went on the offensive. With the tribunal’s proceedings broadcast live over Radio-​­Burkina airwaves, he

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attacked the CNR itself, accusing its members of embezzling state funds. In retaliation, he was promptly arrested, and he would remain in prison for the next twenty-​­one months. The country’s most influential labor leader was now a political prisoner. The CSB labor confederation rallied its forces and released a tract denouncing the government actions. The CNR responded by orchestrating a chorus of counterattacks while arresting or dismissing other key union leaders. At a pro-​­government rally in downtown Ouagadougou, Blaise Compaoré denounced the “anarcho-​­syndicalism” of the leftist unions and declared that “defamation of the government” would henceforth be met with “revolutionary force” and “immediate arrests.” A couple of weeks later at a rally in Bobo-​­Dioulasso, Sankara inveighed against the “reactionary petty bourgeois intellectuals of the left.” He explained that such “revolutionaries” were torn between their wallets and the “books of Karl Marx and Che Guevara.” At the same time, however, he reached out to the moderate labor union leaders as a counterweight to the left-​­wing unions. On February 23, he called a meeting that included Boniface Kaboré of the National Organization of Free Trade Unions (ONSL), representing a large percentage of private sector workers and affiliated with the ICFTU in Brussels. Sankara was looking to shore up support from the moderates to avoid united labor opposition. But the attacks on the left-​­wing labor unions had a chilling effect on many civilian supporters.19 According to Sankara, the CNR’s conflict with labor unions was “basically a problem with the leadership of these organizations.” Union leaders, he acknowledged in an interview, “contributed a great deal to the revolution” but were now “dreaming of sweeping away the bourgeoisie in order to take their places.” He wanted to avoid the unfortunate outcome of so many revolutionary movements—like Benin, Guinea, and many others—in which former union leaders became the new ruling class. As the revolution advanced, he thought it was necessary to confront the petty bourgeoisie and reduce its privileges. “If we raise their salaries, they organize support marches. If we cut them, they protest. They don’t see the peasants and how they benefit,” Sankara said. “Every revolution that starts out with the petty bourgeoisie comes to a crossroads where it must choose what road to take. To take on the petty bourgeoisie means keeping the revolution radical, and there you will face many difficulties  .  .  . And when we take on the petty bourgeoisie, we take on the very leadership of the revolution.” Nevertheless, for some observers, these attacks on the same civilian left that had brought Sankara to power seemed disingenuous and bewildering. Even foreign

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diplomats were baffled by the appearance of a leftist revolutionary government attacking the civilian political left.20 As we have seen, since the Political Orientation Speech, the petty bourgeoisie had been viewed as a social group that “vacillated” between the interests of workers and the bourgeoisie—and even included the peasantry, students, and the revolutionary leadership. But now there was a discursive shift, as the label was applied selectively to civil servants, merchants, and union leaders. For Sankara, part of the problem with the petty bourgeoisie, including the revolutionary leadership, was their “neocolonial way of thinking.” Many had studied in France and acquired “certain habits,” leading them to feel that “being successful in life, being happy, meant trying to live as the French do in France.” Sankara saw this as a result of Western cultural hegemony. “From imperialism’s point of view, it’s more important to dominate us culturally than militarily,” he observed. “Cultural domination is more flexible, more effective, and less costly. This is why we say that to overturn the Burkinabé regime you don’t need to bring in heavily armed mercenaries. You just need to forbid the import of champagne, lipstick, and nail polish. Only the bourgeoisie is convinced they cannot live without them.” Combating these “habits” required better organization and communication, as imperialism was “not an isolated thing” but rather a “system.” He summed up his vision: “As revolutionaries, from a dialectical point of view, we should understand that we too should have a system. You have to counter a system with a system, an organization with an organization.” In essence, raising political consciousness required an ongoing investment in cultural institutions.21 Sankara had long advocated for the building of “popular theaters” as crucial instruments in revolutionary change, and he took an interest in the FESPACO festival and the role it could play in building greater Pan-​­African solidarity. During the first two years of the revolution, old cinema halls were renovated and new ones were erected. In Ouagadougou alone, six new theaters were built. Some provincial towns even had their own small outdoor theaters. Drawing on French colonial practices, Sankara made it state policy to bring films to the people by setting up mobile movie screens and projectors. Most of the films were documentaries about African liberation struggles and revolutionary heroes like Lumumba, Nkrumah, or Che Guevara. One of the most popular was A Luta Continua (1971), the Robert Van Lierop documentary about the liberation struggle in Mozambique, which provided an inspiring inside look at the Mozambique Liberation Front’s

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social programs, self-​­reliance campaigns, and efforts to promote gender equality. Many of the films were pedagogical reports showing local development projects and were used to educate and mobilize peasants.22 Artistic cinema also took a big leap forward, as the 1980s saw the emergence of such Burkinabé filmmakers as Idrissa Ouedraogo and Gaston Kaboré, whose renown reached beyond Burkina. By this time, FESPACO had become the largest film festival in Africa, and Sankara played an active role in promoting it. African film critic Frank Ukadike was left with the impression that Sankara was “the only African leader who was wholeheartedly committed to the development of African cinema.” Indeed, he was highly visible at the festival, attending screenings and debates. There was a special buzz in the air, as many visitors were curious about the revolution. When the first revolutionary-​­era festival was held from February 23 to March 2, 1985, it developed a particular theme—“Cinema and the Liberation of Peoples”—highlighted on posters, flyers, and banners around town. The theme was demonstrated in the choice of films, such as Algerian war epics and anti-​­apartheid movies. Many films from this era reflected Sankara’s revolutionary ethos and explored themes like self-​­reliance and gender equality, as seen in Ouedraogo’s Yam Dabbo (1986). One of the most unforgettable festival events was the showing of Burkinabé filmmaker Paul Zoumbara’s Jours de tourments, about a young farmer struggling to turn an arid patch of land into a garden. Given Sankara’s self-​­reliance push, Manthia Diawara observed, it was one of the “best tools of instruction” in revolutionary Burkina Faso. Visitors to Ouagadougou saw even more concrete examples of self-​­reliance, as festivalgoers were invited to take part in the Battle of the Rails. In a joyful atmosphere, foreigners went to the worksite, picked up shovels, and contributed a bit of their labor to the railroad. Finally, there was a colloquium, attended by such figures as Ousmane Sembène and Mongo Beti, with the aim of discussing how African literature could be made more accessible to the public beyond the literate elite.23 Education and literacy drives helped to raise political consciousness. After months of studying the educational system, the Council of Ministers met on September 19, 1984, and passed a decree lowering tuition for all schools across Burkina Faso by roughly 50 percent. In order to lower costs, the revolutionary state found ways to save money. PAI leader Luc Traoré was put in charge of overhauling the accounting system, and he found that 40 percent of the educational budget was being spent on gasoline, as public employees routinely used the system, especially at the university, to pay for

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their own personal consumption. This privilege and others were promptly ended, freeing up funds for strictly educational purposes. Overall, from 1983 to 1987, CNR spending on education increased by roughly 26 percent per student. This contrasted with many African countries in which austerity measures had led to drastic cuts in education spending. In essence, the goal was to provide education for as many people as possible, as Sankara viewed schools as “instruments at the service of the revolution,” aimed at ending “illiteracy and obscurantism.” At a certain point, coming under pressure from key military leaders, he even entertained the possibility of closing the university and shifting the resources to broad-​­based “popular education.” However, he encountered firm pushback from his civilian colleagues, and the plan was abandoned. Educational reform would eventually lead the CNR to embrace a vast Cuban-​­style national campaign, or “Alpha Commando,” targeting adult literacy. By 1986, the literacy campaigns also focused on indigenous languages as a way of reaching a wider population. Overall, during the revolutionary period, they were able to raise the functional adult literacy rates from 12 to 22 percent. But there was considerable work to be done in leveling the playing field between men and women, as literacy campaigns often privileged men and primary schools were still attended by far more boys than girls.24 As FESPACO ended, thousands of women, including rural female CDR delegates and provincial leaders, converged on Ouagadougou for the National Week of Women. It culminated on International Women’s Day, March 8, 1985, with a day of discussion panels and speeches at the Maison du Peuple, marking the country’s largest mobilization of women. Since taking power, Sankara had emphasized the importance of advancing women’s rights, and the Political Orientation Speech had set its goal of building a “free and prosperous society in which women will be equal to men in all spheres.” However, thus far, women had been slow to embrace the revolution, especially in rural areas, where its presence was unevenly felt and often poorly understood. Sankara acknowledged “problems in mobilizing women,” which he attributed to their uncertainty around how the revolution would help them. He thought that women were often waiting for their men to “liberate them” and that they had not become fully conscious of their oppression. He understood the challenges that women faced in participating in the revolution, so he made a habit of reaching out to his female colleagues, providing encouragement and support. Germaine Pitroipa, the female high commissioner of Kouritenga, encountered considerable

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Figure 8.1. Koupela, Burkina Faso, August 4, 1985. Germaine Pitroipa, high commissioner of Kouritenga Province, one of many revolutionary women leaders. (Pathfinder)

resistance in her new role, as she recalled: “For me the biggest difficulty was the fact that I was a woman. The men didn’t want to accept this; above all, the customary chiefs wouldn’t accept me giving them orders.” Hearing about her challenges, Sankara frequently visited her in Koupela in order to reinforce her authority.25 From 1984 to 1985, the CNR invested more energy and resources in organizing meetings and rallies aimed at getting women involved in the revolution. In one of the first major events, on September 22, 1984, the revolutionary state arranged a day of “husbands to the markets,” and men went to the markets instead of their wives. It was a day of playful gender inversion. But in many localities the event failed to really gain traction. Nevertheless, it marked a growing engagement of women with the revolutionary process, which was targeting such issues as polygamy, female circumcision, domestic violence, and forced marriage. Women soon became more visible in the new revolutionary political culture, leading rallies and coining new slogans. They formed women’s revolutionary music groups, called the Colombes de la révolution, which performed around the country and opened for Sankara’s speeches. A leader of the group, Fatou Diallo, emerged

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as something of a revolutionary icon, with her Kalashnikov and electric guitar. “During the revolution, we got women involved in all domains, such that as women, we were viewed as ‘men in skirts,’” Germaine Pitroipa explained. “In the villages, we went to educate women about the revolution, to make them aware of their role in society. Eventually, women really developed a desire to learn and understand the revolution. They started taking the initiative, forming weaving and beer-​­making cooperatives. In the schools, girls were more involved and active in the debates. But we never used the term feminism. For us, we were simply women who militated, as revolutionaries, comrades, battling for the people.”26 In the broader context, while Sankara was far in advance of his contemporaries on women’s issues, the revolution took place within an era of increasing women’s political participation in Africa. In fact, the UN’s Women’s Decade from 1975 to 1985 culminated in the UN Conference on Women held in Nairobi in 1985, which served as a major turning point in bringing greater awareness to African women. Within Burkina, by 1985, Sankara thought that women had become “more conscious” and capable of explaining “clearly and objectively the basis of their oppression and domination.” Institutionally, on September 19, 1985, women formed their first political organization, the Women’s Union of Burkina (UFB), while the CNR brought more women into government. Every local CDR—village, neighborhood, workplace, and school—had elected female delegates. ­Sankara implemented a 30 percent quota for all government offices: ten of the thirty provinces had women serving as high commissioners, while one-​­third of rural departments had female prefects. There were women serving in the gendarmerie and military, and Sankara even traveled with a motorcycle-​­riding female guard corps that people called “the Amazons.” Among the ten civilian ministers within the CNR, three were women: Adéle Ouedraogo, minister of the budget; Joséphine Ouedraogo, minister of family development; and Rita Sawadogo, minister of sports and leisure.27 In addressing gender issues, Sankara pushed ahead with discussions focused on population control, family planning, and even prostitution. He worked with NGOs and USAID in devising such policies as birth spacing and the distribution of condoms through family planning clinics. Moreover, the building of health clinics and schools and the countrywide literacy drives helped to empower women. On numerous occasions, Sankara took a moral stand against prostitution. Speaking the language of religious morality, he was known to quote Saint Augustine’s “love the sinner, but hate the

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sin” line. In one interview, he explained: “We do not reject prostitutes. In fact, the contrary, we integrate them into the revolution. We create jobs for them.” Rehabilitation centers offered former prostitutes lodging and job training; in order to destigmatize them, Sankara hired former prostitutes to work at the presidential residence.28 However, there was growing resistance to these revolutionary changes in gender relations. Many men felt alienated by the revolution and simply refused to accept gender equality. Even as Sankara’s feminist discourse and new policies inspired women, there was a corresponding reaction, an expression of “patriarchy from below.” Many rural peoples resisted the state efforts to end female circumcision, and much of the pushback came from women, as it was usually the aunts and mothers who led such rituals. Eventually, Sankara had to attenuate his ambitions in the crusade against female circumcision, promoting education and more humane procedures instead. Women also opposed efforts to end polygamy. Minister Josephine Ouedraogo took a stand at a high-​­profile meeting at the Maison du P ­ euple, where Sankara was confronted with a chorus of opposition to ending polygamy. In an interview with Afrique-​­Asie, she later expressed her concerns that certain revolutionary policies and actions risked alienating the population, that “the danger exists of seeing a resistance movement take shape that will go against our aspirations.” She advocated for “proceeding gradually so as to not offend mentalities and customs.” Women in rural areas argued that the revolutionary state had failed to understand how their polygamous households depended on the labor-​­sharing arrangements of co-​­wives. Moreover, some of Sankara’s military colleagues had multiple wives, and the efforts to end polygamy alienated the Muslim population. Faced with such criticism, Sankara was forced to retreat. He still opposed polygamy and female circumcision, but he acknowledged the limits of using state power. “It’s my opinion that in order to liberate women, we must fight against female circumcision and polygamy. Banning by laws or other means is not the best solution,” he explained in an interview. “The emancipation of women requires their education and their gaining economic power.”29 On August 4, 1985, the second anniversary of the revolution highlighted the role of women. According to Afrique-​­Asie, Sankara was in fine fettle, and he “didn’t miss a single political rally or cultural or sporting event.” He was seen enjoying himself at the Popular Ball, dancing with Mrs. Rawlings and other women. In his speech, he took the opportunity to talk about women’s rights. While waiting for the new Family Code to be adopted, he announced

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his support for a “living wage” for the wives of civil servants, such that a certain amount of their wages would be designated for household expenses. “The state does not compel anyone into marriage, but requires that he who founds a family fulfills his responsibilities,” he stated. “There are men who transform their wife into an all-​­purpose maid, but while refusing her a salary that goes with a maid!” In his speech, Sankara also took the moment to admit certain errors and popular grievances tied to the abuses of the CDR system. Responding to an Amnesty International report that stated that prisoners had been tortured at the Police of Ouagadougou, he announced several acts of clemency vis-​­à-vis political prisoners.30 Around that time, Le Monde published a series of scathing articles on the CNR. With titles like “The ‘Revolution’ Slides towards Authoritarianism,” such stories created an image of Sankara’s regime as one of torture, execution, and political suppression. Even Leopold Sedar Senghor chimed in with an article on Sankara’s lack of “respect” for the French language. And yet, compared to those of other revolutionary governments, the body count was incredibly low. After two years of revolutionary changes, ten individuals had been killed, most of them military officers involved in coup plots. But Sankara took the criticisms seriously and worked to address the issues by firing those at the Police responsible for the abuses and freeing numerous prisoners. He had no interest in reproducing the errors of other revolutionary governments that turned the state into an instrument of repression. “We need a convinced people, not a conquered people. A conquered people means an endless series of prisons,” he later explained. “For revolutionaries, victory lies in the disappearance of prisons.” In fact, international observers promptly acknowledged his efforts in this direction. A US embassy cable reported on the human rights record, noting the improvements: “The leaders are highly sensitive to outside criticism and scramble hard to keep an acceptable record. . . . We have weighed in several times on human rights matters during the year and always found our interlocutors attentive and receptive.” It was observed that the Popular Revolutionary Tribunals were “clearing up a backlog of corruption cases,” and “doing so with apparent justice and remarkable leniency.”31 At the moment, however, Burkina Faso was dealing with far more existential threats. On March 13, just days after the Women’s Week ended, residents of Ouagadougou woke up to a city ominously enveloped in red dust. Radio-​­Burkina reported that “in the street, one could not see more than 50 meters.” Sankara described March 13, 1985, as “a historic date,” signifying

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“the arrival of the desert.” He depicted the massive dust storm as a “veil of sadness that has plunged our world into darkness . . . [that] will be everlasting and growing if we do not develop a fighting strategy to ward off this unfortunate fate.” But more than simply dust descended on Ouagadougou. As the drought deepened, climate refugees fled the northern Sahel districts for feeding centers in Ouagadougou and more verdant conditions to the south. Nomadic groups, according to US embassy cables, were “camping in the fields of resident non-​­nomads which could lead to conflict as planting season draws near.” In Sissili Province, peasants reported that their village had been affected by “massive immigration of victims from the north, who had occupied fields in an anarchic manner.” Sankara was aware of the potential for disputes, and he traveled around the country seeking to reduce tensions. According to a report on Radio-​­Burkina, “without denying the existence of the problems, the Comrade-​­President emphasized that it was the duty of the natives of Sissili to welcome these Burkinabés.”32 The CNR created a Relief Committee, under Minister Josephine Ouedraogo, to manage operations, working with USAID and other Western agencies, including Catholic Relief Services and Africare. Accepting large amounts of food aid went against the CNR’s self-​­reliance ethos. But in an interview with Afrique-​­Asie, Ouedraogo noted that while food aid had the long-​­term effect of undermining the “self-​­sufficiency that we want to achieve,” it was “justified in cases of extreme urgency.” Indeed, by 1984, the relief effort was led by Western governments, especially the United States, which doubled emergency food aid to $343 million, amounting to roughly 45 percent of all donor financing. More specifically, US food aid to Burkina Faso was around $21 million in 1984, the largest amount from a single donor. The famine in the Sahel also drew the attention of celebrities and charitable organizations. “USA for Africa” and the “Band Aid Trust,” in particular, came together to raise money for the famine victims, most memorably in the “Live Aid” concerts on July 13, 1985. Despite the relief effort, UN secretary-​­general Javier Perez de Cuellar warned of a “recurring cycle of crisis” that would “condemn millions of our fellow human beings to lives of poverty and degradation.” Although climatologists identified the fundamental role of drought and climate change in the famine, popular assumptions that Africans themselves had caused their suffering had a certain staying power.33 Most African governments had fallen into the habit of allowing NGOs and other international political bodies to lead on environmental issues.

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As Sankara pointed out in a speech on April 22, 1985, “African heads of state” typically used their statements on the “sadness of nature, the drought and lamentation, in order to obtain food aid,” as “pleas for help, to be fed.” Beyond requests for food aid, few African governments were taking proactive measures to deal with environmental challenges. In contrast, Sankara made addressing deforestation and land degradation a top priority. According to a research team of agronomists working in the region, Burkina Faso was “considered by many to be far in advance of its neighbors in the practice of soil restoration and improved agricultural techniques,” and it had an “extensive program” of reforestation. While Sankara condemned the “natural evils” of drought and climate change, he refused to accept passivity and helplessness. Rather, he focused his attention on things that people could do to avoid the unthinkable. Anything less than full effort, in his view, was a “crime against future generations.”34 Aside from the “spread of the desert,” Sankara identified “imperialism” as an agent of destruction, as he later stated at a forestry conference in 1986: “Colonial plunder has decimated our forests without the slightest thought of replenishing them for our tomorrows.  .  .  . Imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and our savannas.” But while colonialism led to deforestation via the timber trade in other tropical colonies, transformations in Burkina Faso’s vegetation cover were mainly driven by the production of cash crops, especially cotton. Paradoxically, bureaucratic state efforts to protect forests began in the colonial era. But it was only in 1981 that the first national forest policy placed emphasis on reforestation. While the new policy got little traction, it provided a blueprint for Sankara, who promptly added considerable political will behind reforestation, with new laws aimed at curbing brush fires and woodcutting. As one study of forest policy in Burkina Faso observed, “Although he strongly condemned neo-​­colonial oppression of African peoples, Sankara’s forest programme strongly echoed the laws that were passed during the colonial period.”35 In some ways, Sankara’s thinking on the environment reflected the views of the socialist orthodoxy that characterized environmental degradation as a “capitalist problem.” But socialist governments too, in their drive toward industrialization in China, Soviet Union, and elsewhere, were responsible for egregious environmental consequences, especially regarding large-​­scale development projects. Thus, on the environment, Sankara was ahead of his contemporaries in the socialist world. In his calls for environmental justice, he denounced the capitalist system, with its insatiable demand for raw

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Figure 8.2. Ouagadougou, August 1985. Women soldiers marching. (Pathfinder)

materials, its consumption patterns, and its irresponsible polluting of environments. He spoke of “selfishness” as a “source of his fellow man’s misfortune,” “progress that is anarchic and criminally neglects the rights of others,” “savage and murderous forays on the land and in the air,” and “machines that spew fumes.” In essence, he saw that poor people around the world were bearing the environmental brunt of capitalism, as poor countries were subjected to a disproportionate amount of pollution and land degradation. In Sankara’s thinking, environmentalism was a matter of survival, ensuring that people had enough to eat, a perspective that mirrored what Ramachandra Guha has called the “environmentalism of the poor.” In this vein, just as notions of “sustainable development” came into vogue in development circles during the mid-​­1980s, Sankara called for development that took care of the needs of the present without sacrificing the needs of future generations. In a speech on food security, he explained that “one cannot imagine the development of agriculture and an increase in its productivity without a program for the regeneration and conservation of nature.”36 Reforestation was a main pillar of Sankara’s environmental policy. From October 1984, the PPD mobilized people to plant trees. Over fifteen

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Figure 8.3. Women building anti-erosion terraces to prevent the spread of the desert in Sahel zone, 1986. (Pathfinder and United Nations)

months, the state-​­directed program of reforestation planted ten million trees across Burkina Faso. In rural villages, families were required to plant a hundred trees per year, mainly as a way of replenishing wood fuel sources. Certainly some villagers engaged in tree planting half-​­heartedly, planted the trees in soils in which the trees did not grow well, or failed to protect them from livestock. In fact, reports estimated that only one-​­fifth of seedlings survived. But slowly people accepted the importance of this policy. “In Burkina, wood is our only source of energy. We have to constantly remind every individual of his duty to maintain and regenerate nature,” Sankara explained. “We have a program of reforestation, a positive act to regenerate nature. We’ve decreed that every village and town must have a grove of trees. As part of its socioeconomic system, African tradition included a form of preservation of nature called the sacred woods. . . . This is why all

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Figure 8.4. Ouagadougou, August 1985. Thomas Sankara during a tree-​­planting campaign. (Pathfinder)

happy events are marked by the planting of a tree, whether it be a baptism, a marriage or some other ceremony.” He called for urban “green spaces,” which were favorable for moral, physical, and intellectual well-​­being, as he explained: “These forest groves, you will remember, are in the image of what the Greeks called the Lyceum, a place of gathering, reunion of wise people.” Such places were the foundation of society, and they engendered in people a civic sense of being good custodians of the land. In short order, urban green spaces were created around Ouagadougou and many of the provincial capitals.37 In 1984, the Ministry of Environment estimated that Burkina had only one-​­quarter of the necessary number of foresters, and so it was hoped that the USAID-​­funded Dinderesso Forestry School could train enough forest agents over the next decade to meet the projected staffing requirements. Unfortunately, the Reagan administration would cut the program in 1985 in response to the “Sankara regime’s hostile actions” (see chap. 9). Because of the lack of forestry resources and adequate funding, popular mobilization via the CDRs was crucial in establishing the balance between wood production and consumption. “In our province of Kouritenga, we began these

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national projects of reforestation, and the local CDRs were put in charge,” Germaine Pitroipa remembered. “They would tell us which area was to be reforested and which types of trees. And part of this was to slow the cutting down of trees for wood fuel and instead find a way to replace them. The peasants even took the initiative. They were a lot more evolved than people think.” Reforestation efforts relied heavily on the work of NGOs and the advice of forestry experts and agronomists, such as René Dumont, who spent time in Burkina with Sankara in 1984, and Pierre Rabhi, a pioneer in sustainable agriculture based on organic fertilizer use. Among NGOs, the “Six S Association,” under the leadership of Bernard Lédéa Ouedraogo and the Naam movement, played a central role in mobilizing villagers in conservation efforts. Oxfam was working with farmers in Yatenga to devise water-​­conservation techniques. Finally, the farmer Yacouba Sawadogo in the Yatenga region began growing trees in traditional planting pits, or zaï, in order to rehabilitate lands that had been degraded by water and wind erosion. These pits served as “water harvesters” and increased grain yields. In response to drought, the zaï technique spread through farmer-​­to-farmer contact, and peasants managed to reclaim large tracts of land. In more humid zones, especially in the southwest of the country, people used other water-​­retention technologies, such as the use of “tied ridges,” a crosshatch of ridges that created depressions where water could collect. In many villages, this technique increased sorghum yields by 50 percent. Because of the use of these new water-​­retention practices, according to World Bank and UNESCO reports, agricultural production advanced at a sustained rate. Another important initiative was the development of the “three-​­stone” mud stove, which burned wood more efficiently. The stoves spread slowly through the Naam movement, but it was not until Sankara seized on the idea that a nationwide dissemination plan was launched.38 Sankara saw that Africa’s environmental challenges required transnational cooperation. He thought that in the fight against desertification “African unity is a necessity and no longer simply a choice,” that “we can fight against desertification only by erasing borders.” In this vein, he ambitiously proposed a fifty-​­kilometer-wide transnational “green belt” across the arid Sahel to serve as a barrier to the advance of the desert. It’s possible that he drew inspiration from the British environmentalist Richard St. Barbe Baker, who had advocated for the creation of a “green front” to stop the southern advance of the Sahara. In any case, after Sankara’s death, the “green belt” project would fall by the wayside. But over twenty years

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later, NGOs, African governments, and the UN picked up the “Great Green Wall” as a viable solution to drought and famine in the Sahel. Although the importance of regreening was clear, it was not a new idea. In fact, during the Dust Bowl era in the United States, President Roosevelt had initiated the “Shelterbelt” policy of reforesting huge swaths of the Great Plains. Within the African context, there were a few large-​­scale state-​­led efforts at reforestation, such as in Ethiopia and Madagascar, among others. And there was a long history of farmers planting trees and maintaining forests for purposes of protection, agriculture, and hunting-​­gathering. Moreover, there was Wangari Maathai’s “Green Belt Movement” in Kenya in the 1970s, with its slogan, “One person, One tree,” a phrase that Sankara adopted in Burkina’s reforestation program. With funding from the UNEP, Maathai’s movement expanded in the mid-​­1980s, leading to the formation of the Pan-​­African Green Belt Network, as numerous African countries initiated tree-​­planting projects of their own. Thus, there were plenty of such ideas in wide circulation, but few African heads of state had the political will to take action.39 Ahead of his time, Sankara warned that the climate was changing and that there was growing evidence of coming disaster due to the “ecological perturbation of the seasons,” as he called it. He warned that each year the desert was advancing, the water table was dropping, and farmers and herders were forced to adjust to new realities, as forest fires became more destructive. Looking at the causes behind the “ecological perturbations,” Sankara pointed mostly to the “pollutions that we pour into nature, into the seas,” which had “perturbed, as a consequence, the established order of things.” His statements on climate change came at a time when there was growing scientific agreement on anthropogenic causes. For decades, these discussions had been confined to academic circles, but, according to John McNeil, the 1980s were a “watershed decade,” as scientists promulgated their findings, such that the issue of anthropogenic climate change “became political for the first time.” Moreover, it was an era of environmental calamities that heightened global awareness, such as the Sahel famine and the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters. And yet, in many of the rich countries, including the global superpowers, there appeared a flagrant disregard for the environment, exemplified in Reagan’s rolling back of environmental regulations and the sinking of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior—which was protesting nuclear tests—by French intelligence agents in 1985. Against this backdrop, Sankara saw the fight to save the environment, and humanity, as a political struggle, and not the “affair of a single

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people, but of all people.” If humankind was to prevent its own destruction, then all people, individually and collectively, had to fight against imperialist “balkanization and domination.” In reference to land degradation, he observed, “The fight against the desert is an ideological fight. It is a political struggle before all. . . . The act of planting a tree, or abstaining from cutting down a tree, must be seen as a political act.” A planetary thinker, he repeatedly emphasized that the world’s ecological systems were interconnected, observing that “devastating the Amazon today has consequences in our Burkina Faso.”40 As the drought worsened, Sankara announced the so-​­called Three Fights to save the environment, articulated in a landmark speech to foresters on Earth Day, April 22, 1985. For those in attendance, the speech was a rallying cry, and his words resonated with forestry experts. “I’ll never forget the big speech Sankara gave here on the forests,” said Eva Dahlberg, a Swedish woman working with the CNR and NGOs on forestry issues. “He was so knowledgeable. He knew the statistics and percentages in detail, and spoke like a sociologist about it too.” The first of the Three Fights was against brush fires, and so new ordinances stipulated that those responsible for brush fires would be fined, although Sankara acknowledged that in certain circumstances, such as “shifting cultivation,” the use of fire would be tolerated. The second fight was against the “wandering of animals” (divagation des animaux). In order to prevent overgrazing and the destruction of crops, the ordinance stipulated that animals straying without their owners would be seized and butchered for public benefit. The aim was to “force livestock raisers to adopt more rational methods.” Finally, the third fight was against the “anarchic cutting of wood,” with focus on regulating the wood trade. The CNR mainly targeted wood merchants feeding urban demand. To stop free-​­roaming woodcutting, the CNR made it illegal to transport wood except in specially painted white-​­and-green vehicles. Community woodcutter cooperatives, with UNDP support, were established in order to maintain local control over woodcutting. However, the “Three Fights” produced uneven results. Many saw them as too heavy-​­handed. Even Sankara admitted that “we have only one solution: to take draconian measures, and I mean draconian.” Moreover, given the limited state capacity, enforcement of the policies was very difficult. Soon there were complaints about the lack of firewood, and so the CNR promptly eased up on the enforcement of the laws. There were also abuses tied to the ordinance against stray livestock, as overly zealous or opportunistic CDRs went out looking for animals to

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seize. As grievances grew, Sankara was eventually forced to suspend the ordinance.41 Despite the setbacks and bleak outlook at a time of drought, Sankara was thinking about the future. In his forestry speech, he invoked the “future generations” at least six times and even called for the harnessing of solar power. He was concerned about the coming generations. In May 1985, drawing on the Cuban example, the CNR unveiled the National Movement of Pioneers, a revolutionary youth movement focusing on children. Sankara reminded revolutionaries that one of their main tasks was “to guide, to educate, to raise the consciousness of these young children so they grow up as revolutionaries, live as revolutionaries, and die as revolutionaries.” Just as in the Cuban revolution, with its emphasis on the “new man,” the youth movement was a way of achieving an idealized future through the transformation of the citizenry. Sankara’s radical remaking of society depended on these “uncorrupted” and “pure” revolutionary actors. It was deemed the “nursery of the Revolutionary Defense Committees,” a movement aimed at empowering children to “express themselves.” Soon the Pioneers—with their berets, kerchiefs, and raised fists—became visible fixtures of the revolutionary culture, marching in parades, singing songs, and chanting slogans.42 Many observers were astonished that the revolution had done so much in such inauspicious circumstances—with debt, drought, and political adversity. But Sankara thrived on defying the odds; he relished in doing things that had not been done before. “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness,” Sankara mused in a 1985 interview. “In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future.” With visionary projects in full swing, there were plenty of signs of progress, and so the people held out hope that the “Captain” would lead the country to a brighter future. Sankara believed that as long as he kept the peoples’ interests at heart, the revolution would triumph. He thought, as others had, that humans were the most precious resource, and that through the spirit of self-​­sacrifice and devotion to the common good, they would collectively raise the country up. But Sankara was quickly getting too far ahead of the masses, and in the process, he risked generating further grievances owing to the “infernal pace” of change of which Frantz Fanon had warned, a pace that could not be sustained for long, particularly once the revolution began hitting more powerful headwinds.43

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Notes 1. Sankara, Oser Inventer, 90–91; Sankara translated the name “Pays des hommes intègres.” There are, of course, variants, such as “Land of Upright Men.” See Sy, Burkindlum. 2. Afrique-​­Asie, August 27, 1984; Boubacar Diawara, interview, March 13, 2013; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 151, 176–177. 3. Afrique-​­Asie, August 27, 1984; Carrefour Africain, August 10, 1984; Ablasse Segda, interview, March 6, 2013; Englebert, La Révolution, 123–128. 4. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 12, 2013, and August 25, 2015; Afrique Asie, July 2, 1984. 5. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 219–220. 6. Afrique-​­Asie, July 2, 1984; Charles Sangaré, interview, March 17, 2013; Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires, 77–78; Otayek, “Burkina Faso,” 22–23. 7. Le Monde, January 12, 1984; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 147; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 248; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 27, 2015. 8. Bebey Bissongo, interview, March 9, 2013. 9. Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires, 17–32, 6–53; Malley, Call from Algeria, 75–76; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Dubuch, “Langage du pouvoir”; Otayek, “Avant-​ ­propos”; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 98; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 93–100; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 195–240. 10. Kaboré, Histoire, 155–56; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 156; Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging, 6–8, 82–126; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 180–181, 210; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 25, 2013. 11. Carrefour Africain, October 19, 1984; Afrique-​­Asie, May 6, 1985; Andriamirado, Sankara, 164–166; Jaffré, Burkina Faso, 79–105. 12. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Anonymous teacher, interview, March 4, 2013; Charles Twining, ADST interview, 2004. 13. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Kaboré, Histoire, 213–214; Harrison, Greening of Africa, 267–274; Black, Children First, 33–62. 14. Andriamirado, Sankara, 184; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 160–161; Afrique-​ ­Asie, May 6, 1985; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 94; YouTube, “Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso (Swedish subtitles),” last accessed 2016 at ­https://​­w ww​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­aSTa9kLs4qo. 15. Afrique-​­Asie, June 17, 1985; Le Monde, November 8, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 212–216; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 192–194; Sawadogo and Wetta, “The Impact of Self-​­Imposed Structural Adjustment”; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015. 16. Kaboré, Histoire, 158–163, 215–216; Andriamirado, Sankara, 193, 202–203; Le Monde, December 31, 1985; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 76–77; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, March 5, 1986, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 248–249. 17. Afrique-​­Asie, May 6, 1985, and July 2, 1984; Touré, Une vie de militant, 122–123; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 28, 1983, FOIA. 18. Afrique-​­Asie, December 31, 1984, and February 11, 1985; Andriamirado, Sankara, 153; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 182; Lenin, State and Revolution, 49–51; Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015. 19. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 17–21, 36–39; Jaffré, Biographie, 205–208; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 30–34, 192–194; “Burkina: Annual Labor Report,” AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, February 28, 1985, FOIA.

“Daring to Invent the Future”  |  209 20. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 177–184; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014. 21. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 177–184, 197; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013. 22. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 19, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 25, 2013; Gaston Kaboré, interview, March 10, 2013; Kaboré, Histoire, 158–163, 215–216. 23. Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 47–52; Diawara, African Cinema, 132–139; Ukadike, Black African Cinema, 199–200. 24. Carrefour Africain, September 28, 1984; Kaboré, Histoire, 160; Luc Traoré, interview, August 31, 2015; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 15, 2013; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 105, 223–225, 247–248; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 83–86, 94–95. 25. Afrique-​­Asie, November 7, 1983; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 103, 179–180; Kansé, “Le CNR et les femmes,” 66–72; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 15, 2013. 26. Carrefour Africain, February 10, 1984, and September 28, 1984; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, April 25, 2013; Benabdessadok, “Femmes et révolution,” 54–64. 27. Kansé, “Le CNR et les femmes,” 66–72; Kaboré, Histoire, 569–591; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 179–180; Sankara, Women’s Liberation, 46–47. 28. Carrefour Africain, November 18, 1983, and March 15, 1985; Julius Walker, ADST interview, October 14, 1992; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Andriamirado, Sankara, 204–206. 29. Benabdessadok, “Femmes et révolution,” 59–61; Afrique-​­Asie, December 15–28, 1986; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 52–63; Sankara, Women’s Liberation, 45–46; Paul Sankara, interview, May 24, 2015; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 242; Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires, 48–81; Dore, Myths of Modernity, 1–32. 30. Afrique-​­Asie, August 26, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 11, 17, 1985, FOIA. 31. Le Monde, August 5, 6, 19, 1985, and December 31, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 11 and December 9, 1985, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 412–416. 32. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 61–63; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, January 22, 1985, FOIA. 33. Afrique-​­Asie, December 15–28, 1986; “Memorandum,” May 9, 1984, Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC NSSD File 1–84. Secret. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XLI, Global Issues II (FRUP), 596; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​ ­WashDC, July 5, 1984, FOIA; Vestal, “Famine in Ethiopia,” 7–28; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 43, 117–119; UN Chronicle 31, no. 3 (September 1994); McCann, Green Land, 57. 34. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Wardman and Salas, “Implementation of Anti-​ ­erosion Techniques.” 35. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 256–258; Côte, “Struggle for Autonomy,” 141–145. 36. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 258–260; Guha, Environmentalism, 98–137; McNeil, Great Acceleration, 152–153, 193–198; Isaacman, Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development, 150–166; Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 98–99; Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future. 37. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 213–217. 38. Winterbottom and Linehan, “Dinderesso Forestry School”; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 13, 2013; Dufumier, Un agronome, 10; Jeune Afrique, May 15, 2015; Ouedraogo, Entraide villageoise, 51–61, 93–127; Harrison, Greening of Africa, 165–170, 278–284; Sawadogo,

210 | Thomas Sankara Le Président Thomas Sankara, 149; Reij and Waters-​­Bayer, Innovation in Africa, 35–46; Sawadogo and Wetta, “Impact of Self-​­Imposed Structural Adjustment,” 26–29. 39. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 256; Death, Green State in Africa, 121; Worster, Dust Bowl; McCann, Green Land, 103; Corson, Corridors of Power, 50–51; see also Fairhead and Leach, Misreading the African Landscape; Maathai, Unbowed. 40. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; McNeil, Great Acceleration, 76–77; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 406–407; Bess, Light-​­Green Society, 33–37; Kraft and Vig, “Environmental Policy in the Reagan Presidency,” 415–439. 41. Carrefour Africain, April 26, 1985; Eva Dahlberg Traoré, interview, March 13, 2013, Ablassé Segda, interview, March 6, 2013; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 146–150; Côte, “Struggle for Autonomy,” 144–148; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 214–216; Ribot, “History of Fear.” 42. Carrefour Africain, May 31, 1985; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 123–150. 43. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 232; Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, 56.

9 POLITICS IS WAR AND WAR IS POLITICS Sankara in the International Arena, 1984–1985

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n September 25, 1984, Sankara embarked on a ten-​­day sojourn to Cuba, Nicaragua, and the United States, which included his highly anticipated speech at the UN General Assembly. There had been much buildup before the trip, as his supporters expected him to confront the “imperialists” in their backyard, perhaps along the lines of Fidel Castro at the UN in 1960. Soon after, he would travel to China. Now entering a period of high diplomatic visibility, and riding a wave of enthusiasm, Sankara was preparing to navigate the perilous waters of Cold War politics. Within francophone West Africa, he assumed the leadership of CEAO (Economic Community of West Africa) and launched a far-​­reaching crusade against transnational corruption. On both fronts, his revolutionary words and actions won him much praise and many new supporters, but they also exposed him to new risks. Sankara had yet to draw much interest from the socialist world, but he was hoping to change that by traveling to Cuba. The Soviets remained doubtful of the CNR’s socialist credentials and mistrusted Sankara’s “mercurial style and personal brand of populism,” according to one CIA report. Moscow even severely criticized the CNR for the expulsion of pro-​­Soviet PAI-​­LIPAD members and publicly expressed their “annoyance” at “the independent will of Captain Sankara,” according to Le Monde. In the end, the Soviets provided no economic or military aid program and offered only limited educational outreach opportunities. They still deployed occasional “active measures” in Ouagadougou, inserting articles in Sidwaya to shape local opinion. But, in response, Sankara expelled two Soviet diplomats—including the Soviet deputy chief of mission—for “meddling

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in politics,” while the CNR refused a paltry Soviet offer of food aid because of conditions viewed as “insulting.” And yet from his side, as an admirer of Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Sankara expressed disappointment over the Soviet lack of support: “We don’t understand this wait-​­and-see policy, this lack of interest, this lack of urgency to help us on the part of those who should most logically do so. From the point of view of ideological leanings, they’re in the same camp as we are.” He would not travel to the Soviet Union until October 1986, but during his July 23, 1984, visit to socialist Yugoslavia, the Eastern Bloc’s lack of interest in his revolution was already apparent.1 There have been diverging explanations for the tepid communist support. According to members of the CNR’s Political Bureau, it was the lack of interest in the Soviet model. “They didn’t help us because we weren’t interested in the Soviet system,” Valère Somé explained. “This type of communism didn’t interest Sankara. In fact, apart from some sympathy from Cuba and Ghana, the socialist countries didn’t really support us.” Historical scholarship suggests that it was also partly due to the Soviet Union’s decade-​­long process of economic collapse, imperial contraction, and political disintegration, which forced Moscow to withdraw support from client states across the Third World. Moreover, the Soviets already had a presence in neighboring Mali and Benin, and Burkina Faso did not add much geostrategic value or natural resources. As a result, as Algerian ambassador Ahmed Zerhouni stated, “none of the communist countries is very much interested in Burkina Faso.” Aside from modest Chinese economic assistance, North Korea’s monument building, and Cuba’s paltry assistance in health care, communist countries offered no military assistance program and only low levels of economic aid. Thus, one US ambassador commented that “we weren’t worried about inroads the Soviets might be making.”2 Setting aside “constructive engagement” in South Africa—and efforts to contain Libya—US foreign policy toward Africa focused mainly on what Chester Crocker called “the weaning of Marxists” as the Soviet Union slowly withdrew from Africa. Seeing an opportunity, Washington aimed to, as Crocker stated, “systematically build bridges to these so-​­called Marxist regimes and test them,” and to offer “Western alternatives.” By the mid-​­1980s, the United States was effectively using the Bretton Woods institutions as powerful instruments of foreign policy, in what was a “dramatic extension of the Cold War into the global economy,” as Odd Westad has argued. Reagan set unambiguous political conditions for all US foreign aid, especially for those countries perceived as left-​­wing regimes in the Third

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World. Within this context, the White House announced a new US food aid policy, the “Food for Progress” program, that used $500 million in nonemergency food aid as an incentive for African countries to embrace free market approaches. The idea was to help “reduce the political risks to leaders” involved in transitioning from “socialist economic systems” to those based on free market principles.3 In this vein, the key policy issue for the US vis-​­à-vis Burkina Faso was figuring out “how to influence the Sankara regime toward moderate behavior,” according to one cable. And by 1984, it was determined that “our best lever is economic assistance.” Because of its great power status, contributions to multilateral programs, and sway with other donors, the American influence was considered “second only to France” in Burkina, and so Washington elected to use aid as a political weapon in shaping Sankara’s government. “Many of our problems here in the last nine months come from our desire to get more immediate political leverage from our aid in response to Sankara’s occasionally offensive rhetoric,” one cable reported. “We need to make the GOUV [Government of Upper Volta] better aware of the importance of long-​­term economic assistance. This is difficult in a context where a radical regime has adopted a new rhetoric of self-​­reliance. . . . We retain, of course, the ultimate sanction of shutting down our entire program, either incrementally or suddenly.”4 In hindsight it seems that aid reduction was inevitable, as the Reagan administration was hostile toward Sankara from the start. According to US ambassador Leonardo Neher (1984–1987), Burkina Faso was perceived as “being up on the stage every place in the world, denouncing US imperialism and siding with Cuba, the Soviets, and with Nicaragua.” At the time, UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, the leading neoconservative voice in Reagan’s foreign policy coalition, pushed Neher to take a hard line with Sankara. “My goals were almost all political, in other words how to get Burkina Faso off that extreme leftist dialogue,” Neher said. “We had very little economic interest in this country. We just wanted to try to wean them away from certain radical ideas and to moderate the regime. In my instructions there was nothing about democracy.” And yet Neher thought that the revolution was doing some positive things, as he explained: “I thought Sankara might be something different for Africa. That’s why I wanted that post. The more I read into it, the more I liked this guy Thomas Sankara. I said to myself, ‘Here’s a guy who shows no signs of being corrupt.’” This retrospective account is corroborated by diplomatic cables from the period

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that reveal how Neher worked to correct misunderstandings about Sankara. For example, on the eve of Sankara’s visit to the United States, Neher sent a secret cable to Washington indicating that it was a “serious misperception” to view Sankara’s condemnation of imperialism as a direct attack on the United States. Rather, it was pointed out, Sankara was more “preoccupied with internal competition,” and “much of [Sankara’s] international posturing is done for an African audience, even if the issue itself is extra-​ ­Africa, like Grenada or Nicaragua.” Sankara was described as “an admirer of American ingenuity and technology” and “personally sympathetic to Americans.” Neher viewed him as a “proud” but “inexperienced” leader who was coming to grips with “his country’s utter dependence on foreign aid to keep it afloat.” Neher warned of Sankara’s “fulminations against linking aid to political behavior,” reporting: “[Sankara] is capable of lashing out at any donor who threatens to deny aid as punishment for Burkina’s ‘independent’ stance on foreign issues. If he were to interpret our policy as an effort to force him to change his representatives’ votes in international bodies, he would be capable of intemperate reaction.” Although the CNR was moving in a more moderate direction—as “the new government, now virtually purged of its most coherent Marxist clique, could be more amenable to Western influence”—many in Washington could not see beyond Sankara’s “inflammatory rhetoric” and his purported ties to Libya.5 Sankara arrived in Havana via Cuban aircraft on September 25, 1984. The visit, according to Carrefour Africain, was in response to Fidel Castro’s “personal invitation,” and Castro was even at the airport to meet Sankara and his large delegation, which included a children’s orchestra. In the evening, the CNR members were given a reception attended by most of Cuba’s top brass. Castro awarded Sankara with the “Order of José Marti” honor, and when accepting the honor, Sankara thanked Cuba for its “deep feelings of love.” He ruminated on Marti’s life and admitted that it was “no accident at all that our national slogan is captured in one you know so well: Homeland or death, we shall overcome.” According to the US Interests Section (USINT) in Havana, Sankara spent the following day with Castro and visited sites around Havana, such as the recently constructed Che Guevara Pioneer Palace and Lenin Park. In the Isle of Youth, he visited the Hendrick Witbooi Rural High School, founded in 1978 for Namibian students as part of Namibia’s struggle for independence from South Africa. Cuba had a history of involvement in Africa during the Cold War, including its support for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and for Nelson

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Mandela in South Africa. It had been hosting African leaders and students for decades. In coming years, hundreds of students and musicians from Burkina would also come to study in Cuba.6 Before leaving, Sankara toured the Presidio Modelo, where Castro had been imprisoned, and celebrated the founding of the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Aide-​­de-camp Etienne Zongo recalled the warm relationship between Castro and Sankara and the time they spent discussing issues. At one point, strolling together, “they stopped on a bridge to look at a river and they stayed talking for forty to fifty minutes, during which Fidel talked about the cultivation of soybeans. When Thomas returned to Burkina, he encouraged farmers to grow soybeans.” All of these experiences profoundly marked him. “I consider the Cuban Revolution a symbol of courage and determination,” Sankara later said. He saw Cuba’s ability to stand up to the United States, despite being a “small agricultural country,” as a “great lesson.” Futhermore, Cuba offered models for the CNR’s own campaigns against illiteracy, diseases, and economic inequality, and ideas for ways to reform the CDR system. It’s clear that the living political leader that Sankara most admired was Fidel Castro, with whom he felt a special kinship.7 On September 30, 1984, Sankara planned to depart for Atlanta. He had received an invitation from the mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young, former US ambassador to the UN under President Carter and the first African American to hold this position. But as Sankara was preparing to leave, US authorities informed him that he would have to fly to Canada first before traveling to New York. His request to meet with President Reagan was denied. CNR members thought it was because of Sankara’s speech, which had been submitted to American officials for review and which contained criticism of US foreign policy. However, US embassy cables reveal a different view: the CNR’s Foreign Ministry had delayed for months in providing confirmation that Sankara was traveling to the United States, and such an “official visit would require as much as a year’s advance planning.” Reagan was also in reelection-​­campaign mode and was busy crisscrossing the country at the time of Sankara’s visit. In any case, denied a White House visit, Sankara felt snubbed by Washington. But it turned out to be advantageous, in that he spent his extra days in Harlem and came away from the experience with a deeper commitment to Pan-​­Africanism.8 Sankara had long questioned “blackness” as a basis for political mobilization in Africa, as he stated: “We don’t know what purpose it would serve

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to keep repeating that we are blacks.” Coming out of the francophone African context, and following Fanon, he had long taken exception to notions of négritude, and he frequently criticized African statesmen, such as Leopold Sedar Senghor, who had lost their revolutionary edge. He saw class as the main basis for political solidarity. But after his travels across Africa, he moved closer to Pan-​­Africanism. Now, Harlem brought out a new embrace of black pride. On October 2, Sankara visited an exhibition of African art and made a brief speech in which he emphasized that “the fight we’re waging in Africa, principally in Burkina Faso, is the same fight you’re waging in Harlem.” After educating the audience about the meaning of African masks, he announced his ambitious plans to create an “Institute of Black Peoples” in Ouagadougou, perhaps inspired by the Atlanta-​­based “Institute of the Black World” founded in 1969. Months later, Sankara would get to work to establish the institute, facilitating a UNESCO-​­backed mission and an international conference in 1986.9 The day after his visit to the exhibition, the “Patrice Lumumba Coalition,” under the leadership of Pan-​­African activist Elombe Brath, organized an event for Sankara at the Harriet Tubman School in Harlem. In a packed house, with dancers and musicians creating a festive mood, Sankara declared that his “White House” was “Black Harlem” and launched into an anti-​­imperialist call-​­and-response with the crowd. Between applause and cheers, Sankara brought attention to the shared struggle to “rehabilitate the name of the African.” As seen in surviving video, Sankara responded to the crowd and improvised, trying out new phrases. Seeing the favorable responses, he proclaimed, à la Elombe Brath: “We must be proud to be black.” The Harlem audience erupted in applause. The crowd was shaping his discourse. But Sankara moved beyond simplistic racial dichotomies and remarked: “We don’t ask that the world be built for blacks alone and against other men. As blacks, we want to teach others how to love each other.” Then, paying homage to Maurice Bishop and the anti-​­apartheid struggle in South Africa, he brandished his pistol and stated: “I’m ready for imperialism. Please believe me, this is not a toy. These bullets are real. And when we fire these bullets, it will be against imperialism.” Invoking the image of the Black Panthers with his militant gesture, beret, and anti-​ ­imperialist message, Sankara looked around with visible satisfaction as the crowd erupted. While visiting Harlem, Sankara also attended a breakfast event organized by the African-​­American Institute, met with former US ambassadors to Upper Volta Elliot Skinner and Julius Walker, and carved

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Figure 9.1. Havana, Cuba, September 25, 1984. Cuban President Fidel Castro welcomes Thomas Sankara at the José Martí Airport. (Pathfinder)

out time to talk with Daniel Ortega. The Harlem experience brought him a certain visibility and renown in African American circles and even led to emerging collaborations. In the upcoming FESPACO, African American delegations came to Ouagadougou; the festival promptly included a new black diaspora category, with a “Paul Robeson Prize,” as a way of welcoming films from the wider black world. Sankara was soon highly regarded in the progressive Pan-​­African community in the United States.10 At the thirty-​­ninth session of the UN General Assembly on October 4, Sankara delivered the most important international speech of his life. But, it should be noted, the speech itself was written by others in his entourage. This is not to say that the main ideas, and even certain figures of speech, were not Sankara’s own. He had already been exploring many of the speech’s themes in various public statements, trying out its key ideas and phrases, and refining his rhetoric. But his speechwriters wrote the script and filled it with historical references, statistics, and quotations. We must acknowledge the collective effort involved in drafting his statement at the UN, which would later be so important in constructing the popular image of Sankara.

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The more scripted quality of the speech is evident in extant video, in which Sankara appears far more measured, reading his words faithfully for forty-​ ­five minutes.11 At the time, few people had even heard of Upper Volta or the newly renamed Burkina Faso, and so Sankara introduced himself as the representative of a small country of seven million children, women, and men who “refused to die of ignorance, hunger and thirst.” His starting point was a critique of a “world in which nations, eluding international law, command groups of outlaws who, guns in hand, live by plunder.” He established the clear moral problem of the age, that of powerful countries, or “imperialism,” dominating “that hodgepodge held in such contempt—the Third World.” It was a moralistic speech, built around certain dichotomies; it projected a sense of righteous indignation and culminated with a utopian vision. And yet Sankara established that he was not laying out “any doctrines,” that he was “neither a messiah nor a prophet.” He intended only to speak “on behalf of the great disinherited people of the world.”12 Sankara made a declaration of resistance, extending his long-​­running Third Worldist critique of the capitalist system and global inequality. He asserted Burkina Faso’s political belonging to the nonaligned countries and emphasized the “special relationship of solidarity” that united Africa, Asia, and Latin America in a “single struggle against the same political traffickers, the same economic exploiters.” Drawing on his roots in Catholic liberation theology and Marxism, he observed: “Up to now we have turned the other cheek. The blows increased. But the wicked-​­hearted were not moved. They trampled the truth of righteousness. The word of Christ was betrayed. His cross was transformed into a club. And after they put on his robe, they slashed our bodies and souls. They obscured his message. They Westernized it, whereas we had understood it as one of universal liberation. Then our eyes opened to the class struggle. There will be no more blows.”13 Sankara took the occasion to repeat his attack on the “petty bourgeoisie,” characterizing the African intellectual as a “passive and pathetic consumer” that “abounds in terminology fetishized by the West, just as it abounds in Western whiskey and champagne,” while criticizing the “now-​ ­dated concept of négritude.” Sankara called for the African intelligentsia to “come back to who they are,” to their own societies, in order to engage in “the battle for a system of thought at the service of the disinherited masses.” His message was radical, but it was also hyperbolic, as he and his fellow revolutionary leaders had all issued from the “petty bourgeoisie” themselves.

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Moreover, there were distortions of fact: Sankara referenced “peasant revolts” among the “popular masses as they mobilized against the monster of imperialism.” And yet there was no peasant uprising in Burkina to speak of, and many peasants had been unaware of this monster of “imperialism” in their villages. In short, a year into the revolution and its history was being oversimplified and repackaged as more of a social revolution than it really was.14 However, setting aside some of the rhetorical excess, Sankara provided a corrosive analysis of the foreign aid industry. As a way of suggesting how a revolutionary movement might break with such foreign aid, Sankara provided an overview of the accomplishments in Burkina Faso. His aspirations were quite modest: “two meals a day and drinking water” for everyone. But Sankara was mainly thinking about the wider world, and he made a declaration of solidarity with “the millions of human beings who are in ghettos because they have black skin or because they come from different cultures,” while calling for the liberation of women who, across the world, suffered from a “male-​­imposed system of exploitation.” Invoking the slave who “must take charge of her own revolt,” he famously said: “Freedom can only be won through struggle, and we call on all our sisters of all races to go on the offensive to conquer their rights.” Historically, Sankara aligned himself with the great revolutions of the world. He paid homage to the American Revolution; extolled the French Revolution, which had “overturned the foundations of absolutism”; and praised the “great revolution of October 1917” in Russia, which “brought victory to the proletariat, shook the foundations of capitalism.” But, aware of the abuses under Stalin, Mao, and many others, Sankara called for revolutionary movements that “learned from some of the terrible failures that led to tragic violations of human rights.” His utopian ambition in Burkina was “to retain only the core of purity from each revolution” and become “the heirs of all the world’s revolutions.”15 Harkening back to his formative years, Sankara sought to resurrect the UN’s New International Economic Order (NIEO), a powerful transnational governance initiative that sought to reform the global economy in order to redirect more benefits to the developing world. At a time when the NIEO was buried under the crushing weight of ascendant neoliberalism, Sankara called for a radical restructuring, even “destroying the old order,” to make space for all countries and thereby create a more democratic global order of sovereign states. Such an order could “participate in discussions and decisions on the mechanisms governing trade, the economy, and currencies

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on a global scale,” as he stated. For Sankara, the NIEO “should simply be inscribed alongside all the other rights of the people—the right to independence, to the free choice of governmental forms and structures—like the right to development.” In foreign policy, he criticized both the United States and the Soviet Union, condemning “foreign aggression” against Grenada and stating that “we cannot remain silent about foreign military intervention in Afghanistan.” He expressed solidarity with the Irish people in their struggle, and those of East Timor and Chad, and singled out Israel for refusing to grant Palestinians the right to an autonomous existence. But his most impassioned plea for justice was saved for South Africa, emphasizing the need to intensify the campaign to free Nelson Mandela. In ending, he made a few proposals: give Africans a stronger voice at the UN vis-​­à-vis veto powers, make an international effort to commemorate the slave trade, and divert military funds to research on the “restoration of the environment.” As he finished, the audience in the General Assembly was visibly and audibly moved by his speech. He exited, pumping his fist high in the air, as applause rang out. Western observers especially took notice. In a New York Times article entitled “African, in UN, Demands Rights for Third World,” Sankara was described as delivering a “fiery speech,” speaking on behalf of the “underprivileged people of the world.” In a cable to Secretary Shultz, UN ambassador Kirkpatrick called it a “flamboyant address,” in which Sankara sought to “anoint Burkina Faso as the Third World’s vanguard.”16 Before returning to Burkina Faso, Sankara and his delegation took a brief sojourn to Nicaragua, where they met Daniel Ortega. Sankara had long been fascinated by the Sandinista government, with its ties to liberation theology, and, in particular, Father Fernando Cardenal, who had joined the revolutionary government. But the US-​­Nicaraguan conflict was at its peak, with the Soviets and Cubans supplying arms to the Sandinistas and with the CIA backing the Contras. In recent weeks, Qaddafi had promised military assistance to Nicaragua to help fight the Americans. And it was around this time that Reagan made his famous statement that Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran constituted a “confederation of terrorist states.” Sankara’s visits and ties to four of these “terrorist states” were sure to raise a few eyebrows in Western foreign policy circles, just as his UN speech challenged the capitalist system.17 The following month, Sankara was seeking to break his country’s dependence on Western donors by traveling to the People’s Republic of China for a five-​­day official visit. His delegation managed to procure a loan

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agreement with the Chinese government, which provided $8 million in new money and restructured a previous loan of $25 million. Although the Chinese had already spent $7 million on the stadium in Ouagadougou and were conducting feasibility studies for a hospital in Koudougou, in the end they would finance no major new projects. However, trade statistics show that Chinese products started flooding the country. Much of Burkina’s cotton was going to China, mainly in exchange for rice, tea, steel, electrical appliances, chemical products, bicycles, cotton cloth, hand tools, and shoes. And yet, despite these signs of economic activity, Chinese diplomats in Ouagadougou told US officials that “there is little potential for further development of bilateral relations since Burkina Faso produces little that China can use.”18 In Ouagadougou, US Ambassador Neher was tasked with “laying down the law with Sankara,” and their first meeting devolved into a shouting match. Days later, an October 11 editorial in Sidwaya contained a veiled attack on Neher, calling him a “cowboy representative” and stating: “This ‘diplomatic animal,’ freshly arrived among us, thinks he’s in conquered ­territory. . . . [But] the Revolution of August must quickly finish with him.” State Department officials in Washington even queried whether Sidwaya was calling for Neher’s assassination. Minister of Foreign Affairs Basile Guissou then informed the US embassy that Sankara would no longer be dealing with the US ambassador. In response, on November 21, Washington immediately reduced its aid package to Burkina Faso “to demonstrate the tangible consequences of the Sankara regime’s hostile actions.” The United States continued humanitarian assistance, including food aid and rural water-​­supply projects, but it targeted a popular forestry education program at the Dinderesso School for elimination. “We decided to cut this forestry program in southwest Burkina,” Neher explained. “Closed it down completely. We used the aid as a way of getting their attention.” Hearing the news, Sankara invited the US ambassador over for lunch. In their December 11, 1984, meeting, Sankara was amicable and even expressed “appreciation” for the food relief from the United States. But, in a subsequent meeting on January 10, 1985, he voiced his disappointment that the United States was still terminating the Dinderesso forestry project, especially at a time of environmental calamity. Neher told Sankara that the White House had “concluded that there was no place for the US in Burkina Faso’s future,” and pointed out Burkina’s consistent UN votes in opposition to the United States. Sankara said that “Burkina’s positions in the UN are flexible” but said that the CNR

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was unwilling to “vote on command” because of American pressure. In an interview a few months later, he reasoned: “Burkina Faso was elected with the votes of more than 104 countries. We had to represent their interests, in particular those of the non-​­aligned countries. Their interests, as well as those of other peoples in revolt, should be defended everyday, constantly, and courageously.” Regarding US pressure via “threats to cut off certain aid,” Sankara explained that “the American ambassador backpedaled after our conversation and we explained our position to his government. . . . We explained to him the sincere friendship we feel for the American people.” Although the relationship was saved, the Reagan administration still cut the forestry program. And by 1987, the US-​­Burkina bilateral aid program would be further reduced from its $15–$20 million annual level to a mere $1 million owing to the CNR’s numerous political affronts.19 On October 28, 1984, enthusiastic crowds of youth greeted Sankara in Bamako, Mali. News had quickly spread of his UN speech, and he was being hailed as a hero for courageously speaking truth to power. All across West Africa, he was raising the hopes of young people, as his charismatic appeal and moral integrity won over new supporters in droves. And now, the young revolutionary was being sworn in as the new chairman of the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO) at the annual summit. Many ordinary people saw it as a positive sign and expected big changes. But African political elites worried that his leadership at CEAO would inspire young activists to challenge repressive governments in their respective countries and unsettle networks of corruption. Indeed, in his speech to CEAO leaders, Sankara wasted little time in extending his anti-​­corruption crusade, stating unequivocally that it was time to “clean house” at CEAO. As it turned out, the largest financial scandal in the organization’s history had just erupted. Known as the “Diawara Affair,” it involved the Ivoirian minister of planning, Mohamed Diawara, who was charged with embezzling 6.5 billion CFA of CEAO funds that had been earmarked for famine relief. While Sankara was in town, the accused, which also included Malian minister Moussa Diakité and Senegalese minister Moussa N’Gom, were arrested at Hotel l’Amitié and whisked away to Ouagadougou to stand trial. Speaking to journalists outside, Sankara promised that the “band of thieves would not remain unpunished.” Indeed, to the shock of political elites, the three ministers would later all be sentenced to long prison terms in Ouagadougou.20 The Malian political class maneuvered to prevent the scandal and legal process from taking its course. The US embassy in Bamako reported that

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Malian officials were incensed by Sankara’s words and actions and that President Traoré was “furious.” There was “concern of the Malian elite over Sankara’s potential appeal to Mali’s young, often unemployed urban masses,” as Sankara’s ideas were considered to be “appealing to young Malians facing a bleak future.” Even within the US embassy compound in Bamako, Malian personnel would “crowd around to hear Jeune Afrique articles on Sankara read aloud.” The revolutionary threat, which had seemed contained in Ouagadougou, was encroaching on neighboring regimes. A few weeks later, Sankara flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the OAU Summit, where he found an even larger platform. On this occasion, he took the opportunity to restate his positions condemning apartheid in South Africa and lobbying for the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SDAR) to the OAU. In short, as Sankara’s message was broadcast to a wider transnational audience and his movement expanded in scale, concern grew among African political elites, who began discussing possible countermeasures.21 During this time, relations between France and Sankara deteriorated. With the Franco-​­African Summit slated for December 11, 1984, Sankara announced Burkina’s “declaration of non-​­participation,” which came as a surprise to the French government. Then, in January 1985, Mitterrand ordered French ambassador Jacques Le Blanc to officially protest a CNR statement that declared “French imperialism” to be Burkina’s “real enemy.” This was followed by an intemperate telegram from Sankara to Mitterrand criticizing South African Pik Botha’s visit to France. As expected, Sankara’s telegram was not well received. The French rejected it as “unwarranted interference in France’s internal affairs.” Then there was another diplomatic flap in Ouagadougou during the visit of Yves Roland-​­Billecart, head of the Caisse Centrale de Cooperation (precursor to the French Development Agency), when Minister Basile Guissou maladroitly penned a letter of regret saying that he would be unable to attend Roland-​­Billecart’s reception dinner for “political reasons.” Because of the diplomatic snubs and controversies, the French government was “fed up,” and it began planning “a strategy of reducing French aid.”22 Within this context, President Houphouët-​­Boigny pursued tools to undermine the revolution, and he struck on the idea of cultivating Blaise Compaoré as a useful ally. Shortly after the Franco-​­African Summit, he arranged meetings between Compaoré and Chantal Terrasson de Fougères, his goddaughter—and the granddaughter of Henri Terrasson de Fougères, former colonial governor of French Sudan (Mali). Smitten by the young

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métisse woman, Compaoré soon began visiting Yamoussoukro and Abidjan regularly to see his future spouse, while Houphouët-​­Boigny paid for the courtship. At the time, Compaoré was already engaged to another woman in Ouagadougou and was going through the marriage process arranged by Joseph Sankara. But after meeting Chantal, he promptly broke up with his fiancée. Indeed, Compaoré was flattered by Houphouët-​­Boigny’s attention, dazzled by the shows of opulence, and soon drawn into the family of his in-​ ­laws and Houphouët’s larger clan. To maintain appearances with his revolutionary colleagues in Ouagadougou, he brought back signs of diplomatic success. For example, Houphouët-​­Boigny financed construction of Bobo-​ ­Dioulasso’s airport and paid for improvements to the telecommunications network, and so Sankara trusted Compaoré in handling relations with Côte d’Ivoire.23 Within months, on June 29, 1985, Compaoré and Chantal Terrasson were married in a ceremony and reception that seemed to flout every ideal of the revolution. As champagne flowed, Sankara was visibly bothered by the show of luxury. His friends and family recalled that the marriage marked the beginning of the divergence between the two friends. “When I went to Blaise’s house,” Pascal Sankara remembered, “there were expensive luxuries. And I knew that Thomas had a real problem with all of Blaise’s tastes for luxury. But Blaise had a different idea of why he wanted to be in power.” Through Chantal, Houphouët-​­Boigny had given Compaoré a life of wealth, and he was reluctant to give it up. Mariam Sankara tried to befriend Chantal, but it soon became clear that they had very different sets of ideals. Chantal spurned Mariam’s offers of friendship and refused to accompany Compaoré in his visits to the Sankara home. By all accounts, Chantal could barely contain her disdain for the revolution; her envy toward Mariam was apparent at social gatherings and official events where Chantal had to accept being the spouse of the “number two.”24 According to former ministers and CNR members, Compaoré came to loathe Sankara for criticizing his “bourgeois tastes” and for keeping him in a subordinate position. He was incapable of standing up to Sankara in the CNR meetings, and yet in Sankara’s absence he frequently worked to undermine his friend. On the other hand, Sankara impinged on him with his demanding work pace. “It’s good to have a man to whom you can say anything, or almost anything,” Sankara said in an interview. “It’s rare. At the same time, it’s painful because it weighs on the other, the amount of effort, to play a role, to be receptive. When at 4:00 in the morning, I say to

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Blaise to come and see me, he has to come pass the entire night with me until dawn—to help me relax, to make me laugh, to keep me afloat and then I continue to work. We’ve passed nights and nights and nights.” In their closeness, the seeds of animosity were growing, just as Compaoré was decidedly moving in the opposite direction with respect to his political ambitions and goals for the use of state power.25 While rumors circulated of a developing rift between the two friends, Sankara was constantly crisscrossing the country, traveling from village to village; mired in detailed policy discussions with department heads and ministers; or traveling abroad for his duties as the CEAO president. He did not have time or even the intrinsic interest in playing the political game, outmaneuvering rivals simply for ephemeral political victories. He was invested in the long game of development and the raising of political consciousness. In contrast, Compaoré was focusing his attention on winning the internal political war, moving freely between Ouagadougou and his base of military support in Pô. And yet, institutionally, Compaoré added “minister of justice” to his portfolio in August 1985. Now in charge of the justice system, Compaoré showed disdain for defendants’ rights and civil liberties; soon the commando-​­style approach was brought to the courts, as magistrates and CDR delegates were pressured to rush through the tremendous backlog of cases. Moreover, he steered his supporters in the UCB and GCB into prominent positions within the CNR, quietly building a network of civilians and military officials who shared common interests. Compaoré was so emboldened that he even reached out to Sankara’s friends, such as Valère Somé, about collaborating in “common opposition to the President.” But Somé took his distance, as he recalled: “Realizing that my opposition concerning certain initiatives of the President was based not on some personal ambition but on principles, [Blaise] quickly changed from the idea of possible alliance between us and then saw me as a target to be shot down.”26 Unfortunately, at the same time, Sankara’s foreign policy team suffered a decline in skill. Minister of Foreign Affairs Basile Guissou lacked the finesse of his predecessor, Arba Diallo, and was constantly engaged in diplomatic provocation and pettiness. And so Diallo was released from prison, and soon he occupied an office next to Sankara’s and gave advice on foreign affairs. Moreover, Sankara relied too much on a shadowy group of advisers, which included Buana Kabué, a former journalist from Zaire, who plied in conspiracy theories and got involved in unauthorized clandestine actions. Vincent Sigué also brought considerable unwanted negative

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attention to Sankara’s inner circle. A growing political liability, he was accused of murder in France and allegedly used torture against “reactionaries.” Around Ouagadougou, he provoked Western diplomats and even got into bar fights with expatriates and US Marines. French intelligence, the DGSE, was quick to capitalize on Sigué’s reputation and sordid trail, feeding information to the French press, especially Le Figaro, in an attempt to discredit the revolution.27 With tensions rising, Sankara headed to Yamoussoukro on F ­ ebruary 12, 1985, for the summit of the Conseil de l’Entente. As in Bamako, his popularity was visible in the streets of Abidjan. A reporter with Afrique-​­Asie noted: “One can thus understand why Côte d’Ivoire had insisted that the summit be held in Yamoussoukro rather than Abidjan, as Captain Sankara had initially wished. The crowd would probably have counted in the hundreds of thousands in the big city.” As it was, thousands of youth traveled to Yamoussoukro by bus to welcome Sankara. In the markets of Côte d’Ivoire, there was an active commerce in recordings of Sankara speeches and the Popular Revolutionary Tribunal proceedings, which provided unparalleled revelations of corruption and enrichment of African political leaders. Basile Guissou viewed these recordings as “political merchandise” that neighboring countries could not stop from circulating and thereby “exporting” the revolution. Also, numerous students from across West Africa went to study at the University of Ouagadougou, owing to the much lower fees, and then carried their revolutionary experiences and ideas back home. As a result, Houphouët-​­Boigny was concerned about Sankara’s immense popularity in university and working-​­class milieus and among young Ivoirian military officers.28 As Sankara arrived in Côte d’Ivoire, news quickly spread that a bomb had exploded in the suite reserved for him. Many assumed that the Ivoirians had been behind it. But as the investigation proceeded, it was soon revealed to have been a false flag operation conducted by Sigué. “Sigué’s men blew up the hotel room,” Etienne Zongo explained. “It was in order to say, ‘Look, the Ivoirians want to kill Thomas. It’s not safe.’ But the Ivoirians knew that it was the Burkinabé delegation that blew up the room. They knew that it was Sigué, and they caught him. Thomas was aware of Sigué’s actions.” This information was withheld from the public, but Sankara told Afrique-​­Asie that he was “resolutely convinced” that Houphouët-​­Boigny had not been responsible for the action. According to US intelligence sources, the bombing was “an effort to embarrass the GOIC [Ivoirian government]” and part

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of the CNR’s “clumsy campaign of not-​­so-covert action” run against “anti-​ ­Sankara figures” in Côte d’Ivoire. This campaign included the April  8, 1985 assassination of the Burkinabé businessman Valentin Kinda, who was considered a “patron of the anti-​­Sankara exile movement,” and even an “attempt in February 1984 to kidnap former foreign minister Michel Kafando in ­Abidjan, carried out with the obvious involvement of the Burkinabé embassy.” As for the Kinda murder, Ivoirian authorities stated that they would not tolerate their country being used as a political playground for “settling scores and carrying out assassinations.” In contrast, Carrefour Africain ran a lengthy story on the murder and framed it as a political move engineered by the Ivoirians. Nevertheless, Sankara met with Ivoirian officials in A ­ bidjan, and according to US embassy sources, the “discussion quickly deteriorated into a shouting match.” Houphouët-​­Boigny reportedly had “little hope of success” in improving bilateral relations.29 As for Michel Kafando, he retaliated by bringing Sankara onto the radar of the World Anti-​­Communist League (WACL), which had gotten involved on various fronts in the anti-​­communist struggle. Kafando was even in Taipei, Taiwan, to attend meetings organized by the WACL, and he met with US officials to discuss his “opposition activities” in Côte d’Ivoire. According to a secret cable on February 26, 1985, from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), he outlined his opinions of the “Marxist nature of Sankara’s rule” while discussing ongoing plans to overthrow Sankara. Kafando reported that several of his “colleagues in Paris” were coordinating things, while Kafando was smuggling pamphlets and leaflets into Burkina Faso in order to destabilize the CNR. He indicated that Côte d’Ivoire provided his base of operations aiming to “oust the Sankara regime.” Four months later, Washington cabled the embassy in Abidjan to report on “anti-​­Sankara” military officials “allegedly plotting to overthrow Sankara regime from exile in Ivory Coast.” This group included Captain Jean-​­Claude Kamboulé, who was still the most formidable military opponent in exile. The former head of Upper Volta’s Fifth Armored Division had forces in central Côte d’Ivoire and was being protected by Houphouët-​­Boigny. Following decades of silence, he recently told RFI in Abidjan: “I had with me certain ‘elements’ [soldiers] from Burkina, and elements recruited on the spot. We started training in the hope that eventually we’d return to Burkina [to overthrow the CNR]. . . . Côte d’Ivoire was following developments in Burkina Faso very closely. The Ivoirians had all the information from day to day of the rising tensions between the two men [Sankara and Compaoré]. I knew this

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because there was an intelligence officer who provided me with this information.” However, according to Kafando, Houphouët-​­Boigny was reluctant to take “forceful action,” as relations between Mitterrand and Houphouët-​ ­Boigny had soured a bit, particularly after France reached out to Libya to sign a cease-​­fire agreement with Chad. Many francophone African leaders were puzzled, wondering whether “France’s old loyalties were not being replaced by newer, more lucrative connections,” such as trade deals and oil contracts with Libya, according to one CIA report. Nevertheless, the plot to overthrow the CNR was launched by Kamboulé and Kafando, with successive acts of sabotage on two military camps. On May 29, the saboteurs hit Bobo-​­Dioulasso, and two days later they blew up the depot of the armored division camp in Ouagadougou. Kamboulé and his allies, which included a “European expert,” intended to take Bobo and then march on Ouagadougou. Another group was organized to come from farther east via Togo, taking Koupela. However, the coup failed, and soon a hundred military officers and civilians were rounded up, interrogated, and formally charged. One man, a paratrooper, was reportedly tortured to death at the Security Offices. As a corollary to these destabilization efforts, hostility mounted on Burkina’s northern border.30 On February 20, Sankara made an unexpected trip to Bamako. Armed with information from the Diawara Affair, he informed President Traoré that he had evidence of links between the Malian political class, including Traoré’s own wife, and the stolen CEAO funds. After the meeting, the Malian foreign minister, Alioune Beye, promptly departed for Paris and met with Mitterrand. The French defense minister, Charles Hernu, then headed to Bamako for discussions pertaining to Sankara’s regime. Known for “dirty tricks,” Hernu had recently been involved in some rather nefarious and clandestine French activities, such as the July 15, 1985, bombing of Greenpeace’s naval vessel, the Rainbow Warrior. After a lengthy cover-​­up, Minister Hernu would be forced to resign. But now he was in Bamako discussing Sankara, whose “political position,” the French embassy indicated, was “deteriorating.” Traoré’s saber rattling soon began. In fact, long before the coming war, in a June 24 cable Ambassador Neher reported on his conversation with the Algerian Ambassador, who, “like the rest of us, he has difficulty understanding the Malian propensity to keep the border pot boiling. . . . He sees a French hand in the affair and thinks France and Mali may be up to something sinister.”31 Amid the growing tensions with Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, Sankara attended a meeting in Yamoussoukro on September 10, 1985. The Ivoirian

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president had reached his limits, having endured numerous affronts and public attacks. Most importantly, Sankara’s anti-​­corruption crusade had gone too far. “African heads of state, such as Houphouët, they didn’t want anyone looking at what property they owned or how much money they had, and so they began an effort to contain the revolution,” Valère Somé remembered. “Houphouët pushed Moussa Traoré into war with us in order to kill the revolution.” In fact, leading up to the war with Mali, Sankara made quite a scene by overtly refusing Houphouët-​­Boigny’s efforts to buy his fealty. “Houphouët came in with a suitcase filled with money and gave it to him as a gift,” Balima recounted. “Sankara excused himself from the meeting, he went out in the hallway and called us—there were three of us—and he had us enter the office because he wanted us to witness the attempt at corruption.” It was an embarrassment to Houphouët-​­Boigny, who then sought to turn the tables on Sankara. In their formal meetings on September 10, he raised the issue of Libyan subversion in the region and put Sankara in the hot seat. Afrique-​­Asie reported that “[Sankara] knew from the outset that the whole operation was to isolate his country and to designate it as being indirectly responsible for the problems,” while Houphouët-​­Boigny was reportedly trying to “burn bridges between Sankara and his neighbors, notably Mali.”32 Returning to Ouagadougou on September 11, Sankara was livid. By then, he knew that both Côte d’Ivoire and Mali were seeking to overthrow his government by force. At a public meeting, amid loud cheering, he protested: “We know that at the present moment, they are trying to foment plots of all kinds against our people. . . . They are trying to create, to trigger an unjust and multiform war against our people.” Then, in the heat of moment, Sankara made an error that was the casus belli for the Malians. After maintaining that the revolution was “not for export,” he now declared: “The other peoples who are at our borders, they also are people who need revolution. . . . The revolution of the Burkinabé people is at the disposal of the Malian people if they need it.” Many observers, even his allies, thought he had overstepped his diplomatic boundaries.33 Within two months, a pretext had been generated to declare war on Burkina Faso: the lingering border dispute. But the real motivation was to precipitate a coup. Observers in Ouagadougou were aware of efforts in the French press to “poison international opinion” and “distort the image of the revolution.” Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti commented on the “insidious campaign being waged in the French press” against Sankara, which

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led “many Africans [to] think it’s the warning sign of an all-​­out offensive.” Africans, said Beti, recalled “with apprehension Lumumba and Nkrumah” and “feared a strategy of physical elimination” of Sankara. It’s difficult to ascertain France’s role in triggering the war, but on December 10, a “retired French military officer” cryptically spoke with US diplomats in Paris about destabilization efforts in Burkina. We do not know the identity of this French military figure, but, according to Jean-​­Pierre Bat, retired military officials maintained close ties to the French government. A likely candidate was a military figure known as “the Sphinx,” General Jeannou Lacaze, Mitterrand’s chef d’état-​­major of the armed forces, who had recently retired and become a special adviser on African affairs directly under Minister Hernu. Lacaze was especially close to Eyadéma, and according to US reporting, the French officer told of “a fighting force to overthrow Sankara . . . [which] envisages entering Burkina via Togo.”34 At an inopportune moment, on December 9, Colonel Qaddafi spontaneously arrived in Ouagadougou. Libyan troops “literally invaded the airport,” wrote Le Monde, “comporting themselves like in a conquered country.” It certainly was not lost on the French foreign policy establishment that Sankara had again refused to attend the Franco-​­African Summit and was hosting Qaddafi instead. But Sankara was in a quandary, playing host while privately feeling unsettled by Qaddafi’s sudden arrival. Neher reported that in contrast to the “widespread perception” that the CNR was “a stronghold of Libyan influence,” one “had to look hard for signs of a Libyan presence or assistance.” He defended Sankara, stating that the “honeymoon” with Qaddafi was virtually over. Across the border, the US embassy in Niamey even reported that Qaddafi was “actively cooking up” a coup in Ouagadougou. After months of fretting over Sankara’s ties to Libya, President Kountche told officials: “Qadhafi is looking for someone to support as a replacement for Sankara,” just as the Malian war fever picked up and many anticipated a regime change.35 At the time, Burkina Faso was conducting a nationwide census, and as census agents extended their work along the border with Mali, Le Monde misleadingly reported that Burkina’s forces had occupied “several Malian border villages.” President Traoré used the report as a pretext for war. Sankara responded to the crisis with a diplomatic note to the presidents of neighboring countries, reporting that census takers had encountered “systematic obstruction” and “attempts to fly the Malian flag” in a village on Burkina’s side of the border. In his letter, dated December 21, Sankara

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reaffirmed that Burkina did not “covet a single inch of territory” belonging to Mali and confirmed: “We are ordering our military forces to withdraw all along the extreme northern zone of the border with Mali.” Sankara invited international observers to visit the area, just as Malian military officers were calling for the bombardment of Burkina’s main cities.36 In Ouagadougou, the US embassy confirmed that Sankara had “all along tried to avoid exacerbating the tensions with Mali,” whereas the Malian government was keeping up a constant stream of rumors via radio. Neher wrote in a cable: “It is difficult to believe that the [Government of Mali] authorities do not know that most of the rumors to which they are reacting are false. . . . [Mali is] building up a war fever in order to justify and guarantee support for a military occupation of the towns it is claiming.” Sankara, on the other hand, recalled all troops from the border zone. Furthermore, in recent months, Bamako had thrown itself into a massive military buildup with French and Soviet backing, while Burkina had slashed defense spending in order to fund health care and education programs.37 Early on Christmas morning, the Malians attacked Burkina Faso, initiating the second so-​­called “war of the poor.” Malian tanks and armored vehicles began attacks on various points along the border between the two countries, as Malian MIG-​­21 aircraft bombed Djibo and Ouahigouya. The aircraft hit mostly civilian targets, including churches, markets, granaries, and water towers. On December 27, Burkina retaliated, sending its only two military aircraft into Malian territory, where they bombed the town of Sikasso. Then an attempted Malian invasion via Bobo-​­Dioulasso was repelled. Three days later, a cease-​­fire was signed. Commander Abdoul-​ ­Salam Kaboré remembered the war: “We didn’t want war. Moussa Traoré was threatened by the success that our revolution was having, and he wanted to destabilize it.  .  .  . France was behind the scenes pushing Mali to destabilize us.” According to a CIA report, the war “stemmed from Bamako’s hope that the conflict would spark a coup in Burkina,” and provide an “opportunity to overthrow Sankara.” Indeed, the evidence suggests that Mali, France, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo engineered the war in hopes of removing Sankara from power.38 On January 3, 1986, Sankara turned to reconciliation. In his speech to the nation, he reasoned that war was “nothing other than an extension of politics,” paraphrasing Carl von Clausewitz. But he was quick to place emphasis on his main message: “I would like each of us to make an effort to

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surmount feelings of hate, rejection, and hostility toward the Malian people. I want each of us to achieve the most important victory: to kill inside ourselves the seeds of hostility and enmity toward anyone.” Despite the war, he announced that Burkina would not invest any further money in the “mad race toward confrontation and stockpiling of weapons.” Soon after the rally, he was in his office talking to journalists with Afrique-​­Asie about France’s role in the war. He told reporters: “I had the occasion to express to President Mitterrand the regret of our country to see France support Mali militarily.”39 However, many in the Burkinabé armed forces felt humiliated. They disagreed with the weakening of the military in favor of rural development. They complained about the decrepit state of military equipment and the shortage of supplies. According to Commander Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, there was a large faction of “bellicose officers who were crying for war and revenge” and who were angry with Sankara for not leading a counterattack. In short, Burkina’s military feebleness in the face of Malian aggression diminished Sankara’s standing with fellow officers. They blamed him for the defeat, for refusing to mobilize key military units and relying on armed civilians with local CDRs to engage in the fighting. In fact, the war led to a major overhaul of the CDRs, as an embassy cable explained: “The 1985 Christmas war with Mali saw the last gasp of the CDRs in their security guise, and they failed. Their contribution to the ‘people’s war’ proving worse than useless.” As a result, three months later, Sankara would call for a reform of the CDR system.40 In the aftermath of the cease-​­fire, Jerry Rawlings put pressure on Sankara to be conciliatory. Rawlings saw no benefit in a war between neighboring West African states. It was a blatant contradiction to the Pan-​­Africanist message of unity that they had tried to promote. For Sankara, the war showed that he had few remaining regional allies. Houphouët-​­Boigny, Eyadéma, and Kountche were all content to watch the young captain get humbled. Libya did nothing to aid the CNR. A CIA assessment even reported that Libya was “aware of Traoré’s intentions” but “chose not to inform Sankara” and “probably welcomed the war” as a way of extending Libyan influence. Sankara was no longer the CEAO chairman, and Burkina Faso’s stint as a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council had ended. The two years of diplomatic high visibility were over, and Sankara was feeling isolated. More importantly, an anti-​­Sankara faction was coalescing within

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the military, just as internal popular grievances grew. Although the revolution had seen great triumphs and increased global popularity over the past year, Sankara was at a crossroads.41

Notes 1. CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Burkina: Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Soviet Response to Instability in West Africa,” September 1985, FOIA; Le Monde, November 8, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 28 and December 12, 1984, January 25, 1985, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Belgrade to SecState-​­WashDC, August 10, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 201–232. 2. Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013; Soumane Touré, interview, August 28, 2015; Westad, Global Cold War, 331–395; Julius Walker, ADST interview, October 14, 1992; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 2, 1983, September 11, 28, 1984, January 25, 1985, FOIA. 3. Chester Crocker, ADST interview, June 5, 2006; Westad, Global Cold War, 357–363; National Security Decision Directive 156, “Food for Progress” Program, Reagan Library, Rosenberg Files, Food for Progress—Keating Group (Famine), 12/07/1984–01/07/1985 (FRUP, Vol. XLI, 632–634); Riley, Political History of American Food Aid, 406–409, 467–479. 4. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 5, 1984, FOIA. 5. Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 11, 12, 1984, FOIA. 6. Carrefour Africain, September 28, 1984; USINT-​­Havana to SecState-​­WashDC, September 26, 1984, and October 4, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 136–142; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, 166–342. 7. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; USINT-​­Havana to SecState-​­WashDC, September 26, 1984, and October 4, 1984, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 136–142; Fagen, Transformation of Political Culture. 8. USINT-​­Havana to SecState-​­WashDC, September 26 and October 4, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 12, 1984, FOIA; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 137–138. 9. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 120–135, 143–153. 10. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 143–153; “Discours memorable de Thomas Sankara à Harlem,” ­youtube​.­com, accessed October 2014, ­https://​­w ww​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­u lD0​ _JfdEUc; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455; Stanislas Adotevi, interview, March 15, 2013; Bloom and Martin, Black against Empire, 269–322. 11. Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; see “La video complete du discours de Thomas Sankara à l’ONU le 4 Octobre 1984,” at ­https://​­w ww​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­time​_continue​=​­9​& ­v​=​­Dt7QqBJVQFo​& ­feature​=​­emb​_ logo. 12. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 154–175; Sankara, Oser Inventer, 98–110, in French. 13. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 154–175. 14. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 154–175; Wilder, Freedom Time, 258; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 442. 15. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 154–175.

234 | Thomas Sankara 16. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 154–175; New York Times, October 5, 1984; US-​­UN Mission to SecState-​­WashDC, October 6, 1984, FOIA; see also Gilman, “New International Economic Order.” 17. New York Times, September 2, 1984, and December 11, 1984; USINT-​­Havana to SecState-​­WashDC, September 26, 1984, and October 4, 1984, FOIA; Carrefour Africain, September 28, 1984; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, 314; Westad, Global Cold War, 339–348. 18. Afrique-​­Asie, February 11, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, January 25, 1985, and March 4, 1987, FOIA; Bamouni, Burkina Faso, 160. 19. Sidwaya, October 11, 1984; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 16, November 21, December 12, 28, 1984, and January 11, 1985, FOIA; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 188, 195–196. 20. Carrefour Africain, November 9, 1984; Afrique-​­Asie, November 19, 1984. 21. AMEmbassy-​­Bamako to SecState-​­WashDC, December 20, 1984, FOIA; Carrefour Africain, November 9, 1984. 22. Le Monde, February 16, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, April 22, 1985, FOIA; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 100–104. 23. Afrique-​­Asie, March 11, 1985; Andriamirado, Sankara, 139–143; Jaffré, Biographie, 180–181, 259; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000. 24. Pascal Sankara, interview, November 26, 2014; Mariam Sankara, interview, May 9, 1997; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015. 25. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Cupelin, “Capitaine Thomas Sankara,” 2012, documentary. 26. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 14–19, 144–145; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 26, 2014; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 51–55; Harsch, Burkina Faso, 62–63. 27. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, April 22, 1985, and July 6, 1984, FOIA; RFI, “Qui a fait tuer Sankara?,” ­https://​­webdoc​.­r fi​.­f r​/ ­burkina​-­​­faso​​-­qui​-­​­a​​-­fait​-­​­tuer​​-­sankara ​/­chap​-­​­04​​/­index​.­html; Robert Pringle, interview, July 18, 2014; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015. 28. Afrique-​­Asie, March 11, 1985; Bazié, Chronique du Burkina, 37–39; Andriamirado, Sankara, 134–137; Guissou, Burkina Faso, 105–106. 29. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Carrefour Africain, April 19 and June 7, 1985; Afrique-​­Asie, March 11 and August 26, 1985; Andriamirado, Sankara, 139–141; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, April 22, May 15, July 17, 1985, FOIA. 30. AIT-​­Taipei to AIT-​­WashDC, February 26, 1985, FOIA; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Abidjan, June 25, 1985, FOIA; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “France’s Changing Role in Africa,” September 1985, FOIA; “Qui a fait tuer Sankara?” at h ­ ttps://​­webdoc​ .­r fi​.­f r​/­burkina​-­​­faso​​-­qui​-­​­a​​-­fait​-­​­tuer​​-­sankara​/­chap​-­​­03​​/­index​.­html; Carrefour Africain, June 7, 1985; Afrique-​­Asie, August 26, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, May 15, 1985, FOIA. 31. AMEmbassy-​­Bamako to SecState-​­WashDC, February 25, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, June 24, 1985, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, September 9, 1985; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 406–410; New York Times, September 20, 1985. 32. Afrique-​­Asie, October 7, 1985; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000. 33. Sidwaya, September 13, 1985; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 107.

Politics Is War and War Is Politics  |  235 34. Afrique-​­Asie, January 13, 1986; Carrefour African, October 4, 1985; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 239–241; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, December 10, 1985, FOIA; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 473–474. 35. Le Monde, December 13, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, November 30 and December 10, 1985, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Niamey to SecState-​­WashDC, December 20, 1985, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, December 16, 1985, and January 13, 1986. 36. Le Monde, December 24, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Bamako to SecState-​­WashDC, December 20, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 27, 1985, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, January 13, 1986; Jaffré, Biographie, 261–262. 37. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 24, 1985, FOIA. 38. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 25, 27, 28, 1985, FOIA; Le Monde, December 27, 1985; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Burkina: Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, January 13, 1986; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 50–51; Jaffré, Biographie, 262. 39. Afrique-​­Asie, January 13, 1986; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 250–253. 40. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 28, 1985, and April 2, 1987, FOIA. 41. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 31, 1985, and January 17, 1986, FOIA; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; Afrique-​ ­Asie, January 13, 1986; Andriamirado, Sankara, 145–151.

10 REVOLUTIONARY DUTIES AND PERILS, 1986–1987

O

n November 17, 1986, François Mitterrand was greeted in Ouagadougou with anti-​­ imperialist banners and condemnations of France’s dealings with apartheid South Africa. Jeune Afrique reported that Burkina wanted to “show its right to difference” (droit à la difference), “expressed in the streets, by the hostile shouts directed against colonialism and imperialism, with a target: Botha [the president of South Africa].” The French president had just wrapped up the annual Franco-​­African Summit in Lomé, Togo, and once again, Sankara had boycotted the summit. To make matters worse, two months before, the CNR had been implicated in a failed coup attempt against Gnassingbé Eyadéma in Togo, which fueled suspicions that Burkina was involved in wider destabilization efforts. Against this backdrop, it was a tense evening in Ouagadougou, as Sankara and Mitterrand traded barbs for hours while guests watched from the edges of their seats.1 In many ways, Sankara’s improvised speech was a reflection of his relentless truthfulness and his tendency to provoke and challenge representatives of the “establishment.” He proudly spoke his mind and acted as an equal to the French president. Exuding warmth, he first struck a chord of friendship and hospitality, and he even lauded Mitterrand for his various positions, ranging from the debt crisis in Africa to the quest for peace worldwide. But he quickly turned to chiding Mitterrand over South Africa. He said: “It is in this context, Mr. François Mitterrand, that we did not understand how bandits like Jonas Savimbi and killers like Pieter Botha have been allowed to travel up and down France. . . . They have stained it with their blood-​ ­covered hands and feet. All those who have made it possible for them to carry out these actions will bear full responsibility here and everywhere,

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today and forever.” He condemned the “pointless ­slaughter” during the US bombing of Libya, and he went through a litany of cases, all beginning with the phrase “Peace also means” and followed by protests over injustices in Nicaragua, Palestine, Iraq, Chad, and so forth. To correct these wrongs, Sankara suggested aggressive action. He said that Burkina would “sign a defense agreement with France,” but only in order “to allow these arms . . . to continue on to Pretoria” and thereby provide military support for the anti-​ ­apartheid struggle. In a more general way, he stated: “We are fully ready to lend a hand, to give our assistance to whomever requests it.” Coming on the heels of the coup attempt in Togo, it was a dangerous message. At certain points, Sankara expressed his gratitude that Mitterrand had “defended our cause” in relation to debt, but then criticized France for reducing aid and allowing “capitalists to profit.” Sankara may well have been speaking to the Mitterrand of his youth, the Mitterrand known for loathing the power of money, denouncing financial oligarchies, and detesting the bourgeoisie. But Mitterrand had evolved into a much more pragmatic leader, embracing neoliberal reforms. Before ending his statement, Sankara blasted France for its treatment of African immigrants under the new “Pasqua Laws” and protested “the deportation of our Malian brothers.”2 Those in attendance remembered the palpable tension when, around midnight, Mitterrand rose to respond. The French president pocketed his prepared speech and took his time addressing all of the points. He obliquely questioned Sankara’s defense of Libya: “You speak of peace, and you are right, and therefore you have spoken of war. . . . But there is another war, that of terrorism . . . [which] must be hit with universal repudiation, must be considered with contempt.” Toward the end of his speech, the French president’s tone became paternalistic, and he added: “This man is a bit disturbing, President Sankara! It’s true, he titillates you, asks questions! With him, it’s not easy to sleep in peace: he does not leave you with a tranquil conscience. . . . I find that in certain judgments he has the sharpness of fine youth and the merit of a head of state completely devoted to his people. I admire his great qualities, but he goes too far, in my opinion; he goes further than is necessary.”3 Although many supporters were pleased to see Sankara confront Mitterrand, certain CNR members thought that Sankara should have reserved his harshest criticisms for private meetings. Director of Communications Serge Balima remembered: “When there was the famous toast with Mitterrand, I had written the speech, but Sankara decided to improvise.

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It was overweening, too arrogant from my point of view.” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré viewed Sankara’s speech as a turning point in the relationship with France. “When Mitterrand said, ‘Your president is someone who disturbs,’ Thomas looked over at me. France wasn’t going to accept Sankara challenging their whole Françafrique system.” The US ambassador saw the “heated exchanges” as unfortunate and “edged on the unacceptable,” reporting that Sankara had “thrust Burkina Faso into a troubled relationship with the one country he most needed—France.” Mitterrand was even on the verge of walking out of the formal dinner. The French press, outraged by the events, mocked Sankara for what was characterized as puerile diplomatic behavior.4 And yet, nine months before, the souring of relations with France was not a foregone conclusion. When Sankara attended the first International Conference on Trees and Forests in Paris, his participation alongside Mitterrand was viewed as a gesture of contrition after the war with Mali. In his statement on February 5, 1986, Sankara deployed his characteristic anti-​ ­imperialist message, arguing that the struggle to save forests was a fight against “imperialism.” Condemning deforestation and the “disruption of the biosphere,” he called on humanity to restore its balance with nature. “We must not retreat in face of the immensity of the task,” he argued. “We must not turn away from the suffering of others, for the spread of the desert no longer knows any borders.” However, Mitterrand, according to diplomatic sources, viewed the references to imperialism as a “protective label” to assure Sankara’s radical audience back home that he had not sold out to “imperialist France.” He saw that one of Sankara’s most pressing challenges was “cushioning his move toward moderation enough to satisfy the hardliners in Burkina Faso,” as a US cable described. France even made an advance of structural adjustment funds, as French officials felt that “a new era is dawning” and that “the ‘enfant terrible’ may be growing up.”5 Nevertheless, things were about to change in France. Following the French legislative elections of March 1986, the conservatives took a majority of seats. Even Jean-​­Marie Le Pen’s far-​­right National Front picked up a stunning thirty-​­four seats in the assembly. A so-​­called cohabitation government was formed, with conservative Jacques Chirac as prime minister and socialist Mitterrand in the presidency. An hour after Chirac was named prime minister, a terrorist attack hit Paris, and the attacks would intensify over the next two years, moving Chirac to embrace a “war against terrorism” as his mission. Chirac even launched operations without notifying Mitterrand, engaged in secret diplomatic dealings, and dried up the

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information flow to Mitterrand by neglecting to copy cables to him. For Africa, the victory of Chirac and other conservatives meant an expanded role for Jacques Foccart and his clientelist networks.6 Foccart returned as Chirac’s adviser on African affairs and promptly began reconnecting with such friends as Houphouët-​­Boigny and Eyadéma. Within Mitterrand’s inner circle, Jean Audibert replaced Guy Penne as head of the “Africa Cell,” Mitterrand’s top official on Africa. There were few Frenchmen in government who knew Burkina Faso better than Audibert, who had spent years in Upper Volta. However, his influence was constantly being undercut by Mitterrand’s son, Jean-​­Christophe, referred to as “papamadit” because he often started meetings with the phrase “My dad told me.” In 1986, Jean-​­Christophe took up a permanent place as a diplomatic adviser within the Africa Cell, and he was known to flout protocols, cutting deals and doing favors for African heads of state. His diplomatic freelancing led Audibert to resign in protest in 1988. But with renewed backing from Chirac, the neocolonialist Foccart networks in Ouagadougou, controlled by French expatriates like André Aubaret, were given new life. These nebulous groups and sets of interests—which have left few documentary sources behind—connected with the wider Bolloré Group operations, which controlled large sections of francophone African economies.7 Not long after Chirac’s ascent to power, the CNR’s minister of commerce, Mamadou Touré, considered a “close friend of Chirac,” met with Chirac and Foccart on April 29, 1986, to reinforce “bilateral cooperation.” According to former CNR members, Mamadou Touré was a key Burkinabé representative of these françafrique networks, which also included Lassiné Diawara, at the Chamber of Commerce and CEAO, an Aubaret “protégé” close to the Bolloré Group; the ambassador to France, Djibrina Barry; the ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Frederic Korsaga; and the head of the BIB Bank, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, whose father, Charles Bila Kaboré, a former finance minister under Yameogo, was vice president of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)—the largest bank in francophone West Africa—until 1982. As the most powerful banking family in Burkina, they had close ties to Côte d’Ivoire, especially Alassane Ouattara, who replaced Kaboré at BCEAO before returning to the IMF. They were also linked to Togo, as Roch Kaboré was married to a Togolese woman who worked at the Chamber of Commerce in Ouagadougou and delivered “favors” from Eyadéma. It was Kaboré, according to Etienne Zongo, “who showed Blaise how to make money.” In Paris, Ambassador Djibrina

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Barry organized Compaoré’s meetings and phone calls with Foccart, and even hosted Chantal Compaoré. Korsaga, one of Compaoré’s close friends, helped manage relations in Côte d’Ivoire.8 These powerful business interests had the effect of eventually splitting the leadership into opposing camps. Many of these pro-​­business figures had initially served as advisers to Sankara, including Charles Bila Kaboré, Djibrina Barry, Edward Tapsoba, Pierre Ilboudo, and Lassiné Diawara. Even French businessman André Aubaret was meeting with Sankara, as one US cable reported: “Aubaret appears to have ready access to the president as well as to the foreign minister.” This led the US State Department to describe Sankara’s cabinet as “dominated by moderate, pragmatic technicians,” as he took “tentative steps toward encouraging the private sector.” Sankara even went so far as to remove Paulin Bamouni, considered one of the CNR’s main ideologues, from his position as editor of Carrefour Africain in an effort to reduce offensive rhetoric in the state media. However, eventually these pro-​­business figures tied to the Foccart networks turned against Sankara. The primary reasons for this were Sankara’s unwavering commitment to fighting corruption and his crusade against self-​­enrichment among the revolutionary leadership. In the wider context, despite protests in francophone diplomatic circles, in April 1986, former Ivorian minister Mohamed Diawara was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Ministers Moussa N’Gom and Moussa Diakité were also sent to prison. For the African political class perusing newspapers, it was astonishing to see photos of fellow ministers’ lives behind bars in MACO prison of Ouagadougou. But even as the Diawara Affair was wrapping up, another scandal broke. This time it was in France, as françafrique networks of corruption came forcefully into light during an investigation into the suspected embezzlement of ex-​­minister Christian Nucci. Soon the “Development Crossroads Affair” took over the French news cycle, implicating Guy Penne and embarrassing Mitterrand. Sankara’s war on corruption was touching a nerve in France as well.9 Within Burkina Faso, there was a palpable malaise as workers and peasants openly complained about certain policies. In rural areas, the CDRs frequently had abused their power, arbitrarily arresting people for “counterrevolutionary” comportment, intimidating peasants, and requisitioning property. Citizens complained bitterly about the demands for greater public participation in development projects. “It was just too much, too fast. And Burkina isn’t a place where you can force people to work like machines,” one teacher in Ouagadougou remembered. “Sankara was a

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full-​­time revolutionary, and he pushed the people too hard. And so the people were tired of the revolution. It was like being in Albania or something, becoming communists.” Peasants even fled the much-​­touted Sourou Valley project, where the farming conditions were viewed as unacceptable. Faced with growing discontent, Sankara moderated his tone considerably. In an effort to mollify merchants and civil servants, he ended the policy of rent-​ ­free housing and reformed the country’s investment code to allow more private business activity. To appease the old political class, clemency measures were extended and house arrest for former elites was relaxed. During this time, there was also an apparent discursive shift in Sankara’s public statements. He abandoned much of his prior “enemy of the people” rhetoric and refrained from his usual attacks on the “petty bourgeoisie.” But in this reorientation he now placed greater emphasis on individual comportment and “revolutionary morality.” In certain ways, it corresponded with notions of a “theologian state,” in which the goal was more than just the modification of the political and economic systems; an effort was made to transform social behavior and ways of living and thinking. In Sankara’s understanding, revolutionaries should embody key qualities, and so he exhorted people to embrace hard work, asceticism, sobriety, and cleanliness; he spoke of revolutionary sacrifices and of people being “redeemed” and “morally purified.” This emphasis on revolutionary morality was clear to see as he set out to reform the CDR system.10 The first National CDR Conference was held from March 31 to April 5, as roughly 1,300 CDR delegates came to Ouagadougou for five days of nonstop sessions with the aim of reforming the CDR system. The main event for the conference was Sankara’s closing remarks on April 4. “We must have the courage to look ourselves in the face. There are bad CDR members among us! Let’s make no secret of this,” Sankara stated. “They set themselves up as veritable despots in the local districts, in the villages, and in the provinces. . . . Reigning and holding sway like warlords, they’re fascists.” He blasted CDRs that “committed atrocities, unspeakable things” during their nighttime patrols, and called them out for their “anarchic, fraudulent, wasteful, and thievish” management of money. It was a bold and risky move to attack the base of the revolutionary structure. Sankara thought that the revolution had to move on to a more “conscious phase,” and this required reforming the CDR system. But there was no indication that he was going to take his foot off the gas pedal. He voiced his intention to combat “laziness,” “dirty and badly maintained” offices, “chairs that wobble,”

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“dirty managers, badly dressed,” “lazy typists and absent-​­minded telephone operators.” He called on everyone to “look at our weaknesses” and “pledge to improve ourselves.” In asking people to work harder, Sankara made an impassioned plea for self-​­reliance. “Our country produces enough food to feed ourselves,” he reasoned. “We can even exceed our level of production. Unfortunately, due to lack of organization, we’re still forced to hold out our hand to ask for food aid. . . . We must do away with this food aid, which is an obstacle in our path, creating and instilling this habit in our minds, these instincts of beggars and welfare recipients.” He reminded people that food security and self-​­reliance were political issues. “There are those who ask: ‘But where is imperialism?’” he said. “Look at your plates when you eat—the imported grains of rice, corn, millet—that is imperialism!”11 In his bid to achieve food sovereignty, Sankara could not have predicted the rains, but as it turned out, the rains were abundant in 1986, bringing hope and expectation to his new rallying slogan: “Two million tons of grain.” In fact, the bumper crop of 1986 amounted to 1,926,800 metric tons—232 kilograms per capita—a considerable boon for the country. As we have seen, when Sankara came to power in 1983, grain production had been 1,100,200 tons, or roughly 143 kilograms per capita. Even before 1986, despite the drought conditions, the country had increased yields and the area under cultivation. Overall, from 1983 to 1988, grain production saw a staggering annual growth rate of 14 percent, with area under cultivation growing by 7.2 percent per year and yields increasing annually by 6.3 percent. The production of cotton also exploded, doubling in two years, from 88,134 tons (1984) to 169,227 tons (1986). Economists with UNESCO and the World Bank reported that this was “unusual performance in the Sahel.” This greater productivity was accomplished largely because “technologies had been adopted that were appropriate to the agro-​­climatic context of Burkina Faso.” In particular, economists and agronomists observed that “the government encouraged farmers to adopt technologies” such as more labor-​­intensive water-​­retention techniques, which had the effect of “raising agricultural yields.” In matters of food security, it was reported: “The attention of the government to food security represented a successful departure from earlier policies which had largely neglected the issue.” Indeed, by many measures, the hard work and discipline were paying off, and Burkina Faso was slowly digging itself out of the fiscal hole inherited from successive corrupt regimes, which had ignored rural areas and the peasantry. However, although subsistence concerns faded, the increase in grain production,

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combined with a late arrival of food aid shipments, led to a precipitous fall in grain prices. This hindered state efforts, via the National Office of Cereals (OFNACER), to stabilize the grain market, which meant that many farmers were forced to sell their grains to merchants at lower prices. This inability to efficiently intervene in the grain markets “represented a major setback for the government,” according to one analyst.12 Despite economic progress, the CNR was coming under heavy pressure to cut a deal with the IMF. As scholars have long noted, the IMF/World Bank—with its conditions tied to structural adjustment loans—often failed in its mission to forge greater stability and sustained growth in the developing world. Many of the countries that found themselves trapped in these programs saw worsening poverty and even political instability. In early 1986, Sankara was feeling compelled to entertain a possible IMF program. The US State Department even sent the economist Elliot Berg to Ouagadougou. In 1981, the World Bank had commissioned Berg to produce a report that ultimately served as part of a coordinated strategy of legitimation of structural adjustment programs. The report called for close collaboration with the World Bank and IMF in drawing up lending conditions—which included the liberalization of capital controls, cuts in government spending on health care and education, and a general reorientation of the economy toward cash crop production for export.13 Sankara responded to the overture by stating that he “would like to have an opportunity to discuss economics with Berg.” A meeting was arranged and enlarged into a seminar for Sankara and several other CNR members. There was hope that Sankara would sign up for the neoliberal project. French ambassador Le Blanc indicated on April 10, 1986, that the French government and French business interests were satisfied. As cotton and gold production increased, there was reason to believe that the CNR was getting its economic house in order. Moreover, the Foccart networks were reenergized by the more favorable business climate. According to a US cable, even as “French bank and commercial representatives” indicated that Burkina Faso was becoming increasingly profitable, “Le Blanc said that France is adamant this time that Burkina formally request negotiations for an IMF standby agreement before any new structural adjustment funds will be made available.”14 French minister of cooperation Michel Aurillac visited Ouagadougou in mid-​­May to negotiate aid, and soon afterward, Minister of Finance Justin Damo Barro sent a letter to the UNDP agreeing to halt construction on

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the railroad, implicitly accepting the IMF/World Bank arguments that the Tambao manganese mines would not be able to cover costs. The railway had been a symbol of Burkina’s self-​­reliance campaign, so it remained on the books as “postponed.” Around this time, the CNR requested another meeting with the IMF. To this end, on May 26, Sankara had a secret meeting with the new IMF Africa director, Alassane Ouattara, to explore options, while Henri Zongo reached out to the Bretton Woods institutions. Regarded as a “strong supporter of a vigorous private sector in the country,” according to US cables, Zongo made it clear that the CNR planned to espouse a “pragmatic approach” to economics. He expected that the donor community—in other words, France—would be the “main source of funds,” as one-​­third of government revenues were still coming from that country. Soon, the French released two major installments of aid, which included financing for the Kompienga Dam project (completed after Sankara’s death). However, even as the CNR negotiated with the IMF/World Bank and France delivered aid, Sankara publicly railed against aid at the Eighth Summit of the Nonaligned Movement (Harare, Zimbabwe), arguing that African economies were “battered by the terrible problem of indebtedness.” Many saw his words as simply rhetoric. But they added to the sense of unpredictability of CNR decision-​­making. In the meantime, Sankara was facing diplomatic challenges on other fronts.15 On April 15, 1986, the Reagan administration launched its bombing of Libya in response to a terrorist attack—which the US linked to Libya—on a disco in Berlin frequented by American soldiers. Many around the world condemned the bombing, and even France decided to forbid US planes to overfly France for the mission. But it was a serious setback for Sankara and his relationship with Western donors. Shortly before the bombing of Libya, Sankara wrote to Reagan about the “disturbing situation” developing between Libya and the United States. In his letter, he beseeched Reagan to “make every effort to stop the escalation of violence in this region.” But Sankara’s words carried little weight, and soon the bombing began. “I was in Tripoli when the bombs fell on Libya on April 15, 1986,” Mousbila Sankara said. “I called Thomas during the bombing, and he followed the bombing directly with me over the phone. There was serious destruction everywhere. Qaddafi’s home was bombed; some of his family died. Thomas was very upset by this.” In what amounted to a de facto assassination attempt, the bombs hit Qaddafi’s compound; two of Qaddafi’s sons were seriously injured, and his adopted daughter was killed. The French embassy was part of the extensive collateral damage.16

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The US embassy was soon the target of large protests, and Sankara was forced to take a stand. He published two messages in Carrefour Africain, condemning the attacks, which he called a “flagrant violation of international law and ethics.” As a result, relations with Washington rapidly deteriorated. “After the Reagan administration bombed Libya, Sankara cut off dialogue,” Ambassador Neher ruefully said. “He wouldn’t even receive the French ambassador. But this was part of his decline, the cutting off diplomatic ties with us after the bombing. It was after that that they expelled the Peace Corps.” Publicly, the CNR maintained that there was no political reason behind the decision to expel the Peace Corps, that it was part of a larger effort to reform the relationships with NGOs. According to diplomatic cables, Guissou had initiated the move back in June 1985. During the interim, Sankara reversed the expulsion decision, assuring the US embassy as late as June 6, 1986, that he wanted to keep the Peace Corps in Burkina. But then suddenly, on June 20, the CNR indicated that it was withdrawing its official request for the entire contingent of fifty-​­four volunteers. It explained that Guissou felt snubbed during his trips to Washington and decided to terminate the Peace Corps as a “reaction to deepening US aid cuts.” In the absence of contact with Sankara, Neher took the view that the Peace Corps decision was a “reaction” and a “political message.” He placed the blame on lackluster skill in foreign affairs: “Much of the problem stems from an inability to manage foreign relations effectively. Decision-​­making is still off-​­handed and spontaneous, producing unforeseen results.” According to Sawadogo, who coordinated NGOs, the expulsion of the Peace Corps was part of a pattern of expelling foreign NGOs that the “hard and pure” revolutionaries deemed “imperialist.”17 As Sankara weathered the diplomatic storms, Compaoré stepped up his internal political war. He relentlessly maneuvered to expand control over various networks while generating crises in order to isolate Sankara domestically and internationally. He projected different personas depending on the audience, presenting himself as more moderate than Sankara to Western diplomats while cultivating the image of a “real revolutionary” domestically. As Sankara embraced more pragmatic policies, Compaoré and his group positioned themselves further to the left and attacked Sankara for “selling out.” But at the same time, Compaoré’s group was the driving force in marginalizing the civilian left and bringing neocolonial business interests back into the fold. The Sankara-​­Compaoré rivalry also played out within military circles. There was an ongoing dispute between Sankara’s

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head of the gendarmerie, Ousseini Compaoré, and his deputy Jean-​­Pierre Palm, a Compaoré loyalist. And an intense rivalry between the personal security guards of Sankara and Compaoré escalated into physical altercations. But Compaoré still retained a decisive military advantage with his control over the commando base in Pô, under his loyal henchman, Captain Gilbert Diendéré.18 Compaoré’s offensive was extended to foreign affairs when he implicated Burkina Faso in a coup attempt in Togo. On September 24, 1986, the Togolese government reported that a force of some sixty soldiers trained in Burkina had launched an attack from Ghana, seeking to overthrow Togolese president Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Months before the coup, Togolese opposition figures, including Gilchrist Olympio (whose father had been murdered by Eyadéma in 1963) and Edem Kodjo, arrived in Ouagadougou seeking help in their “revolutionary” struggle. Compaoré served as the broker. Through Burkina’s embassy in Togo, he purchased a fleet of 4x4s that were used in the coup attempt. After numerous meetings with the French Defense Attaché in Ouagadougou over whether Burkina had also provided hand grenades used in the coup, US secretary Shultz cabled Paris: “There appears to be a widespread view, including the French, that there was some sort of Burkinabé connection with the September coup attempt in Togo, with or without the hand grenades. Obviously this complicates our relationship with Burkina.” Compaoré’s actions served to paint a picture of Burkina as a “destabilizing agent” on the eve of Mitterrand’s visit. The coup attempt also alienated regional allies. Rawlings was troubled because it put his country in the crosshairs at a time when he was seeking better relations with Western donor nations, while Le Monde and Jeune Afrique promulgated allegations of Burkina’s and Ghana’s ties to the coup.19 Leaving behind a cloud of unresolved suspicions, Sankara departed for Moscow on October 5. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets were headed in a new direction with glasnost and perestroika, and they were still dealing with the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. But the relationship with Moscow had been tense since Sankara came to power. In fact, Adama Touré recalled that “the USSR of Gorbachev, long distrustful of the populism of Sankara, only agreed to receive him following the intervention of president of Cuba Fidel Castro.” Still, Sankara had a chance to meet with Gorbachev, who was just preparing to leave for a historic meeting with Reagan in Reykjavik two weeks later. Perhaps for this reason, Gorbachev was reportedly preoccupied during their meeting, and Sankara left Moscow

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empty-​­handed. By October 1986, as the Soviet Union was suffering from a shrinking economy, Gorbachev was seeking to restructure economic relations with client states, massively cutting forms of direct assistance and transitioning to mutually beneficial economic relations. Even aid to Cuba was reduced. And Burkina Faso simply had little to offer Moscow. In short, Sankara and his entourage enjoyed the revolutionary optics of visiting the Soviet Union, but they received nothing in return for the trip, which only served to further complicate their relations with Western donors.20 A month later, Sankara traveled to Nicaragua for a celebration of the Sandinista movement. He had just hosted Daniel Ortega in Ouagadougou in August, and now he received a warm welcome in Managua on November 8. Sankara spent time with Ortega, took in the revolutionary ambience, played music with Afro-​­Cuban bands, and spoke to a large crowd in support of the Nicaraguan struggle. In his speech, which emphasized nonaligned themes, he did not hesitate to criticize the US intervention and efforts to destabilize the government in Nicaragua. He was certainly not alone in condemning the US-​­backed Contras. Many Western leaders, including Mitterrand, opposed Reagan’s policy, and on the same day that Sankara spoke in Managua, the US Congress—now under Democratic ­control—announced its plans to investigate the “Iran-​­Contra affair.” In fact, it represented a turning point for Reagan, who was considerably “defanged,” as Piero Gleijeses describes it. Soon the foreign policy establishment in Washington was purged of hard-​­liners, who were replaced by more pragmatic figures. Reagan’s NSC Africa staff, which had been dominated by CIA people from the operations wing (DDO), was now populated mostly by career foreign service officers, whose preference was diplomacy. As Reagan was forced to take a less aggressive approach, military and clandestine actions receded.21 On his return trip to Ouagadougou from Managua, Sankara stopped in Cuba, where he spent time with Castro. By 1987, six hundred students from Burkina were studying at the Island of Youth training facilities, and a small number of teachers, medical students, musicians, and military officers were studying in Havana. In the other direction, Cuban technicians were in Burkina advising on the “commando literacy” drive in 1986. The CNR continued giving a high media profile to political relations with Cuba, which helped Sankara to maintain his revolutionary credentials. But bilateral relations did not make much progress in areas of economic cooperation. In fact, the debt crisis had hit Cuba, and Latin America, hard as

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Figure 10.1. Managua, Nicaragua, November 8, 1986. Thomas Sankara playing with a band while visiting Nicaragua for a celebration of the Sandinista National Liberation Front’s founding. (Pathfinder)

well, and Cuba’s economy was in dire straits. Cuba was unable to meet its obligations to creditors, which prompted Castro in 1986 to take the lead in opposing debt repayment, an effort shared by Sankara. In any case, with a string of fresh trips to the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Sankara was placing strains on his relationship with Western donors, while burnishing his revolutionary image for posterity. While he was in Nicaragua, he also met the socialist journalist Mary-​­Alice Waters, who would later assemble Sankara’s most important speeches in Thomas Sankara Speaks, published in 1988 soon after his death. For many people in the anglophone world, this book would be their first exposure to Sankara’s words.22 Leading up to Mitterrand’s November 17 visit to Ouagadougou, there were growing signs that neighboring African heads of state were working to isolate Sankara. There was no tolerance for clandestine actions like those launched by Compaoré in Togo or Sankara’s rule-​­breaking approach to diplomacy. In December 1986, Sankara publicly threw his support behind New Caledonia’s quest for independence from French rule while the rest of

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the francophone world stood by France. At that time the Kanak nationalists in New Caledonia were being trained in Libyan military camps, bringing strong condemnation from Chirac. Conservatives in the National Assembly and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac wrote to Minister Aurillac to call for economic reprisals against Burkina Faso because of their support for Kanak independence. France would tolerate a bit of revolutionary rhetoric but would not accept a vote against France on such a sensitive issue. On December 16, Le Monde reported that the conservative majority called for a rejection of the new agreements: “[Burkina Faso] has voted against us at the UN . . . without interfering in the internal affairs of countries, it is necessary to demand respect for bilateral solidarity . . . we must stop this comedy of financing countries that are kicking us in the rear-​­end.”23 Key CNR members, particularly the technocrats, were feeling the pressure. They understood that if France wanted to pull the plug financially, the country would spiral down into economic collapse. There was simply no way that Burkina could survive without French support, and everyone knew it. By that time, one of Chirac’s friends, French economist Michel Camdessus, had become the new IMF director, making Alassane Ouattara, a fellow neoliberal, one of his deputies. For that reason, Paris could exercise an inordinate amount of direct influence over Burkina’s economy. Many within the CNR were keenly aware that Sankara’s posturing was deleterious to the country. Illustrating that point, while Sankara railed against indebtedness in Harare, an IMF team arrived in Ouagadougou to advance negotiations with CNR members.24 At this conjuncture, economic conditions took a tumble as widespread inflation diminished purchasing power, and remittances from city dwellers to rural homelands began to dry up. Despite an exceptional harvest, people had less money to spend as cash crop prices dropped, with another drought looming on the horizon for 1987. The CNR’s unpredictable economic policies encouraged capital flight, as foreign debt and commercial arrears piled up. State enterprises were losing money, and custom duties were declining. Perhaps the only potential bright spot was the prospect of foreign aid and the big-​­spending expatriates who injected cash into the economy. But already in January 1987, the CNR was facing a budget deficit of $36 million, and given the foreign aid cuts from various donors, France was more important than ever. A US cable reported on January 13 that it was Sankara’s “resistance to IMF conditions which impedes progress, keeps French budget support out of reach, and frustrates his trained economists.”25

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It is puzzling, given the “austerity measures” imposed from within, that negotiations became so fraught. But France suddenly withdrew its offer: “The GOB’s [Government of Burkina] failure to move ahead has prompted France to withdraw its offer of an advance and to condition the assistance by requiring a fully negotiated IMF standby agreement. . . . Most observers here—Bank, French embassy, UN—believe that only an unbridgeable budget gap can force Sankara to bring his CNR colleagues together for an approach to the IMF.” However, Sankara addressed the deficit by requiring private businesses to funnel their profits into development projects, ordering the country’s leading banks to advance money for urban construction projects. For example, the largest bank, BICIA, whose shareholders included the National Bank of Paris (BNP)—which had recently been reprivatized after Mitterrand nationalized it—received notice that it had to advance more than $8 million. The banks protested vigorously, insisting that such large decreases in active capital made it impossible for them to finance their routine commercial transactions. Such moves and the wider financial difficulties exacerbated the divisions within the CNR. As the pro-​ ­business figures tied to the Foccart networks decisively pulled away their support for Sankara, many began questioning his leadership, especially on economic matters. Indeed, Skinner explained that by early 1987 many observers thought that Sankara’s “‘charismatic’ qualities were too parochial and inadequate to deal with the complex economic and power realities within the global system.”26 Across the Sahara, rebels in Libyan training camps were preparing for their war in Liberia. With little hope of prevailing in Chad, Qaddafi had set his sights on Liberia. According to Stephen Ellis, the US bombing of Tripoli prompted the Libyan leader to exact revenge on Reagan. Liberian rebels, led by the warlord Charles Taylor, were seeking to overthrow the president, Samuel Doe, viewed as an American puppet. At the time, Taylor was in an American prison awaiting extradition to Liberia on corruption charges, but in September 1985, he escaped and made his way to Ghana. On trial for “crimes against humanity” at the Hague in 2009, he hinted that US government agents had helped spring him from prison. However, his testimony must be handled with a high degree of skepticism. The same holds true for the statements of Prince Johnson, a fellow Liberian rebel, whose own book and testimony at the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission contain numerous fabrications. In any case, according to Taylor’s trial transcripts, after he arrived in Ghana, he contacted Burkina’s embassy and

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sought out help from Sankara, whom he viewed as a “strong revolutionary” and fellow “Pan-​­African.” This led him to a meeting with Compaoré in Abidjan, where he also met with Houphouët-​­Boigny. A close friend of the murdered president of Liberia, William Tolbert, Houphouët-​­Boigny threw himself into financing the NPFL’s insurgency with the aim of overthrowing his archenemy Doe. Even France saw economic opportunities in Liberia, as the French company Michelin was in the process of taking over the American Uniroyal Goodrich tire company, an attempt it finally completed in 1988. Furthermore, two of Taylor’s main contacts in Abidjan were a French businessman, Robert Saint-​­Pai, and the French ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Michel Dupuch. After serving as ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire for fourteen years (1979–1993), until Houphouët-​­Boigny’s death, Dupuch became the head of the Africa Cell, adviser on African affairs, under President Chirac in 1995. He was at the center of françafrique power in West Africa.27 The earliest archival evidence of Taylor’s presence in Ouagadougou, and of his ties to Compaoré, comes from early January 1987. On January 12, Charles Taylor and another Liberian opposition figure, most likely Taylor’s interpreter, Musa Cissé, arrived in Ouagadougou for a twenty-​­four-hour visit. According to a US embassy source, this was their second trip in less than a month. They were categorized as “opposition figures living in Ghana,” traveling on Liberian passports and refugee papers. Upon arrival they headed “directly to the heavily guarded Conseil de l’Entente,” where they met with Compaoré, who was reportedly their contact for both visits. Embassy officials viewed it as “a troubling sign” that Taylor was “plugged into this regime at a high level.” As suspicions grew, Taylor was rearrested in Ghana. His imprisonment, lasting until after Sankara’s assassination, might explain why there were no further reports on his presence in Ouagadougou.28 Compaoré was aware of the immense riches in diamonds in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and this drove him to cooperate with Taylor and Qaddafi. As a US diplomat in Ouagadougou later reported: “Blaise had established a symbiotic relationship with Qadhafi and with Charles Taylor, and Ouagadougou was being used as a midpoint in arms shipments from the north . . . Compaoré was paid in diamonds for his work.” But in order to participate in the wealth bonanza, Compaoré would need to convince Sankara that it was in the revolution’s interest to engage in such adventurism—no easy task. Moreover, Taylor needed backing from Libya. In his trial deposition, he stated that financing “had come from the Libyan government at the time through Burkina Faso.” According to Etienne Zongo, Compaoré put his

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Cameroonian military friend Captain Mbara Guerandi in touch with the Libyan leadership, so that “when someone was looking for financial support from Libya,” they simply “got in contact with Guerandi.” Within Libya, it was Moussa Koussa—the head of a secret Libyan organization that ran intelligence operations, trained mercenaries, and launched interventions in foreign countries—who ran the training camps. “Among the Libyans, there was Moussa Koussa, who was very close to Blaise,” Zongo stated. “He was the one who ran the training camps, where they trained people from all over the world to make revolution. Blaise had his support.” Sankara never countenanced such a “revolution” with the aim of self-​­enrichment through civil war and the illicit diamond trade, and he opposed using Burkina as a base for destabilization. Mousbila Sankara recalled: “Qaddafi wanted to train men in Burkina with the aim of destabilizing Liberia. But Thomas refused to allow this. Qaddafi saw that Sankara was not going to do what he wanted, so Qaddafi began working through Blaise.” In fact, the Libyan leader had grown so annoyed with Sankara that by August 1986, according to a CIA report, Libya was viewed as potentially working “behind the scenes to cultivate particular officers, possibly in the belief that over time it can install a more compliant leader” in Ouagadougou. By that point, Libyan interests overlapped more and more with those of Compaoré, Taylor, Houphouët-​­Boigny, and by extension France as well.29 As Compaoré and his clan pursued self-​­enrichment, Sankara kept the course, seeking to put in place stronger institutions for fighting domestic and transnational corruption. These institutions included the “People’s Commission for the Prevention of Corruption” (CPPC). As part of its stated goal of establishing an “exemplary moral revolutionary lifestyle” for the leadership, it invited CNR members to provide a full accounting of their assets. On February 19, 1987, in front of a packed crowd at the Palace of Justice, Sankara proudly went first and divulged everything he owned. He read an exhaustive list of his property, possessions, debts, and income. In a bit of theater, which immediately provoked laughter, he declared his assets: “In terms of property, I will cite first of all a refrigerator, that is broken right now.” He indicated that he had three guitars, and among his real estate holdings, he owned a house. While Mariam owned a car, Sankara had two bicycles. His monthly income was roughly $350; he had $800 in a bank account. At the conclusion of the hearings, one journalist remarked that Sankara must be among the “poorest heads of state in the world.” In an

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interview, Sankara did not back down, stating that the same level of scrutiny should be imposed on everyone, including his own family.30 Blaise Compaoré felt personally targeted by the CPPC’s anti-​­corruption drive, just as enmity grew between Sankara and Chantal Compaoré, who “never missed an opportunity to defy the president,” as Somé explained. It was no secret that Compaoré and his wife had a taste for luxury, and by now there were credible rumors that Chantal was involved in the illicit gold trade via Côte d’Ivoire; an investigation by Sankara’s allies tracked the gold-​­smuggling ring directly to Compaoré’s doorstep, implicating Chantal with her ties to Abidjan. Those near Compaoré sensed that he was unnerved by Sankara’s latest crusade against so-​­called “embourgeoisement.” Certain CNR members even viewed the CPPC as an “anti-​­Blaise weapon,” while other military officers were tired of Sankara’s moral rigor.31 The following week, the rival factions temporarily put aside their differences for the FESPACO film festival of 1987. As a record half-​­million participants visited Ouagadougou, the festival was alive with music and high-​­profile figures, such as the Nigerian star Fela Kuti, who gave a memorable performance. Sankara saw Fela as a fellow nonconformist, one who had used his music as a political weapon to combat corruption in Nigeria. Conversely, Fela viewed Sankara as an inspiring political hero. Before leaving town, he told journalists that it had been “the most exciting trip I’ve ever taken in my life” and that “Burkina Faso is the best thing happening in Africa at the moment.” Sankara, wearing his impeccable white Faso Dan Fani attire, was highly visible at the film screenings and Popular Balls. But, in contrast to the 1985 festival, there were few Marxist-​­Leninist or anti-​ ­imperialist slogans or posters in evidence, leading Le Monde to opine that Sankara’s regime was evolving in a more moderate direction. The top festival prize was awarded for Sarraounia, a historical epic about the resistance of an African queen to colonial conquest. A week later, Sankara took to championing women.32 Once again, thousands of women came to the capital for International Women’s Day on March 8, 1987. This day marked Sankara’s most important speech on women’s issues, a powerful and poetic statement that was later published in book form. According to friends, he had been working exhaustively on it for some time. When Jean Ziegler saw him earlier in February, Sankara gave him twenty-​­nine typed pages, “rendered almost illegible by the corrections made by hand.” Soliciting feedback, he reminded Ziegler:

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“You understand, I saw my sister die of misery. I cannot forget the ordeal that my mother endured.” In the speech, Sankara spoke from a position of modesty, as “a man who sees in every one of you a mother, sister or a wife.” He beseeched women to assert themselves as “equal partners” and called for the elimination of “all systems of hypocrisy that reinforce the shameless exploitation of women.” He emphasized the ways in which women endured the “double oppression” of men and class exploitation; he excoriated men who commit adultery, “talk lewdly about women,” “beat their wives,” and “flee from the moral and material responsibility of fatherhood.” He described women’s everyday plight: “Woman—source of life yet object, mother yet servile domestic worker, nurturer yet trophy. Exploited in the fields and at home. . . . Too busy to give the necessary attention to her children, too exhausted to think of herself, the woman continues to slave away.” Sankara brought the speech back to the concrete ways the revolution was seeking to liberate women, celebrating the achievements of the Women’s Union of Burkina (UFB). He placed special emphasis on the importance of education and observed, “Parents should accord the same attention to the progress of their daughters at school as they do to their sons, with pride and joy. Girls have proven they are the equals of boys at school.” But he also acknowledged that educated women struggled to find spouses and that childless women were often stigmatized. He encouraged women to break with old “norms of beauty” that had been imposed on them and practices that “violate the integrity of their bodies, such as female circumcision.” Before building to a dramatic finale, he ruminated on the existential ties between men and women: “At the moment of death each man calls out the name of a woman—his mother, his sister, or his companion—with his last breath. . . . He who does not love women, who does not respect women, who does not honor women, despised his own mother. Thus, he who despises women despises and destroys the very place from which he has come. That is, having come from the generous womb of a woman, he kills himself because he believes he has no right to exist.” Having staked out his positions, he capped the speech with a dazzling flourish: “Comrades, there is no true revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt. I await and hope for the fertile eruption of the revolution through which they will transmit the strength and rigorous justice issued from their oppressed wombs.”33

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Even as the revolution mobilized increasing numbers of women, who became more vocal in asserting their rights, many men took exception to Sankara’s personal war on patriarchy. Within his inner circle, military colleagues were particularly bothered by his attacks on polygamy and adultery. One such officer was Captain Gilbert Diendéré, who would play a leading role in Sankara’s murder. Quiet, reserved, Diendéré was a sphinx. But he was having a very public affair with a popular figure of the revolution, Fatou Diallo, a singer in the Colombes. After hearing about the affair, and some risqué sexual antics that occurred while she was traveling abroad, Sankara suspended her without salary and told Diendéré to cut ties with her. But Diendéré ignored Sankara’s intrusion and eventually married her. The incident led to conflicts with many of his military colleagues who also had mistresses. When the issue surfaced, Serge Balima asked Sankara: “Why are you getting involved in this affair? It’s not the role of a head of state.” Sankara replied: “No, these are licentious behaviors, and it’s contrary to the revolutionary ideal.” Ruminating on the ways that Sankara intervened in people’s personal lives, Balima offered his view: “In my opinion, Thomas was too idealistic and took up an almost messianic mission. But state power could not be used to manage people in this way to make all the Burkinabé perfect, pure, honest. It’s utopian. . . . He couldn’t understand how a husband could commit infidelity. He found that intolerable.” This perception of moralistic micromanagement further alienated Sankara from his male colleagues.34 With the economic situation exacerbated, Sankara desperately took to promoting the consumption of local products and placing greater emphasis on the peasantry. Taking a page out of the import-​­substitution playbook that had been widely embraced across Africa as a way of reducing foreign dependence, Sankara decided to ban certain fruit imports. However, at a time when many countries were moving away from such approaches—owing to neoliberal pressures—his dogged pursuit of autarky led to costly mistakes. His decision emerged from the Second National CDR Conference (March 30 to April 3, in Dédougou), with its focus on the peasantry and self-​­reliance. According to Martens, Sankara promoted a sort of “cult of the peasant,” exhorting farmers to heroically “return to the daba [hand hoe],” while rejecting agricultural “experts.” The conference was followed by the creation of the National Union of Burkinabé Peasants (UNPB), formally part of the CDR system. As both a political instrument and an expression of the new pro-​­peasant inclination, the UNPB was an attempt to increase

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rural political mobilization, partly in compensation for the erosion of public support in the towns, while promoting local production. It also reflected the marching orders of the five-​­year plan (inaugurated on August 4, 1986), with its emphasis on self-​­reliance and agricultural development. In any case, on April 3, as the CDR conference was wrapping up, Sankara declared that Burkina Faso was banning the importation of fruits. His colleagues remembered that he spontaneously made the decision to ban fruit imports without circulating a draft proposal or discussing it within the Council of Ministers. Fidèle Toé explained: “Thomas was trying to find measures that would generate more local consumption of local products. But I have to admit in hindsight that this measure was not appreciated by many people, or understood by the people.” Within days, on April 8 the decree was adopted into law. Soon there was chaos at the border with Côte d’Ivoire as trucks laden with perishable products were refused entry. Ordinary people were confused and angry. Given that kola nuts were so engrained in local cultural practices and daily consumption, their scarcity produced widespread grievances. The rhetoric and policies of food self-​­sufficiency were compromised by the increased urban demand for imported foods. The protectionist policy also went against the basic CEAO agreements intended to foster free trade in West Africa. Before the decree went into effect, the US ambassador went to the Chamber of Commerce and asked for twenty-​ ­four hours to produce a statement on the likely consequences, but he was rebuffed by CNR officials. “They didn’t have the guts to question him. After this, I felt that his days were numbered. It was because of disastrous decisions he was making on the economy.”35 In fact, coming on the heels of the ban on fruit importations, unpopular taxes were imposed on imported beer, soft drinks, and laundry soap, which led to even more discontent among urban dwellers who saw their purchasing power diminished. The change prompted many merchants to pursue opportunities outside the country, as profits evaporated. Within this context, Sankara moved to outlaw the local making of millet beer (dòlò or raam), as a way of ensuring grain self-​­sufficiency. He justified his position in an interview with Jeune Afrique: “Beer is not a priority. What do you choose, millet to eat or millet to drink? I think that first you have to feed people. All the Burkinabé do not drink beer, but all of the Burkinabé eat every day.” For many, the proposed law invoked colonial efforts to criminalize local beer making. However, beer making was immensely important in local economies, ritual life, exchange, and work parties. Thus, his

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decision was highly unpopular, especially among rural beer makers, who were mostly women. To observers, it seemed to contradict his own self-​ ­reliance drive. In the end, the law, slated for January 1988, did not go into effect before Sankara’s death, but news of his plans generated widespread opposition.36 As part of Sankara’s effort to build a more independent economy, he reached out to Rawlings with the intention of creating a Burkina-​­Ghana Economic Union. He proposed a new currency (the “ligidi”), to be shared by both countries. The aim was to leave the CFA franc zone and reduce Burkina’s dependence on France and Côte d’Ivoire. Indeed, the CFA franc was used as an economic “weapon” by France, and Sankara long campaigned against it. “The CFA franc, which is tied to the French monetary system, is a weapon of French domination,” he explained in November 1985. “The French economy, and consequently the French commercial capitalists, amass their fortune on the backs of our people on the basis of this link, of this monetary monopoly. That is why Burkina is struggling to put an end to this situation through our people’s struggle to build an independent, self-​ ­sufficient economy.” In battling for greater economic sovereignty, Sankara promoted the union with an emotional pitch and courted Ghana strongly. But the reality was that economic exchanges with Ghana were exceedingly difficult. There were few networks—communications, transport, banking, and commerce—or even languages shared by the two countries. Furthermore, the roads via Ghana were so poor that even passenger traffic was difficult. Truck transport to the port of Ghana was virtually nonexistent. As fuel, food, and commodity imports passed through the ports of Abidjan and Lomé, Burkina was simply unable to break free of its more powerful francophone neighbors. In all of these ways, Sankara’s dream of autarky was confronted with the stark reality of economic dependence. His options were limited.37 Within this juncture, urban workers mobilized. For the first time in twelve years, all of organized labor came together. Even before the fruit ban, the major labor confederations (ONSL, CSB, CNTB, and USTB) and twenty-​­seven autonomous unions had signed a common “Communiqué to all workers” on March 17, and they presented their chief grievances to the CNR. Then Soumane Touré, who had recently been released from prison, lodged a formal complaint with the ILO, protesting the limits on trade union freedoms. The CNR tried to drown out the union criticisms for weeks, and then on May 1, military troops were dispatched to the Bourse du Travail,

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where soldiers intimidated labor leaders, forcing many to stay away from the planned Labor Day events. Within a matter of days, new leaflets hit the streets, accusing the CNR of being anti-​­worker and anti-​­union. For weeks, the crackdown intensified, and on the night of May 30, Soumane Touré was rearrested in a surprise raid. Then other PAI-​­LIPAD members such as Philippe Ouedraogo and Adama Touré were detained a few days later. Across town, various CDRs called for Soumane Touré’s execution. As the national radio reported the arrests, Valère Somé intervened. He wrote to Sankara, arguing that the actions of the CDRs were “anarchic” and “opening the way to even more spontaneous activities [and] a climate of insecurity for all citizens.” After the letter, the CNR’s Central Committee held an emergency meeting. Sankara endorsed Somé’s view, and Touré’s life was saved, although he remained in prison until after Sankara’s overthrow.38 Across town, on the University of Ouagadougou campus, an all-​­out struggle erupted over control of the university. Compaoré and CDR head Pierre Ouedraogo had managed to take control of the governing bodies within the university, but they still could not capture the base. A majority of students were flat-​­out refusing to cooperate with the CDR system: forgoing obligatory sports, ignoring CDR meetings, and refusing to participate in the annual harvest of crops in the university communal fields. Most students had been ardently “pro-​­Sankara,” but now they began turning against the revolution. They resorted to circulating tracts attacking the CNR, as they watched soldiers invade the campus, muscling Compaoré’s faction, and the UCB, into the university. To make matters worse, on June 9, the military faction dismissed nineteen of the country’s magistrates for being “uncooperative” and “making criticism of the government.” As minister of justice, Compaoré defended the measures in the media.39 In contrast to the grievances and lackluster enthusiasm surrounding the revolution, Sankara’s popularity continued to grow beyond Burkina’s borders. In his final year, the first books on Sankara appeared in bookstores across francophone Africa and France, painting glowing portraits of him. In Jeune Afrique, Senegalese essayist Jean-​­Pierre N’Diaye wrote that Sankara was the “hope of the third generation” who “embodies a well-​­rooted African youth, connected to the rhythms of the world.” N’Diaye saw him as “the black of modern times” and lauded “the ethics and thinking that undergird Thomas Sankara’s actions.” The New York Times offered a positive rendering of Sankara, describing him in the following way: “Unorthodox, outspoken and apparently uncorrupt, Burkina Faso’s impatient young

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President is shunned by Africa’s older leaders as the continent’s enfant terrible. But to much of Africa’s younger generation—young Africans who have known only the disappointments of the independence era—Captain Sankara is an angry young man to their liking.” Sennen Andriamirado’s Sankara le Rebelle—which appeared in March 1987—did the most to construct Sankara’s image. As the first biography of Sankara, it traced his life through the revolution with poignant anecdotes. But even in these favorable accounts, there was a sense of fatalism. Andriamirado ended his book with rather cryptic allusions: “What connections are there between Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara? The dream, the faith, the eloquence and maybe the prescience. . . . Others have tried without success . . . some of them are dead. Will he escape the same fate? Sankara has never had illusions about his distant future. From when he took power, he knew that he was disturbing and that he was going to disturb.”40 Indeed, Sankara was now facing uncontrollable fissiparous processes and enemies on all fronts. There was talk of widespread military discontent, disappearances, and arrests, just as hostile tracts attacking Sankara circulated within military milieus. “Trade unionists,” according to a US cable in May 1987, “whispered that there were some military elements ready to support them [in an uprising].” There were rumors of a split among the quartet of Sankara, Compaoré, Lingani, and Zongo. Compaoré kept up his relentless attacks, while key CNR members diverged from Sankara over policy matters and spontaneous economic decision-​­making. As the hot season hit stride and people waited for the rains, many were worried about civil war or complete economic collapse. Sankara believed that his determined faith, will, and hope were enough to bring about unity, but he could not master the political divisions and economic realities of the country. “Sankara continued to dream,” wrote Andriamirado. “He would not wake up until too late. Because the fight between factions was becoming a fight to the death once the military entered fully into the arena.” His internal and external enemies soon saw opportunities to isolate him further and set the stage for his overthrow.41

Notes 1. Jeune Afrique, September 24, October 8, and November 26, 1986. 2. Sankara, Oser Inventer, 214–220; for both speeches, see “La joute verbale Sankara Mitterrand” on ­http://​­w ww​.­t homassankara​.­net​/­seul​-­​­le​​-­combat​-­​­peut​​-­liberer​-­​­notre​​/; see Shuffield, Thomas Sankara, for clips of the exchange.

260 | Thomas Sankara 3. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 325–334; “La joute verbale Sankara Mitterrand.” 4. Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Le Monde, November 19, 1986; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 2, 1987, FOIA. 5. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 254–260; Le Monde, February 7, 1986; New York Times, March 2, 1986; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, February 13, 1986, FOIA. 6. Le Monde, May 2, 1986; Jeune Afrique, April 9 and September 24, 1986; Short, Taste for Intrigue, 436–456. 7. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Audibert, Jamais je n’ai cessé, 13–14; Labazée, Entreprises et entrepreneurs, 13–23; Jeune Afrique, April 9, 1986, and May 13, 2008; Crocker, ADST interview, June 5, 2006; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 457–459, 502–668. 8. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Le Monde, May 2, 1986; Jeune Afrique, December 28, 2015; Jeune Afrique Économie, May 20, 2014; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, November 3, 1987, FOIA; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 11–14. 9. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, February 26, 1985, and February 13, March 28, and October 28, 1986, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, September 9, 1985; Jeune Afrique, April 16 and August 6, 1986; Le Monde, April 30 and May 2, 28, 1986. 10. Boubacar Diawara, interview, March 13, 2013; Issa Baro, interview, March 18, 2013; Labazée, “Une nouvelle phase,” 114–120; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 200–202; Schwartz, “L’évolution du pouvoir,” 157–167; Labazée, “Discours et contrôle politique,” 11–26; Banégas, Insoumissions Populaires, 97–118; Mbembe, Afriques Indociles. 11. Carrefour Africain, March 14, 1986; Afrique-​­Asie, May 5, 1986; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 270–296. 12. Sawadogo and Wetta, “Impact of Self-​­Imposed Structural Adjustment”; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 175–184; Speirs, “Agrarian Change,” 104. 13. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­Washington, October 30 and December 9, 1985, and April 14, 1986, FOIA; Le Monde, February 7, 1986; Bernstein, “Agricultural ‘Modernisation,’” 3–35; Ferguson, Global Shadows, 69–88; “Berg Report,” or World Bank, “Accelerated Development.” 14. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to USUN-​­New York, letter, July 15, 1985; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­Washington, October 30 and December 9, 1985, and April 14, 1986, FOIA; Afrique-​ ­Asie, February 24, 1986. 15. Carrefour Africain, May 9 and June 6, 1986; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, April 10, June 3, 5, 18, 1986, and January 13, 1987, FOIA; Afrique-​­Asie, September 21, 1986; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 303–312. 16. New York Times, February 22, 1987; Short, Taste of Intrigue, 436; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­Washington March 27, 1986, FOIA; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015. 17. Carrefour Africain, April 18, 1986; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­Washington, April 26, 29, June 3, July 7, August 19, 22, 26, and October 28, 1986, FOIA; SecState-​­WashDC to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, June 27, 1986, FOIA; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 70–71. 18. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, November 27, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, April 14, 1986, and November 3, 1987, FOIA.

Revolutionary Duties and Perils  |  261 19. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 1, 7, 15, 20, 1986; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState, October 8, 1986; SecState to AMEmbassy-​­Paris, October 31, 1986; AMEmbassy-​ ­Niamey to SecState-​­WashDC, November 20, 1986, FOIA; Le Monde, October 2, 1986; Jeune Afrique, October 8, 1986; New York Times, September 27, 1986; Jaffré, Biographie, 265–266. 20. Le Monde, October 13, 1986; Touré, Une vie de militant, 111; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 18, 1986, and March 4, 1987, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 7, 2013; Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 163; Westad, Global Cold War, 364–395; Gaddis, Cold War, 195–236; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, 322–324. 21. Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1986; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 297–302; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, 406–410, 436–439, 587; Herman Cohen, ADST interview, August 15, 1996; Westad, Global Cold War, 357–363; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 468–477; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 28, 1986, and January 13, 1987, FOIA. 22. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 297–302; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, March 4, 1987, FOIA; Jaffré, Biographie, 190–191; Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom, 321–324; Mary-​ ­A lice Waters, personal communication, October 14, 2017. 23. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to AMEmbassy-​­Lomé, November 13, 1986, FOIA; Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 1986; Jaffré, Biographie, 189, 265–266; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 267; Fisher, France in the South Pacific, 47–95; Le Monde, December 18, 1986. 24. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, September 29 and October 31, 1986, and January 13, 1987, FOIA. 25. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 1, 28, 1986, and January 13 and July 2, 1987, FOIA. 26. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 1, 28, 1986, and January 13 and July 2, 1987, FOIA; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 449. 27. Ellis, Mask of Anarchy, 20–45, 68–73; New York Times, July 17, 2009; the Taylor “Trial Transcripts” (August 25 and November 3, 18, and 25, 2009, contain information on Burkina) are available in their entirety at the “Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone” website: ­w ww​ .­rscsl​.­org; Johnson, Rise and Fall, 41–63; Hahn, “US Covert,” 19–47; Boston Globe, January 17, 2012 (this story was eventually retracted); Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 604–634. 28. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, January 22, 1987, FOIA; Taylor “Trial Transcripts.” 29. Taylor “Trial transcripts”; Edward Brynn, ADST interview, 2000; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Valère Somé, interview, August 22, 2015; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Burkina: Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; “Qui a fait tuer Sankara? Ouagadougou, l’ombre d’une main étrangère,” on ­https://​­webdoc​.­r fi​.­f r​/ ­burkina​-­​­faso​​-­qui​-­​­a​​-­fait​-­​­tuer​​-­sankara​/­chap​-­​­03​​/. 30. Kaboré, Histoire, 184–192; Pascal Sankara, interview, March 21, 2015; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState, July 2, 1987, FOIA. 31. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 27; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Adam Guindo, interview, March 13, 2013; Yusuf Derra, interview, March 14, 2013; Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, November 13, 2019; Jaffré, Biographie, 250–251; Otayek, “Quand le tambour.” 32. Le Monde, March 14, 1987; Dupré, Le Fespaco, 166–196; Ukadike, Black African Cinema, 199–200; “Entretien avec Thomas Sankara,” l’Autre Journal, April 3–8, 1986; see YouTube, “Fela Anikulapo Kuti at FESPACO Burkina Faso 1987,” accessed September 2014,

262 | Thomas Sankara at ­https://​­w ww​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­w CM​_ mQuW8d8; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, March 1, 1987, FOIA; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 6. 33. Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, 199–200; Sankara, Women’s Liberation, 21–39, 42–50, 57–63. 34. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 4, 2013; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015. 35. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 25, 2015; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, April 10 and May 8, 1987, FOIA; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 171–184, 196–198. 36. Jeune Afrique, November 4, 1987; Speirs, “Agrarian Change,” 103–105; Saul, “Beer, Sorghum and Women,” 746–764; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 4, 2013. 37. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, July 29, 1987, FOIA; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 245–246. 38. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, March 25, April 10, May 19, and September 11, 1987, FOIA; Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Touré, Une vie de militant, 160–161; Jaffré, Biographie, 207–209; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 21–22. 39. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, December 10, 1986, and May 22, June 10, 18, 1987, FOIA. 40. Jeune Afrique, April 8, 1987; New York Times, August 23, 1987; Andriamirado, Sankara le Rebelle, 221–226. 41. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 15–22; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, May 14, 1987, FOIA; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 59–61, 64–71.

11 NO TURNING BACK The Road to October 15, 1987

I

n his final international address, Sankara made an impassioned plea to fellow African heads of state to form a “united front against the debt.” The occasion was the summit of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 29, 1987, and the young revolutionary leader exhorted his senior peers to resist debt repayment even as many found themselves ensnared in International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank–imposed programs. For Sankara, debt repayment was a question of survival and fairness: The debt cannot be repaid, first of all, because if we don’t pay, the lenders won’t die. Of that you can be sure. On the other hand, if we do pay, we are the ones who will die. Of that you can be equally sure. Those who led us into debt were gambling, as if they were in a casino. As long as they were winning, there was no problem. Now that they’re losing their bets, they demand repayment. There is talk of a crisis. . . . They gambled. They lost. Those are the rules of the game. Life goes on. We cannot repay the debt because we have nothing to pay it with.1

As Sankara saw it, money that had been irresponsibly lent to African countries was stolen from state coffers by self-​­serving political elites, “the wealth to be concentrated in the hands of a few individuals . . . [who] hold colossal sums of money in foreign banks.” Now the global financial institutions were asking ordinary Africans to act responsibly in the “interest of stability,” but to the “detriment of the popular masses.” The roots of debt went even further back, as Sankara observed: “Those who lent us the money were those who colonized us.” The debt had been foisted on former colonies after years of forced labor, colonial violence, and military conscription. Hinting at his own father’s experience as a conscripted soldier, Sankara

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turned the problem on its head, saying that it was, in fact, Europe that owed Africa because of “a debt of blood.” After colonialism, further indebtedness resulted from Western “technical assassins” who “advised us on sources of financing,” in what was a “cleverly organized reconquest of Africa” that “turns each of us into financial slaves.”2 In calling for debt forgiveness, Sankara suggested viewing morality differently: “When we say the debt cannot be paid we are in no way against morality, dignity, or respect for one’s word. . . . [But] the rich and the poor don’t share the same morals. The Bible and the Qur’an can’t serve in the same way those who exploit the people as those who are exploited. We need two editions of the Bible and two editions of the Qur’an.” It was not the world’s poor who were mismanaging money and racking up public debt, and so imposing harsh measures on them made no sense. Before wrapping up his speech, he said that Africans needed to come together in opposition to debt repayment in order to “avoid going off to be killed one at a time.” He added a bit of gallows humor: “If Burkina Faso alone were to refuse to pay the debt, I wouldn’t be at the next conference.” There was laughter at this quip, but it concealed a deeper truth. In the corridors of power across Africa, there was a growing sense that Sankara’s revolution had crested and that his days were numbered. This was apparent in Abuja, Nigeria, where Sankara’s bid for the chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States was bluntly rejected by his peers. US embassy reporting on the Abuja summit, during July 7–9, emphasized that “Sankara’s interest in a high-​­profile international office” was part of his “desire to find alternatives to France and the Franc zone.” But he had little political support. In fact, rumors were spreading that Sankara might soon be overthrown. And yet when he arrived at the summit, he got louder applause and cheers from the Nigerian youth than any other African leader, thus demonstrating the gap between his grassroots popularity and his reputation among African elites.3 Sankara’s statements in Addis Ababa were echoed in diplomatic encounters. After inching toward an agreement with the IMF, Sankara now moved forcefully against such arrangements. He refused to mortgage his country’s future for temporary debt relief. A US cable on July 2, 1987, reported on Sankara’s resistance, describing it as a “manifestation of the pride and stubbornness of its president.” The cable went further: “Sankara keeps talking about the conditions the IMF would impose that would erode the sovereignty of the country . . . [and] that French structural aid funds would be released only after that agreement was negotiated.” Sankara’s “priorities

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given to programs benefitting the rural poor, the illiterate, women, the handicapped and the sick” were given as reasons behind his resistance to an IMF-​­imposed agreement.4 Two weeks later, on July 17, US ambassador Neher had his final meeting with Sankara and made a last-​­ditch effort to coax his interlocutor into accepting neoliberal policies. According to the meeting minutes, Sankara commented that Washington was able to maintain friendly and cooperative relations with countries that were “fully Marxist” and queried why Burkina could not be approached in the same way, adding: “Here, there is no corruption. Projects get done and done successfully.” Neher agreed but told Sankara that Burkina Faso would be viewed more favorably if it became “an active participant in the Western economic system,” with “ties to financial institutions such as IMF.” These things, Neher promised, would “attract US attention and bring greater cooperation.” Sankara had been down this road before, and he held firm in his belief that such relationships would only lead to more foreign control over his country. He politely responded that Burkina had “to choose its own path of development” and that he “could not accept liberalism” (i.e., neoliberalism) as their political and economic ideology.5 In the months before his death, Sankara’s family and friends were inconsolable. “Family members started coming by the house to ask what was going on between Blaise and Thomas,” Pascal Sankara remembered. “Uncle Lassané visited the home and screamed: ‘They’re going to kill him.’ But Thomas wouldn’t do anything.” It’s difficult to know precisely why Sankara chose not to preserve his life, but those close to him have provided their own theories. Valère Somé thought that Sankara was conscious of being “judged by history,” what he called the “refuge of martyrs,” and he understood the dilemma: hold on to power by any means and lose his dignity, or risk losing power and keep an honorable place in history. Along these lines, when Germaine Pitroipa broached the subject with Sankara, he told her: “I will not be the one to spill the blood of our people. For a killer, once he has seen blood, he can’t stop killing. If I killed Blaise, then I would have to kill his brother, and cousins, and it would never end. We can’t take this path. We must do combat with ideas, not with violence.” But there may have also been a sense of futility. A few months before the assassination, Sankara told J. P. Rapp: People came to see me very upset: it seems that Blaise is preparing a coup against you. They were seriously panicked. I told them this: The day that you learn that Blaise is preparing a coup d’état against me, it will not be worth

266 | Thomas Sankara t­ rying to stop it or even alert me. That would mean that it’s too late and that it’s inevitable. He knows so much about me that nobody could protect me against him if he wanted to attack me. He has many weapons against me. . . . So if he prepares a coup d’état then you better be very fatalistic. It’s necessary to let it happen, it’s inevitable.6

Indeed, Compaoré had a decisive military advantage, and in the military ranks there were wider grumblings about the direction of the revolution. Sankara’s only hope was to master the political situation by convincing the various factions within the CNR to choose unity over division, and then to appeal directly to the people. Before leaving for Addis Ababa, on July 23, he met with the representatives of the four organizations—OMR, ULCR, GCB, and UCB—to take up the question of forming a single “vanguard party.” He also reached out to PAI-​­LIPAD members about their possible participation. This issue had been on the agenda for almost four years, but Sankara had been ambivalent about it. He was concerned about the risks of alienating the people, but he now saw it as necessary. “We have to build a vanguard party,” he said in a radio interview with the Cuban daily Granma around that time. “We’re quite close to this objective. But there are still a whole number of small-​­group conceptions, and in this regard, we’ll have to wage a serious drive for agreement.” At the July 23 meeting, all parties officially agreed to the plans, but Compaoré’s faction was using his vote as a ruse to lure Sankara into a false sense of confidence. Compaoré had no interest in the kind of pluralistic vanguard party that Sankara had in mind. He was imagining an authoritarian state that left no room for differences of opinion.7 Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré explained: The pressure was strong to create a single party. The Sankarist wing wanted to create a common grouping of the different views, all around a certain platform. It was to be a more pluralistic party. But the camp of Blaise was opposed. They argued that power was via the barrel of the gun and that the UCB was best positioned, as a military party, to be in charge. We didn’t agree. It wasn’t democratic. Sankara refused to cede ground on this issue. He wanted to avoid at all cost the formation of a single party dominated by the military. He called for a pluralistic party.8

It’s unclear when or how Sankara came around to conceptualizing this kind of political pluralism. However, it’s likely that he read about similar efforts at creating “socialist pluralism” in the Soviet Union as part of Gorbachev’s reforms; he also probably learned about it in Nicaragua, where they experimented with synthesizing pluralism and “vanguardism.” Of course,

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he understood pluralism, not as multiparty electoral democracy, but rather as a system that allowed for a diversity of views as a way of enriching political practice. In any case, within days of the meeting, Compaoré’s faction released a flurry of tracts attacking his unification efforts, aimed at sowing confusion. The satirical weekly L’Intrus was implicated more and more in the tract war. Sankara’s adversaries, led by Hien Kilimité, Watamou Lamien, and the Palm brothers, used their weekly, Kelé Masa, whose stated goal was to “crush the insolence of the intellectuals,” to ply in salacious conspiracy theories while accusing Sankara of dictatorship. Sankara was frustrated by the war of words, but he was mostly concerned with the slackening enthusiasm for the revolution.9 After four years of austerity and sacrifice, Sankara was increasingly isolated in his revolutionary commitments. The shows of defiance by the labor unions and student groups only added to his feelings of estrangement. But in many ways, the last straw was the broad loss of support within government bureaucracies. Civil servants, who had long taken issue with many of Sankara’s policies, sensed that his power was waning and began a campaign of gumming up the government machinery, thus rendering his policies obsolete and unenforceable. It was a broad-​­based but informal strike aimed at undercutting the revolutionary state. In his interview with Granma, he drew attention to how the “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” was using its “experience in administrative work in the state apparatus” to “harass us and create difficulties for us.” His colleagues similarly recalled that civil servants were “subverting the revolution at the local level.” At the presidential palace, aides and advisers were suddenly impotent in the face of uncooperative bureaucracies. As bureaucrats withdrew support, Compaoré’s faction saw a chance to capitalize on the grievances.10 With the approach of the fourth anniversary of the revolution, Sankara tried to change the narrative. Rather than defending himself, he opted for full transparency and admitted his errors. On August 3, he gave a frank interview on live radio and television, touching on areas of public discontent. In the town hall–style interview, ordinary people were given the freedom to broach any subject. Most memorably, a Mossi elder questioned the “youthfulness” and “impulsiveness” of Sankara’s policy decisions, while others expressed concern over the lack of rainfall, rumors of internal power struggles, and recent labor union activism. Sankara spoke openly, trying to allay their concerns. He promised to slow down the pace of change. But for many viewers and listeners, the event only reinforced their feelings that

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the revolution was failing. In fact, as the rains came late in 1987, there was a sour mood in rural areas. In the meantime, urban opposition grew, as many people were no longer marching to the revolution’s tune.11 A former labor activist and CDR leader explained: On the level of transforming the mentality of the country, we didn’t succeed in changing it. The revolution failed for this reason. It began changing little by little, but the people didn’t follow through. I could feel that Sankara was already falling into despair towards the end. He never gave up, but he saw that the people were resigned. They were unable to follow him. They were resigned to their fate and couldn’t take their destiny in their hands. He preferred to die than turn the revolution into a political bloodbath and take the life of his brother. This symbolized his awareness of the revolution’s failure.12

On August 4, 1987, the annual celebration of the revolution was held in Bobo-​­Dioulasso. Building on the Second National CDR Conference, the focus was on the peasantry, and so masses of peasants from surrounding villages were mobilized, parading listlessly through the hot streets of Bobo, alongside African veterans of the French army. But tensions were rife. On the pretext of countering an “external threat,” Compaoré had deployed the bulk of his commando forces to Bobo, taking up strategic positions around the city. Fearing a coup was in the works, Sankara’s ally Boukary Kaboré responded with a proportionate number of men from Koudougou. The city was effectively divided between opposing military groups. Pascal Sankara, who was in town for the event with other family members, heard rumors of a planned coup attempt. There were fears of a Sadat-​­style assassination in front of the large contingent of international observers. Even ordinary Bobolais heard the rumors. “It was very tense. There was talk that Sankara might be killed,” one CDR leader in Bobo remembered. “I could feel that things weren’t going well. Sankara appeared very weakened.”13 In surviving video, Sankara seems subdued. Without the usual panache and energy, he soberly reads the speech, celebrating “the birth of the new peasant.” Audience members’ faces appear uninspired; there is scant applause. But in an exercise in candor, Sankara took responsibility for many of the popular grievances, admitting that “we sometimes made errors.” As a remedy, he proposed a “pause” in the revolution. Long before Compaoré invoked “rectification” after the assassination, Sankara was doing precisely that: “We must rectify, be more precise, adapt ourselves to the masses, and not try to adapt the masses to our own desires and our own dreams.” But he also admonished his fellow revolutionary leaders for “vile plots aimed

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at hindering our work,” “those living in luxury based on the exploitation of others,” and “smear campaigns, the corruption, the provocations of all sorts, the blackmails, and the threats.” He lamented the enemies “within our ranks, in the camp of the revolution” and the “schemers with undisguised personal ambitions,” apt descriptions for Compaoré. Moving forward, Sankara championed the peasantry and called on the working class and petty bourgeoisie to “assume their historic responsibility, and work to reduce the gap between town and country through selflessness and sacrifice.” He announced that unity was within reach, forming the basis for a “vanguard party.” Then, in a public affront to Compaoré’s faction, he promulgated his view: “We should, however, guard against making unity into a dry, paralyzing, sterilizing, monochromatic thing. On the contrary, we would rather see a manifold, varied, and enriching expression of many different ideas and diverse activities, ideas and activities that are rich with a thousand nuances, all submitted courageously and sincerely, accepting differences, respecting criticism and self-​­criticism—all directed toward the same radiant goal . . . the happiness of our people.”14 Sankara’s confession of errors and call for a “pause” were coming too late, as his enemies usefully weaponized the admissions. The speech was an inadvertent accelerant in the political crisis, forcing Compaoré’s faction to capitalize on the revolutionary errors before Sankara could shift the momentum. Positioning themselves further to the left, they used Sankara’s change of direction as evidence that he was “betraying” the revolution. In response, Sankara pushed beyond rhetoric, rehiring unfairly dismissed teachers and civil servants while seeking reconciliation with the PAI-​­LIPAD leadership. He lobbied fervently for Soumane Touré’s release from prison, but he was outvoted within the CNR and accused of “weakness.” As enemies alleged that he was concentrating power, he sought to devolve powers to others. On August 22, he formed a “Special Cabinet,” tasked with changing his role and even relinquishing his position as president. “He wanted to step down from power. He wanted to resign and withdraw to the countryside and devote himself to rural mobilization,” Valère Somé said. “He was tired of managing the government. He wanted to let Blaise be in charge of government. Everyone knew this. He was trying to resign, but they wouldn’t let him step down.” Sankara offered the post of prime minister to Compaoré and allowed him to name the ministers of the new cabinet. But Compaoré rejected the overture. He was thinking about postcoup legitimation and planning to pile all the errors on Sankara’s back en route to power.15

270 | Thomas Sankara

More vicious tracts reached a new level of effectiveness as Houphouët-​ ­ oigny financed a broader campaign. By September the tracts were accusB ing Sankara of “madness” and “sexual perversion.” In the streets, there were murmurs of Sankara not being “pure Mossi.” While the Mossi authorities showed no indication that they wanted to challenge Sankara directly, there were increasing numbers of “nobles visiting the Mogho Naba and participating in his morning ceremonies,” Skinner reported. In the Mossi milieu, many suggested that Sankara was a political usurper and even “foreigner.” They invoked Moro Naba Motiba, a seventeenth-​­century Fulbé political figure who cleverly finagled his way into power after the death of Moro Naba Oubi. The usurper Motiba was eventually assassinated. Tracts invoked this history as a reminder. Reading all the scurrilous material, Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo went to see his friend. “The tracts were all over. There were terrible things being said. They insulted Mariam in every way possible,” Ouedraogo remembered. “I said to Thomas: ‘You talk about friendship, but Blaise doesn’t know friendship. It’s not reciprocal. You treat him as a friend, and he’s preparing to betray you. Where is your self-​­preservation instinct?’” But Sankara only defended his friend, even as Compaoré fanned anti-​­Sankara opposition within the military ranks.16 Although foreign powers supported Sankara’s overthrow, the “international plot” thesis in wide circulation—which presents Compaoré as an agent of a coordinated international plan—has oversimplified the events. It has been based on a priori assumptions and dubious sources. These include the contradictory statements of Liberian warlords, unsubstantiated journalistic accounts, and popular films, which have raised questions but provided little evidence. Thus, we must carefully dissect the various internal and external roles, motives, circumstances, and tools—weapons, money, intelligence, and men—involved and approach the issue in a multifactorial and nuanced manner. In terms of timing, Compaoré struck when the revolution was in the doldrums and increasingly unpopular, facing economic difficulties and widespread resistance, even as Sankara himself was still widely admired by the people. As for motive, Compaoré’s rise to power was driven mostly by his own ambition and the financial interests of those around him. There were incentives to take power, such as having a free hand in corruption and self-​­enrichment. He was far from an unwitting tool of foreign powers. He used guile and deception to win material, diplomatic, and ideological support from wherever he could find it. The extant evidence suggests that the coup plan was hatched and directed by Compaoré’s

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faction in Ouagadougou, as early as a year before Sankara’s murder. They set the pieces in place, then manipulated foreign powers, making the case that Compaoré was a more “moderate” alternative to Sankara. They took advantage of Sankara’s mistakes on economic matters while seeing multiple opportunities to occupy the vacuum created by his diplomatic isolation. In the end, Compaoré used every asset at his disposal, promiscuously drawing piecemeal on Côte d’Ivoire, France, Libya, the United States, and even future Liberian warlords to reinforce his position internationally before carrying out his operation. Meanwhile, he ensured diplomatic support from neighboring countries like Togo, Mali, and Niger. There was wide consensus among the francophone African political class that Sankara had to go.17 Since 1983, the French government had engaged in repeated attempts to weaken the CNR and had even considered military intervention to unseat Sankara. Over the years, there were documented efforts to manipulate the press by French intelligence, which churned out stories that demonized Sankara and his entourage. And yet the two most in-​­depth books on Sankara’s assassination—those of Somé and Andriamirado—provide few details on French involvement. Andriamirado even dismissed the “imperialist plot” thesis, arguing that the assassination was “the culmination of an exclusively internal crisis.” However, while France may not have engineered Sankara’s overthrow from a military standpoint, the French government created the conditions in which a coup was more likely. In this optic, we might view it more as a slow-​­developing economic (even neoliberal) coup that finally and dramatically produced a regime change. Indeed, a couple of months before Sankara’s overthrow, France withdrew financial support, which made up between 30 and 40 percent of the CNR’s budget. In July 1987, the US embassy reported: “Neither we nor the French, who are holding almost $25 million in structural adjustment money conditioned on an IMF agreement, believe that Sankara intends anytime soon to agree to negotiate with that organization. . . . The outlook is bleak.” This economic pressure exposed fissures within the CNR leadership. Two months later, CNR members were secretly reaching out to the IMF in hopes of signing an agreement. An embassy cable reported that a request for an IMF meeting to arrange a structural adjustment program had been “first communicated verbally to the Bank’s director for Africa [Allassane Ouattara] in late September by Sankara’s Minister of Finance,” just two weeks before Sankara’s death. In a situation of economic duress, France used financial power to place strains on the CNR, and Sankara was soon hemorrhaging internal allies.18

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France was not involved in the military aspects of the coup, but French military officers and Compaoré, Houphouët-​­ Boigny, and others likely shared intelligence. Given the Franco-​­Burkina defense agreements, there were only twenty-​­five French military personnel remaining in Burkina, all trainers with the National Gendarmerie. Any French military power would have to come from beyond Burkina’s borders, probably Côte d’Ivoire or Togo, and there was no report of French military intervention along these lines. But the French tentacles of influence via military and intelligence channels were everywhere, especially given the large numbers of African soldiers who had trained in French military schools. Moreover, retired French military officers who found lucrative work in Africa were providing security services and intelligence for African political elites and protecting or advancing French business interests. In any case, the French were certainly anticipating a coup in Ouagadougou. Four days after Sankara’s murder, French officials at the Quai told American diplomats that while “six months ago, the GOF had completely discounted persistent rumors of problems between Sankara and Compaoré,” their “rivalry became stronger” in the months before the coup, such that “in retrospect, the coup was not surprising” and “even logical.” French diplomats and intelligence officers were following the developments very closely. Within French diplomatic circles, which took many cues from figures like Houphouët-​­Boigny, there was a growing consensus that Compaoré was a more moderate option and that removing Sankara from power was in France’s interest. On the day of Sankara’s murder, Hugo Sada was speaking with Jean Audibert, head of the Africa Cell, in his office. Sada was still editor of Jeune Afrique but had maintained his close ties to Mitterrand’s government after serving in the Cooperation Ministry. He recalled Sankara’s assassination:19 I remember very well the day that Sankara was assassinated. On October 15, I was in Paris and in the middle of discussing things with the adviser for Africa under Mitterrand in his office at Elysée, and he was a very good friend who knew Africa well, Jean Audibert. . . . While Mitterrand was fascinated by the personality of Sankara, there was also a certain political realism. Those in charge of the military, the intelligence services, and cooperation, they were honestly not willing to support Sankara anymore. They were perfectly aware of what was going on, the problems with Côte d’Ivoire, the relations between Sankara and Qaddafi. They were very active in the region, and they let the bullets fly. When they arrived in the final period, they let it go ahead. Of course they condemned the assassination, because it’s not good to assassinate people, but there was a kind of relief that Sankara had been removed. I don’t think

No Turning Back  |  273 that the French were directly involved. But Côte d’Ivoire, that’s another story, because of the relationship between Blaise and Houphouët. And we know that Libya played a very ambiguous role in the assassination.20

Archival sources indicate that Compaoré was visiting Abidjan regularly in the months leading up to the coup. Usually these visits flew under the radar, but a cable from the US embassy in Abidjan reported that Compaoré met with Houphouët-​­Boigny on August 21 and that the two “discussed Libya,” among other things. The US embassy in Dakar later reported chatter that while Compaoré “never asked for a green light from Houphouët-​ ­Boigny,” the Ivoirian leader provided assurance that he would “turn a blind eye” and “work with whatever government held power in Ouagadougou.” More compelling evidence comes from embassy cables from Abidjan after Sankara’s assassination. At the center of things, the French ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Michel Dupuch, told US diplomats that he had “personally informed Houphouët of the coup” and that “the president’s initial reaction was a shrug of his shoulders, almost one of indifference . . . [he] expressed little surprise and showed no sense of loss at the ouster of Sankara.” The insinuation was that Houphouët-​­Boigny knew about and supported the coup. However, when he was told that Sankara had been killed, he became distraught: “The next day after word of Sankara’s death reached Abidjan, Dupuch said that Houphouët had a complete ‘volte-​­face.’ He expressed shock and outrage and launched into a furious tirade about violence and killing as the wrong way to handle political change.” The response suggests that Houphouët-​­Boigny supported the coup but had not anticipated that it would entail Sankara’s murder, a sentiment shared with neighboring African heads of state.21 In September 1987, having agreed to a cease-​­fire in Chad, France and Libya initiated more direct dialogue, with trade deals in mind. In the meantime, Sankara’s relationship with Libya deteriorated. Qaddafi was reportedly miffed at Sankara’s refusal to attend the anniversary celebrations of the Libyan revolution on September 1, 1987, and the two men had heated conversations over the phone. Sankara adamantly rejected Libyan demands to open up Pô for training or to serve as an arms conduit for Charles Taylor. In place of Sankara, on September 1, Compaoré traveled to Tripoli for a three-​­day visit and met with Qaddafi and Moussa Koussa. During this time, Mousbila Sankara, still the ambassador in Tripoli, discovered material evidence that Libya was shipping arms to Compaoré in

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Pô via unofficial channels. According to Valère Somé, a Libyan interpreter present at the meeting heard Compaoré expressing that “things weren’t going well with Sankara,” to which Qaddafi fired back, “Then you have to eliminate him!” We should take such hearsay with a grain of salt, but there was growing evidence that the Libyan leader was aware of Compaoré’s plans. In fact, many former CNR members believe that Qaddafi had a hand in Sankara’s assassination. In recent interviews with RFI, members of Qaddafi’s own government, such as the former Libyan ambassador to Burkina Faso, Mohamed al-​­Madani al-​­Azhari, also publicly acknowledged that Qaddafi and Compaoré discussed various ways of providing support to Charles Taylor, which Sankara clearly opposed. Finally, the US embassy in Dakar reported rumors that Qaddafi was “disaffected with Sankara and colluded on the planned killing because Sankara would not accede to Libyan demands,” including Qaddafi’s request for use of a military base in Burkina. Two weeks before the assassination, the US embassy in Ouagadougou reported ominously that Qaddafi could “provide military materiel to other military units” or “encourage the participation” of other officers to “move against Sankara.” Qaddafi also intervened in the days following Compaoré’s coup, airlifting in weaponry in support of Compaoré. All indications are that Qaddafi’s role in the coup was limited to providing weapons and creating incentives for Compaoré to enrich himself via the illicit diamond trade.22 While Sankara was taking his distance from Western diplomats, Compaoré was meeting with resident ambassadors and currying favor with foreign heads of state. According to US ambassador Neher, Sankara had made a “fatal error” in making himself “virtually unreachable by the resident diplomatic corps,” because in Sankara’s absence, Compaoré’s faction was able to shape perceptions and procure foreign support. Almost a year before Sankara’s assassination, Compaoré surrogates—unnamed CNR members and military officers—were providing the US embassy with intelligence that reported that Compaoré was “pragmatic on current economic and political issues” and “generally moderate.” The sources—most likely IMET graduates—presented a contrasting picture of Sankara, portraying him as “radical,” and even violent, while questioning his legitimacy: “Sankara has suffered under a particular onus from birth, that of being the son of Mossi slaves.” Compaoré was described as “more acceptable as a pure Mossi.” In short, a faction within the CNR was using its contacts at the embassy to tilt opinion to Compaoré’s advantage.23

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It’s clear that the White House maintained a rather negative opinion of Sankara. This view was transmitted to Houphouët-​­Boigny when Herman Cohen—Reagan’s senior adviser on African affairs within the National Security Council—visited Abidjan on April 14, 1987, followed by a trip to Ouagadougou, where he met with Compaoré. “I accused Sankara of trying to destabilize the entire region of West Africa,” Cohen explained. Houphouët-​­Boigny was initially dismissive: “Sankara is just a boy. He will mature quickly.” But Cohen pursued the issue: “Since we were alone, I insisted that Sankara was hurting the image of the entire French community in West Africa and would eventually hurt Houphouët himself. . . . Within a few months, Sankara was violently replaced by Blaise Compaoré, who restored political stability to the francophone sub-​­region.” Cohen did not spell out the linkages between his words and the eventual actions. But two days later, Ambassador Neher met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Léandre Bassolé and expressed disappointment in the relationship with Sankara, stating that Sankara “needs the US more than he realizes.” It’s likely that Compaoré figured out that Sankara did not have strong support from Washington. Certainly, for US diplomats, Compaoré cut the figure of a more agreeable, moderate, and quietly reassuring leader. And shortly before ending his diplomatic stint, Ambassador Neher hosted Compaoré and his wife for lunch. “About a week before I left, Blaise and his wife came over for lunch,” Neher remembered. “At some point, Chantal was complaining about the socialist nonsense, saying, ‘My father has a Cadillac in Ivory Coast. He doesn’t go anywhere without it. I’m not going to be flying second class,’ and so forth. Blaise was abashed a little. These are things that they could never say publicly, but with us they said it. That was the last session.”24 There’s no evidence that the United States was actively working through the CIA’s clandestine services to overthrow Sankara in 1987. The CIA station in Ouagadougou was limited to a single case officer (under diplomatic cover), whom Neher “did not find particularly useful or effective.” In fact, US diplomat Robert Pringle recalled that, lacking a strong CIA presence, they “relied considerably on briefings by the French military intelligence officers at their embassy.” In any case, despite the difficulties in managing the relationship with Sankara, the CIA was ambivalent about a coup against him. One report warned that “in the event Lingani, Zongo or Compaoré seized power,” any new government might “look to Libya or possibly the Soviet Union for political support and for military equipment.” And

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Sankara was managing to keep both Libya and the Soviets at bay. Moreover, in the wake of the Iran-​­Contra scandal and William Casey’s death, once the new director of the CIA, William Webster—a former federal judge and FBI director—took over in May 1987, he immediately imposed the rule of law. He initiated a thorough review of covert operations and discontinued anything that Reagan did not want to make the front-​­page news. Within this context, Burkina Faso was simply not important enough to the United States. Unlike in past CIA interventions—Iran, Congo, Cuba, Chile, and so on—Washington had no geostrategic or economic interests in Burkina Faso that made an assassination plan worth the risk.25 However, US officials were at least aware that a coup was on the horizon, as they were able to glean information from their network of IMET graduates, most of whom were considered pro-​­Compaoré. With the decline of many regular aid programs and the phasing out of the Peace Corps, the IMET program provided “access to those at the very center of power,” reported a US cable. The US embassy also held a seminar for a “selection of the most senior military officers in the country,” including Compaoré, enabling US intelligence analysts to assess internal military dynamics. By 1987, five IMET graduates (out of twenty-​­one total) were CNR members who held key posts in the government; IMET graduates even controlled two of the country’s six military regions. Washington saw these officers as “those who will help determine whether this country and its leaders evolve as responsible African neighbors or become a destabilizing and worrisome element.” IMET-​­trained officers who were in Compaoré’s camp included Kouamé Lougué, Louis Johanny Yameogo, Pierre Ouedraogo, Hien Kilimité, Jean-​­Pierre Palm, and Dominique Diendéré, the brother of Gilbert Diendéré, whose commando team murdered Sankara.26 Drawing on these kinds of anti-​­Sankara sources, a secret US cable on September 29 shed important light on the military situation leading up to the coup. During this time, there was a reshuffling of military posts, with Compaoré gaining the advantage. He was still in command of the fifth military region, which included Ouagadougou, Kombissiri, Pô, Tenkodogo, and Koupela. His commandos, under Gilbert Diendéré, also took care of presidential security. Captain Kouamé Lougué became head of the first military region in Dori, and he was reportedly “dissatisfied with the Sankara government,” while Captain Louis Johanny Yameogo, the new head of the fourth region and Bobo-​­Dioulasso, “privately expressed his disillusionment with the revolution.” Captain Jean-​­Pierre Palm, second in command

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at the gendarmerie, was in Compaoré’s camp, and many of his supporters “expressed a longing for the old days of corruption because they utilized this as a means of supplementing their low salaries.” The gendarmes were viewed as potentially playing a “pivotal role” in supporting a coup against Sankara. The CDR chief, Captain Pierre Ouedraogo, was also described as “disillusioned with the course of the revolution.”27 In contrast, Sankara had key supporters like Captain Boukary Kaboré, of the third military region, and Captain Ousseini Compaoré, head of the gendarmerie. Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani was not considered firmly in either camp, and Henri Zongo’s position was unclear. But Zongo was now a key figure in the pro-​­business clique within the CNR, and he was frustrated by Sankara’s decision-​­making. His personal fiefdom was the military camp in Kamboinsé, which hosted the base of the Rapid Intervention and Transport Squadron (ETIR), under the command of Lieutenant Michel Koama, who was strongly “pro-​­Sankara.” It’s not surprising, then, that Michel Koama would be quickly murdered in his home on the day of Sankara’s assassination. But it did not appear that either Zongo or Lingani would be the main drivers of a coup against Sankara. In fact, Compaoré would have both Lingani and Zongo arrested and summarily executed two years after the overthrow of Sankara. In the final analysis, it was determined that “only regime number two Blaise Compaoré could probably pull one off by himself, and do so successfully,” and that Compaoré was the “determining factor in any coup attempt and would pose the greatest threat to Sankara.” Two weeks before the assassination, the cable reported ominously: “Sankara knows that history has a way of repeating itself and for the Sankara government, the clock is ticking.”28 On September 12, 1987, Sankara took his final foreign trip, traveling to Addis Ababa for a celebration of the Ethiopian Revolution. It was the waning years of the Mengistu regime, and the communist revolution in Ethiopia was now moribund, which could hardly have inspired confidence in Sankara. But as he left town, rumors swirled that Compaoré might take power in his absence. Numerous eyewitnesses reported hearing from Compaoré’s allies about an upcoming coup. Chantal Compaoré was especially vocal, commenting about her role as soon-​­to-be first lady and her plans to stay in Paris while waiting for her husband to “settle things” with Sankara. At this juncture, it seemed inevitable that Sankara would be overthrown. While in Addis Ababa, he met with Jean Ziegler, who pointed out that the twenty-​­year anniversary of Che Guevara’s assassination was coming

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up. Then Sankara suddenly asked Ziegler: “At what age was Che when he died?” Ziegler responded, “39 years and 8 months.” Sankara wondered aloud, “Will I ever reach the age of 39? I doubt it.” Ziegler was left with the impression that Sankara thought his death was coming. Upon his return from Ethiopia, Sankara was not seen publicly for weeks, as he was reportedly suffering from illness. In fact, after the government was dissolved on August 26, he did not attend another Council of Ministers meeting until the day before his death. In the meantime, many of Sankara’s allies, including Somé and Guissou, lost their ministerial posts. In Sankara’s absence, Compaoré presided over the Council of Ministers, conspicuously taking his friend’s chair.29 While Sankara was convalescing at home, attendees at a CNR Political Bureau meeting on September 24 wrangled over the terms of political unification. But the most explosive and consequential issue at the meeting was the plan to create a new internal security and “anti-​­coup” force, known as FIMATS (“Intervention Force of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Security”). “When we proposed FIMATS, Blaise opposed it right away. But we stupidly gave Blaise far too much power in the area of presidential security,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré said. “We trusted him. Blaise was a good actor, and he played the game to take power. Since Blaise had taken over Pô, all the men who were trained there were loyal to Blaise.” Having delayed FIMATS’s formation, Compaoré’s pieces were now in place. In fact, a US embassy cable reported that Compaoré had brought his “commandos here from Pô as of August 4,” following the events in Bobo. The roughly eight-​­hundred-strong battalion of the country’s elite fighting force was on hand for any potential operation. His deputy Gilbert Diendéré, the head of CNEC, was in control of the wider security apparatus around Sankara and had enough firepower to easily outgun Sankara’s personal bodyguards. Compaoré also had a reliable spy in his driver Hamidou Maïga—the trusted brother of Malian journalist Mohamed Maïga—who was operating as a kind of double agent, gleaning information from Sankara’s inner circle while feeding misinformation. This enabled Compaoré to keep tabs on Sankara’s movements and security detail.30 On the morning of October 2, Sankara sensed danger. There were rumors of another assassination plan to be carried out during his scheduled speech in Tenkodogo, and he was still suffering from illness. Before leaving for Tenkodogo, he seemed deeply troubled at lunch, as his friend Paul Yameogo remembered:

No Turning Back  |  279 I saw that Thomas was not well presented. He was always someone well groomed, polished shoes, hair combed. But on that day, I was surprised to see how messy he looked. . . . I told him everything that was bothering me about the revolution. I just told him from the heart what I thought. Then he called his son Auguste and asked him to bring a piece of paper and pen. We talked for three hours straight, as he took down notes. But there were moments when I was talking to Thomas that day and it seemed like he wasn’t even there. He was looking at me, but his gaze was far away. I had the impression that he sensed danger but couldn’t define it or counter it. The problem was that he trusted people far too much, and he didn’t see what was happening.31

While Sankara was en route to Tenkodogo, Compaoré was already there for the unveiling of a revolutionary monument. The town was one of the ancient capitals of the Mossi kingdom, and by now there was a smear campaign against Sankara for not being pure Mossi. The chief of Tenkodogo had even resisted certain revolutionary policies and managed to turn his people against Sankara. Walking to the ceremonies, Compaoré caught up with Valère Somé and said: “Wait, you know things aren’t going so well with Thomas. You know the gifts that Houphouët gave me? Well it led to a serious argument between Thomas and I.” Somé saw immediately that Compaoré was seeking to win him over. Unnerved, Somé interjected, “Listen, Blaise, I’d rather die than have a debt to you. Your entourage is rotten.” Compaoré could barely contain his anger, and the two broke off conversation.32 After arriving late, Sankara listened as Jonas Somé, one of Compaoré’s UCB student operatives, launched into an attack, serving up a rebuttal to Sankara’s efforts at addressing popular discontent. But when Sankara took the podium, he seemed to ignore the criticism. There was an air of resignation in his words. As he looked around, with rain coming down, he observed: “Today we celebrate the fourth anniversary in the rain. It’s a welcome element of the celebration. For the peasant, rain means joy, rain means hope, rain means victory and happiness.” And yet, as Sankara knew, the rains had come late, portending a bad harvest. Still, he issued a firm warning to those who were seeking to “disrupt the course of the revolution, believing they could mislead the popular masses, deceive the militants, and use the confusion they themselves artificially created to control them.” He acknowledged the difficulties and errors along the way. But he saw it as a starting point for “discussing our disagreements, our differences.” Sankara believed that it was time to work toward new revolutionary ethics. Quoting Lenin, he spoke of the necessity of revolutionary pedagogy and his need to

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live everyday life as a “revolutionary who recognizes his errors.” In a bid to calm grievances, he announced that the CNR would abolish an unpopular livestock tax and once again called for a revolutionary “pause.” During the speech, there were rumors that assassins planned to target Sankara at the Popular Ball while he was taking in the festivities, and so Etienne Zongo quickly removed him from Tenkodogo as soon as the speech had ended.33 In the following days, Sankara kept a low profile, remaining mostly at the presidential palace. The tension was such that some of his advisers took vacations or leaves of absence. In the streets, there were widespread rumors that marabouts and sorcerers across the country were prophesying that Sankara would soon be killed. Then more virulent tracts were unleashed. One leaflet read: “Thomas Sankara is mentally unstable! In effect, two French doctors in his entourage have betrayed this secret in affirming that Thomas Sankara suffers from paranoia.  .  .  . Dear citizens we are governed by an individual already advanced in madness  .  .  . [like] other paranoid types, such as Hitler.” But those close to Sankara observed that he was calm and rational and that the problem was that he was not worried enough—a bit of paranoia might have saved his life.34 In his last interview, on October 4, Sankara sounds lucid and relaxed in surviving audio. When asked about what the revolution had accomplished, he was modest: “We say among us: ‘A dancer doesn’t know whether he dances well or not.’” What mattered was what the people thought of the accomplishments, not the leadership, but Sankara admitted: “We have known many, many failures . . . I take full responsibility for all that.” As the end of the revolution drew near, Sankara commented on what he had learned as president: “I learned to be more tolerant, to understand that not all people are the same. An idea can be right, but it’s not just because it’s a good idea that everyone will accept it.” As the lessons accrued, he seemed unworried about a coup: “Of course, someone can emerge from a crowd and fire on the president, and just like that he’s dead. It’s something that could happen at any moment.”35 It’s difficult to say how he psychologically mastered the fact that his life was in peril. Boukary Kaboré explained how, in refusing to move against Compaoré, Sankara had accepted his death. “Thomas knew very well that he had to die,” Kaboré stated. “And I think that he accepted suicide.” However, others have viewed it differently, seeing Sankara’s lack of action as a sign of either too much trust in his friendship with Compaoré or a certain overconfidence. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo said: “Thomas’ strength was his

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weakness. Because of his tremendous charisma and confidence, he refused to believe that anyone else could beat him in argument or strategy. He would not listen to me, or anyone else. This was the error that Thomas committed in the end.” With the pressure building, on October 7, Sankara went to a meeting with Compaoré and Zongo at the Conseil de l’Entente. He pointed out the necessity of unity, but Compaoré was stone-​­faced. Irritated by his friend’s blatant refusal to engage in dialogue, Sankara stated that he could no longer govern in such conditions and stormed out of the room, slamming the door. As fatalism descended, Boukary Kaboré asked for permission to arrest Compaoré. Aide-​­de-camp Etienne Zongo and guard Famoro Ouattara reached out to Sankara’s family and close friends to put pressure on him to do something. Finally, Ouedraogo went to see Sankara on October 8. He was losing his patience, and he barked at his friend: “I understand your amicable instinct, and I understand that you have worked in a way to elevate the people, bringing them to wider horizons, while setting aside your own interests. But you have not taken care of your own family. You have little brothers and sisters in poverty. You have left your father in the hands of Blaise. And Blaise is turning against you. What is that? Che Guevara? Che didn’t take care of his family either. And they’re going to kill you. Thomas, it’s you or him!” But Sankara said, and did, nothing; it was radio silence over the final excruciating week.36 Sankara kept busy, returning to his normal work schedule and attending events. On October 8, 1987, he was present for the inauguration of an exhibition on Che Guevara, commemorating the twentieth anniversary of his assassination, and the unveiling of a street named after him. With Che’s son Camilo Guevara present, Sankara declared that “Che Guevara is not dead. . . . You cannot kill ideas. Ideas do not die. That’s why Che Guevara, the embodiment of revolutionary ideas and self-​­sacrifice, is not dead.” In charting Che’s posthumous popularity in Africa, Sankara invoked images that would later correspond to his own legacy. He lauded Che’s humanity, warmth, revolutionary conviction, self-​­sacrifice, and “demanding character,” which enabled him to “turn his back on the easy road” and “to assert himself as a man of the people.” His homage reinforced his own call for a renewed commitment to “revolutionary morality.”37 Over the following two days, Sankara participated in a high-​­profile international meeting, the Bambata Forum, against apartheid in Ouagadougou. In fact, it was the last time that most people saw Sankara in public. Organized by local activists, the forum focused on ways to generate

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Pan-​­Africanist solidarity in opposing apartheid in South Africa. According to Harsch, Sankara sought to challenge fellow African leaders, nudging them to move beyond rhetoric and actually take collective action to hasten the end of apartheid. Those who saw Sankara at the conference observed that he was in “good form” during his forty-​­five minutes of remarks. Then, following his closing remarks, on October 10, witnesses saw him with Compaoré at a Popular Ball. Days later, Sankara unexpectedly showed up at the Mass Sports Day. Sawadogo observed that the president was thinner than usual and said to him: “I have heard that you were ill?” Sankara responded, “Now it’s much better.” He tired quickly and sat on the edge watching the game. However, by all accounts, he was regaining his strength, and many expected a political comeback.38 On Wednesday, October 14, Sankara attended his last Council of Ministers meeting. Much was on the agenda, including the elaboration of a proposed “revolutionary code of conduct” aimed at fighting corruption. Sankara urgently called on the council to adopt the FIMATS structure. But the coup plot was already under way. In fact, the meeting may have accelerated things, as Fidèle Toé remembered: “In presenting the dossier, Ernest Nongma Ouedraogo said: ‘For a while, we have preoccupied ourselves with our enemies, and now we are preoccupied with our friends.’ He said this as a joke, but maladroitly.” Compaoré allies interpreted the statement as a threat. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré saw their reaction and quickly moved to diffuse the issue. “Blaise wasn’t there at the October 14 meeting,” Abdoul-​ ­Salam Kaboré explained. “I proposed that Thomas and the other leaders go to a meeting at Kaya, and have all the ‘four chiefs of the revolution’ united at the podium in order to quiet all the rumors about divisions. Thomas agreed with the proposal, and wanted to have everyone together in Kaya, so he told me to go see Blaise. But when I went over there, Blaise refused to see me, saying that he was sick with malaria.”39 After the meeting, Sankara returned home earlier than usual. Many were advising him to stay at the presidential palace for a few days. Before retiring to his bedroom, he spoke with Etienne Zongo, who had just returned from Libya, where he picked up intelligence indicating secret arms deliveries to Pô. Most pressing, however, was that Zongo’s friend in Fada N’Gourma learned from Honoré Traoré—Compaoré’s aide-​­de-camp—that a coup was being planned. Zongo strongly urged Sankara to stay at the palace. In the evening, Thomas and Mariam watched a film on the life of Lenin. Then Sankara went to the table and sat down to write. Mariam joked with

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her husband, recalling a scene of Lenin forgoing sleep in order to write: “So you’re doing like Lenin now?” In fact, he was working to finish his speech for an important OMR meeting on the evening of October 15, hoping to diffuse the situation. The undelivered speech, which came to light in recent years, aimed at addressing the “factionalism at the summit” of the CNR. In essence, he retraced the main lines of argument of his speech in Bobo and recommended adopting a “revolutionary code of ethics.” Compaoré later claimed that Sankara was planning to “liquidate” him and his camp on the evening of October 15, the so-​­called “plot of 8 o’clock,” which has long been discredited. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré summed up: “The ‘Plot of 8 o’clock’ was completely false. Blaise invented that to justify his plan. To the end, Sankara saw Blaise as his friend, his dear brother. He warned everyone not to touch a single hair on Blaise’s head. He protected and defended Blaise, and that was his downfall.”40 While working on his speech, Sankara’s mind may have strayed to concerns about his security, especially now that FIMATS’s creation had been delayed. Using surveillance information, the French military attaché in Ouagadougou reported that “Sankara phoned Qadhafi on October 14, the day before the coup, to express concern about his security and to seek Libyan help,” according to a US cable. Qaddafi reportedly “promised bodyguards in return for use of a part of the Pô military base for training” but then failed to take action in support of Sankara. If this is accurate, it’s possible that Qaddafi simply relayed the information to Compaoré, who promptly activated his plans. The next morning, Etienne Zongo drove to Fada N’Gourma to get details of the coup plot from Honoré Traoré, who may have been trying to save Zongo’s life. In fact, many others were warned of the coup and stayed away from their offices and the downtown area. Within minutes of arriving, Zongo realized Sankara’s life was in danger. “They said that they would draw the president to the Conseil, and then kill him there. It was very detailed,” Zongo explained. “It was the implementation of the coup. He said this is how it’s going to proceed. Gaspard would neutralize Koama, etc.” Zongo tried to telephone Ouagadougou to alert Sankara, but the telephone network was down. That’s when he realized that the coup was about to happen. He raced back to the capital, but he arrived too late. Zongo managed to survive, but he was promptly arrested.41 While Zongo was en route to Fada N’Gourma, Valère Somé met with Sankara, and the two friends read over portions of the OMR speech and made corrections together. Then for two hours, Somé laid out the evidence

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of a coup plot, hoping that his friend would take action. But, in retrospect, he took the view that Sankara had already accepted his death. “He knew about it all. Blaise’s plot, he knew,” Somé remembered sadly. “In the morning, we spoke about it at length. He had a kind of fatalism. He didn’t want to take action. The officers, soldiers and others who were killed on October 15 with him had come to see me, and asked for permission to arrest Blaise, but Thomas said, ‘No, no, no.’ He refused to do anything. We spoke about this on the morning of his death.” Just before noon, as Somé was walking out the door, he turned back. Sankara forced a smile, but Somé had a foreboding sense that this would be the last time he would see his friend. He described Sankara’s mood as “the calm before death.”42 After lunch with Mariam, Sankara finished his speech and got dressed in his exercise clothes, as he intended to hit the sports field after meetings. By four o’clock, Sankara was in the presidential offices, where he spoke with Serge Balima, the last person to see him alive before he headed over to the Conseil de l’Entente buildings. Sankara had just received a call from a colleague in Dakar informing him of a rather negative article in a Senegalese magazine, and he wanted to lodge a complaint with President Diouf. “I was there when he called me around four ten and said, ‘Come see me.’ He was bothered by a magazine in Dakar that was publishing a critical story,” Balima recalled. While they were talking, the phone rang. Balima, standing nearby, could hear a woman’s voice—he assumed it was Mariam—saying: “Thomas, save yourself, because they just called me and it appears that it’s over for you (c’est foutu pour toi)!” After the call ended, Balima followed Sankara quietly down to the first floor. Before parting ways, Sankara said: “Send the telex to President Diouf.” Around four fifteen, as Sankara drove away, Balima realized that something was seriously wrong. “When I walked back upstairs into the presidency offices, there was nobody there,” Balima recalled. “The offices had been left empty. That’s a problem. Normally there would be people there, and when I returned I found it bizarre. Then I heard the gunfire, and I understood. I should have died that day, but Thomas asked me to go send the telex. That saved my life.” Indeed, even those closest to Sankara anticipated a coup and had taken measures to remove themselves from harm’s way.43 On the eve of October 15, military officers and CNR members observed troop redeployments across Burkina, as Compaoré quietly amassed a large force in the capital. Then Sankara allies suddenly saw troops moving around the capital, as the telephone network became disrupted. “On

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October 15, I was near the airport in the afternoon, and I saw a bunch of military trucks with large numbers of commandos in their berets. Something was wrong. It wasn’t normal to see so many of them there,” Paul Yameogo remembered. When Etienne Zongo was arrested, he saw roughly six hundred commandoes at the Conseil complex, with more arriving from Pô. Sankara’s forces were easily overtaken. In this vein, the US embassy reported “strange signs” before the coup, indicating that “something was being prepared.” These signs included the transfers of military commanders and the fact that “Madame Compaoré also departed the country early last week.” Chantal was reportedly in Paris, staying with ambassador Barry Djibrina, Compaoré’s link to Foccart. Following the assassination, cables reported that “all action was taken by Compaoré’s commandos” and that “no other elements were involved in the coup.” This substantiates eyewitness accounts that identified Compaoré’s commandos, under Captain Gilbert Diendéré’s direction, as the main assassins.44 Although it’s possible that Liberian mercenaries—a “squad of Liberian exiles,” as Ellis contends—were somewhere in Ouagadougou, perhaps as backup, they did not play a significant role in the coup. No eyewitness accounts within Burkina Faso, documentary or oral sources, have provided evidence of Liberians being in the vicinity at the time of Sankara’s murder. More controversially, in his largely fabricated account of Sankara’s murder, Prince Johnson claimed to have witnessed Compaoré kill Sankara. His account contradicts the facts of every credible source. By the time of the assassination, Taylor maintained, there were no Liberian troops in Ouagadougou. Although Taylor’s testimony might be self-​­serving, it’s clear that Compaoré had little need for extra military muscle. The only foreign military presence reported during this time was Libyan aircraft delivering arms in the days after the coup.45 Compaoré’s control of the military and police was such that he was able to carry out murders of crucial Sankara allies, such as Michel Koama and Vincent Sigué, far removed from Ouagadougou, on October 15. The embassy reported that this was the reason that ETIR could not help: “The intervention force in Kamboinse did indeed remain in its barracks, and it is true that soldiers there rose up against the commander, Lt. Kouama, and executed him the same night.” Oral sources reported that it was Koama’s deputy, Gaspard Somé, a Compaoré ally, who carried out the murder. Sigué was also ambushed and killed on the road to Ghana after a drawn-​­out firefight. Even Boukary Kaboré’s formidable BIA division in Koudougou was

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soon crushed by Compaoré’s combined forces. In short, Compaoré’s seizure and consolidation of power was based on broad military support and control over key institutions, such as the CDRs, the police, and gendarmes. Militarily speaking, there was probably little that Sankara and his allies could have done. Perhaps Sankara’s fatalism was rooted in the awareness, as a military man, that the relations of force had tipped irretrievably against him. Seeking to avoid bloodshed, and seeing no way out, did he hear the siren song of revolutionary martyrdom?46 Sankara sat in the front seat next to his driver, Sergeant Der Somda. His most formidable guard, Famoro Ouattara, had taken a vacation day and was absent, leaving the president critically exposed. Sankara pulled up in a Peugeot 205 and strode into the pavilion of the Conseil for a meeting of his “Special Cabinet,” which would be discussing the newly proposed “code of revolutionary conduct” and hearing a report from Alouna Traoré on his trip to Benin aimed at designing a vanguard party. As Sankara took his seat at the head of the table, Alouna Traoré, Christophe Saba, Frédéric Kiemdé, Bonaventure Compaoré, Patrice Zagré, and Babou Paulin Bamouni were all present. Then, outside, as the meeting was about to begin, they heard the sound of screeching tires and gunfire. “What’s this noise?” Sankara asked. Traoré remembered hearing machine gun fire erupt like “heavy rain suddenly coming down on a tin roof.” Sankara’s seven cabinet members dove to the ground.47 Outside, Corporal Hamidou Maïga fired on Der Somda, who fell immediately. Then a blue Mitsubishi Galant driven by Sergeant Hyacinthe Kafando pulled into the pavilion. Under the command of Captain Gilbert Diendéré, a seven-​­man commando hit team of Kafando, Arzoma “Otis” Ouedraogo, Nabié N’Soni, Nacolma Wanpasba, Tondé, Nabonsmendé Ouedraogo, and Kabré Moumouni laid assault to Sankara’s guards. According to US embassy sources, “military elements” (“mostly commandos”) told Sankara’s guards to “get down on the ground.” It was reported: “The elements began firing on the bodyguards lying on the ground in order to kill them, too. (The one bodyguard who survived is the source of this information).”48 As his colleagues desperately sought cover, futilely trying to hide behind chairs, Sankara rose from the table and said, “Stay here, it’s me that they want.” He exited the conference room with his hands in the air and was immediately face to face with two of Compaoré’s young commandos, most likely Hyacinthe Kafando and Nabié N’Soni. Some reports stated that Sankara had his revolver in one hand. Alouna Traoré recalled: “He raised

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his hands in the air, like in the Western films, and left the meeting room. It’s at this moment that he was killed.” The US embassy confirmed that Sankara was shot “in cold blood.” Indeed, the evidence suggests that there was nothing accidental about the killings; they were planned, efficient, and thorough. The two commandos fired on Sankara, hitting him with bursts from Kalashnikov and G3 rifles. An autopsy and ballistics report twenty-​ ­eight years later revealed that Sankara’s body had been “riddled with bullets,” as dozens of Kalashnikov and G3 rounds struck him in the torso, arms, and legs. Just after 4:30 p.m. on October 15, 1987, at thirty-​­seven years old, Thomas Sankara was dead.49

Notes 1. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 373–381; “Thomas Sankara—discourse au sommet d’Addis Abéba,” ­youtube​.­com, last accessed 2016 at ­https://​­w ww​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​ ­ivPPHc9eInk. 2. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 373–381. 3. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 373–381; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, July 2, 14, 17, 1987, FOIA; Jeune Afrique, October 28, 1987; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution”; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000. 4. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, July 2, 1987, FOIA. 5. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 21, 1987, FOIA. 6. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 4, 2013; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 35–36, 48; Cupelin, “Captain Thomas Sankara.” 7. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 83–86, 221–227; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 383–384. 8. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015. 9. Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 61–64; Remington, “Socialist Pluralism of Opinions”; Brown, “Political Change in the Soviet Union”; Wright, “Pluralism and Vanguardism in the Nicaraguan Revolution.” 10. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Germaine Pitroipa, interview, May 13, 2013; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 384; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 48–49. 11. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, August 3, 10, 1987, FOIA; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 437–455; Otayek, “Quand le tambour.” 12. Ablasse Segda, interview, March 5, 2013. 13. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Charles Sangaré, interview, March 17, 2013; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 24–34; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 70–71; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, August 10, 13, 1987, FOIA. 14. “Discours de T. Sankara 4 août 1987” on ­dailymotion​.­com. Accessed in July, 2012, at ­https://​­w ww​.­dailymotion​.­com​/­v ideo​/­x1a3uf; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 387–401. 15. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015; Jeune Afrique, November 11, 1987; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 23–24; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 21, 70–72.

288 | Thomas Sankara 16. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Doza, Liberté Confisqué, 248; Jaffré, Biographie, 17, 239–255; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution,” 450. 17. Jaffré, Biographie, 257–269; Verschave, La Françafrique, 173–189; Silvestro Montanaro (director), Ombre Africane (Italy: RAI3, 2009); Shuffield, Thomas Sankara; Bruno Jaffré, “Que sait-​­on sur l’assassinat de Sankara?,” Pambazuka (2009); Doza, Liberté Confisqué. 18. Jaffré, Biographie, 263–265; Verschave, La Françafrique, 173–189; Somé, Thomas Sankara; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 161; RFI’s “Qui a fait tuer Sankara? Le role de la France” at ­https://​­webdoc​.­r fi​.­f r​/ ­burkina​-­​­faso​​-­qui​-­​­a​​-­fait​-­​­tuer​​-­sankara​/­chap​-­​­04​​/­index​.­html; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, July 2 and December 2, 1987, FOIA. 19. AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, March 16, 1984, and October 19, 1987, FOIA. 20. AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, October 16, 19, 28, 1987, FOIA; Hugo Sada, interview, April 20, 29, 2013. 21. AMEmbassy-​­Abidjan to SecState, August 21, October 20, and November 5, 1987, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Dakar to SecState, December 31, 1987, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 65–67; Jeune Afrique, November 4, 1987; Bat, Le Syndrome Foccart, 604–634. 22. Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013, and August 22, 2015; Abdou-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 15, 2013; “Qui a fait tuer Sankara? Ouagadougou, l’ombre d’une main étrangère,” at ­https://​­webdoc​.­r fi​.­f r​/­burkina​-­​­faso​​-­qui​-­​­a​​-­fait​-­​­tuer​​-­sankara​/­chap​-­​­03​​/; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, September 29, 1987, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Dakar to SecState, December 31, 1987, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, October 28, 1987, FOIA. 23. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, December 1, 1986, and March 31, 1987, FOIA. 24. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, April 17, 1987, FOIA; Cohen, Mind of the African Strongman, 22–23; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014. 25. CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Burkina: Pressures on Sankara,” August 1986, FOIA; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 464–488; Clarridge, Spy for All Seasons, 371; Leonardo Neher, interview, June 23, 2014; Pringle, “Draft Memoir.” 26. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, June 3 and December 16, 1986, and April 17 and May 19, 1987, FOIA; William Foltz, personal communication, April 2005. 27. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, September 29, 1987, FOIA; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 32. 28. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, September 29, 1987, FOIA. 29. Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 158; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 32–33. 30. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​ ­WashDC, October 22, 1987, FOIA; Jaffré, Biographie, 252–253; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 12–13, 86–86, 227. 31. Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015. 32. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013. 33. Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 86–91; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 403–419; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 33–34. 34. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14 and 21, 2013, Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 65; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 51–55. 35. Jeune Afrique, November 11, 1987; audio file shared by Bruno Jaffré. 36. Abdou-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 26, 2014; Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015; Martens, Sankara,

No Turning Back  |  289 Compaoré, 54–62; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 89–90; Boukary Kaboré, interviewed in Shuffield, Thomas Sankara. 37. Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 420–424. 38. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000, Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Harsch, Thomas Sankara; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 38–39; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 11–14, 90–93. 39. Fidèle Toé, interview, August 24, 2015; Abdou-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 92–94; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 65–68. 40. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Valère Somé, interview, March 13, 2013; Abdou-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; “L’Intervention que devait faire Thomas Sankara,” at ­http://​­www​.­t homassankara​.­net​ /­lintervention​-­​­que​​-­devait​-­​­faire​​-­t homas​-­​­sankara​​-­a​-­​­la​​-­reunion​-­​­du​​-­15​-­​­octobre​​-­1987​-­​­au​​-­soir​/; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 19–20. 41. AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState-​­WashDC, October 16, 19, 28, 1987, FOIA; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000. 42. Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 26–27. 43. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 21, 2013; Serge Théophile Balima, interview, January 2006; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 19–28. 44. Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Abdou-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 15, 22, 1987, FOIA; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 11–14, 90–93. 45. Ellis, Masks of Anarchy, 68; Johnson, Rise and Fall, 41–63; Taylor “Trial Transcripts”; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 15, 22, 1987, FOIA. 46. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 15, 22, 1987, FOIA; Etienne Zongo, interview, August 2000; Paul Yameogo, interview, August 27, 2015; Taylor “Trial Transcripts.” 47. Fidèle Toé, interview, March 13, 2013; “Alouna Traoré, rescapé,” Courrier Confidentiel 8 (April–May 2012); Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 22–28; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 40–42, Jaffré, Biographie, 276–278. 48. Sy and Nkounkou, L’affaire Thomas Sankara, 12–13; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​ ­WashDC, October 16, 19, 22, 1987, FOIA. 49. Sy and Nkounkou, L’affaire Thomas Sankara, 12–13; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​ ­WashDC, October 16, 19, 22, 1987, FOIA; “Dossier Thomas Sankara,” at ­https://​­lefaso​.­net​/­spip​ .­php​?­article67381, October 13, 2015; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 22, 1987, FOIA; Valère Somé, interview, March 12, 2013; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 40–42.

CONCLUSION

T

welve of Sankara’s associates were murdered with him on October 15, 1987. Patrice Zagré, Christophe Saba, Paulin Bamouni, Frédéric Kiemdé, and Bonaventure Compaoré were all trapped in their meeting room and executed by machine gun fire. Only Alouna Traoré survived, and he would eventually tell his story. At the Conseil de l’Entente, the deceased included Sankara’s guard corps: Der Somda, Patenema Soré, Emmanuel Bationo, Wallilaye Ouedraogo, Noufou Sawadogo, Amadé Sawadogo, and Abdoulaye Gouem. Added to these thirteen deaths, dozens of soldiers were killed on October 27 when Compaoré’s forces laid siege to the base in Koudougou. In the ensuing years, Compaoré’s consolidation of power led to other political murders, including the remaining two in the original quartet of revolutionary leaders: Commander Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani and Captain Henri Zongo were both arrested and summarily executed on September 19, 1989. When queried about their deaths in an interview, Compaoré provided this explanation: “I don’t have pity for traitors.” Three can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead, as it’s said. But it did not stop there. Dozens of others were victims of political murder, including opposition figures, journalists, university professors, and students who dared to speak out against the new regime, the so-​­called Popular Front.1 It’s unclear when Compaoré or Diendéré showed up at the crime scene. Witnesses claimed that Gilbert Diendéré was not among the assassins but arrived shortly thereafter. He purportedly surveyed the damage and then, after seeing Sankara’s body, took refuge inside and broke into tears. Diendéré provided only one statement, to Ludo Martens, on the events of October 15. Most testimonies placed Compaoré at the Conseil de l’Entente roughly two hours after the murders. Compaoré himself gave numerous conflicting accounts over the years. Initially, he maintained that he was sick in bed with malaria, but later he said that he was at home with Salif Diallo when the gunfire erupted. Some witnesses placed him near the airport, and others saw him in a car driving across town during the coup. He claimed that the assassination was an “accident,” that they were “supposed to arrest Sankara,” but then he claimed he knew nothing about an arrest order.

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Eventually, Compaoré remarked, “It was either him or me,” and explained that he acted because Sankara was “planning to liquidate us.” On one occasion, he stated callously that his friend “played the game and lost.” He did not make a public statement until October 19, and then he used the opportunity to dishonor Sankara.2 In the immediate aftermath on October 15, generalized panic overtook the government offices, as everyone fled central Ouagadougou. Soon military curfew was declared, and martial music played on the radio. As the sun set on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, twenty prison laborers were digging graves; others were dispatched to retrieve the thirteen bodies from the Conseil de l’Entente. The deceased were thrown in the back of a military utility truck and transported in the dark of night to Dagnoën cemetery. With the headlights of two trucks illuminating the field, the prisoners carried the bodies. According to one of the prisoners, Yamba Malick Sawadogo, the bodies were all clearly identifiable. “I’m not an expert, but I think that the President of Faso was wounded in the chest,” Sawadogo stated. Sankara was wearing his red tracksuit, which concealed his blood and created the illusion that “he was sleeping, his fists closed and his mouth slightly open as if he wanted to pass a message. This image has stayed with me and haunts me to this day.” With a small group of soldiers looking on, the bodies were placed directly into the shallow graves without caskets. The bodies were perfunctorily covered with dirt; wooden sticks were planted holding up small paper placards with their scribbled names.3 On the morning of October 16, Pascal Sankara found his way to Dagnoën, where he witnessed a scene of intense mourning. In a peaceful country, where people had not become inured to political violence, the assassination was stunning and shameful. It was inconceivable that Sankara could have done anything to warrant such a ghastly end. The people were traumatized and sickened, but they filed quietly by the graves, leaving their tributes on pieces of paper:4 “Homage to you, Thomas Sankara, dignified son of Burkina. The jealous, the power-​­hungry and the traitors have assassinated you. Down with the ignoble ones!” “Long live the president of the children! Long live the president of the poor!” “Is it possible to forget you? Death to the traitors, death to the cowards. And peace for your soul.” “Your sincerity and your honesty did not deserve death. No! A hero never dies! We are with you. The entire world weeps.”

Conclusion | 293 “Mother Sankara, your son will be avenged. We are all Sankaras.” “Sankara, you have been betrayed by a friend to whom you had given all your trust; your disappearance shocks us enormously, because for us you were our liberator.”5

In the following days, soldiers closed off access to the cemetery, even as groups of youth protested, chanting, “Assassins! Assassins!” at them. At the Sankara home in Paspanga, Mariam Sankara was still coming to grips with the news, and she asked to hold a requiem mass. But Compaoré refused to permit any kind of organized funeral and disallowed the family from taking possession of Sankara’s body. The deposed first lady’s passport was taken, and she was prevented from leaving the country. With no proof of her husband’s death—no death certificate had been issued—she lived in a kind of legal limbo for months. Only in January 1988 did she finally receive a death certificate, which stated that her husband died of “natural causes.” Two months later, after collecting money from friends, she had masons build proper cement tombs for Sankara and his twelve murdered companions—even as Compaoré threatened that the tombs would be destroyed. Having accomplished her goal, she fled the country, going into exile in Gabon with her sons.6 Sankara’s family became enemies of the state. Their homes were ransacked, and they were constantly harassed by armed thugs. Pascal Sankara was detained, blindfolded, and taken outside of Ouagadougou, where soldiers tied him to a tree and tortured him. He was subjected to mock executions and beaten until he could no longer walk and his face was unrecognizable. He was eventually released, and he went into exile. Paul Sankara was fortunate to evade capture, but he too was forced to flee the country. The Sankara family was treated like pariahs. It was a harsh new reality. Compaoré never set foot again in the Sankara compound or reached out to Joseph and Marguerite Sankara to provide an explanation or condolences. Later in life, Joseph lamented the murders, saying that he had lost two sons: “It’s very painful because I no longer see my son Blaise, who used to come all the time to visit me. . . . I don’t have my son Thomas. I don’t have my son Blaise. I lost both of them.” Most of Sankara’s friends were imprisoned, although some managed to flee to Ghana.7 Valère Somé evaded capture and was on the run for months. But it did not stop him from mounting a leaflet campaign exposing the atrocities of the Compaoré regime. On December 15, 1987, he defiantly published the first declaration of a clandestine Sankarist resistance organization. In

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response, the following day, security forces fanned out across the country in a massive roundup. Hundreds of students, journalists, university professors, and Sankara’s colleagues were imprisoned. More than forty former members of Sankara’s government were detained. Somé was captured and subjected to months of torture at the hands of Compaoré loyalists. He was beaten, burned, suspended from the ceiling, and cut with knives. He barely survived the ordeal. Others were not so fortunate. Years later, Somé wrote a book about his imprisonment, Les Nuits Froides de Décembre, in which he identified his captors, stating that “it was Captain Jean-​­Pierre Palm, head of the National Gendarmerie, who at the time authorized and supervised the torture that my comrades and myself endured during our detention. . . . Salif Diallo, then Cabinet Director of President Blaise Compaoré, personally directed the torture sessions, even taking an active part in them.” Released after six months, Somé eventually fled the country for Congo-​­Brazzaville. Smuggling out documents, he funneled information to Sennen Andriamirado, who used his testimony to write the first book on the assassination, Il s’appelait Sankara: Chronique d’une mort violente. Many others have corroborated Somé’s account, including Firmin Diallo and the female activist Saran Sérémé.8 On the diplomatic front, on October 18, Compaoré “convoked the French chargé separately” and indicated that he “regretted what happened” and that his “prime goal” was to “establish close links with France,” reported the US embassy. Publicly, Compaoré maintained that his commandos had intervened to “end the processes of neocolonial restoration, undertaken by this traitor.” And yet, privately, he was forging closer ties to France and facilitating the “neocolonial restoration” for which he attacked Sankara. French officials acknowledged that the coup had resulted in “considerably more deaths than are officially admitted” and that “Sankara’s death has been received badly by the people.” Despite the large number of casualties, which were seen as “unintentional,” France immediately recognized the new government. French officials stood by Compaoré’s story that Sankara’s murder was an unfortunate “accident.” When US officials met with French officials in Paris to discuss the coup, Jean Audibert stated that France even had a “positive impression of Compaoré,” who was regarded as “fundamentally better disposed toward France” and “more moderate than his predecessor.” Audibert also confirmed that a Libyan transport plane had delivered an armored car and weaponry to Compaoré, which the French saw as an effort by Qaddafi to “cement relations with the new

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regime.” Soon regular Libyan planes were landing in Ouagadougou, carrying weapons. France chose to ignore the Libyan military aid. Over the next several years—as Paris got more involved in its own business deals with Libya and Liberia—Compaoré provided logistical support in transshipping arms to Liberia in exchange for diamonds. Burkina Faso became so crucial in backing the insurgency in Liberia that rebel leader Charles Taylor maintained a house in Ouagadougou. Compaoré emerged as a central actor in the civil war that led to the destruction of Liberia. In fact, as Houphouët-​ ­Boigny waned, Compaoré was groomed as France’s new doyen of French neocolonial power in West Africa.9 For weeks after the coup, Radio-​­Burkina and state television were pumping out ad hominem attacks on Sankara. He was accused of “treason and plots” and was blamed for “useless intrigues” and “messianism.” The Popular Front’s statement called for the “rectification of the revolutionary process,” in effect appropriating Sankara’s own speeches in Bobo-​­Dioulasso and Tenkodogo. On Monday, October 19, Compaoré finally emerged and recorded an address to the nation, in which he justified the coup, arguing that Sankara had been unwilling to correct the errors of the revolution. He blamed his friend for the repression of the civilian left; he claimed that he had intervened to stop Sankara’s military usurpation of power.10 The Popular Front arrested the remaining members of Sankara’s military faction before they could organize a riposte. Dozens were arrested, including Ousseini Compaoré, Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, Etienne Zongo, and Pierre Ouedraogo, to name just a few. “After they killed Thomas, I spent nine difficult months in prison, along with Pierre Ouedraogo, Daouda Traore, Ernest Nongma, and many others,” Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré remembered. “I never saw Blaise face to face again. He never sought to resolve things. When I was released, he had me exiled to Dédougou.” Boukary Kaboré, the so-​­called Lion of Bulkiemdé, head of the base in Koudougou, declared his opposition to the new regime, stating to RFI radio: “It’s a question of principle. We cannot mourn Thomas Sankara at the same time as we offer support to those who killed him!” Hundreds of Sankara loyalists from other military units fled to Koudougou, swelling the ranks under Kaboré’s command. But on October 27, massive columns of combined commando units encircled Kaboré’s base. The result was a massacre. Compaoré’s forces hunted down Kaboré’s men, burning their bodies and reducing their homes to ashes. The killing continued for days. The official figure was twenty-​­eight dead soldiers, but as many as one hundred soldiers

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and civilians were possibly killed. It was a shocking escalation of violence. Boukary Kaboré managed to flee to Ghana. But the military resistance was over. The violence was so stunning that ordinary people fell silent; citizens passively accepted the regime change. They now lived under martial law.11 One resident—who chose to remain anonymous—recounted in 2013: If they had simply arrested Sankara, the people would have come out in the streets to liberate him. It’s true that people weren’t happy with certain things in the revolution. But we still supported Sankara. Killing him was a disgrace. . . . It became a dictatorship. It became sad here in Burkina. With the curfew we couldn’t go out at night, and even during the day, it was not safe. People couldn’t get together to really discuss things because there was always violence threatening us. Anyone who opposed Blaise was killed. Blaise’s men massacred people and traumatized the people, and we were afraid to speak out. You could not sit around and discuss the revolution. People didn’t trust each other and we were afraid to have Sankara’s name on our lips. They seriously wiped out his supporters. For many years, you didn’t see any trace of Sankara here.12

“Thomas Sankara is dead, killed and not by accident,” Jeune Afrique reported. “One does not imprison Sankara. It was necessary to kill him. But in killing him, they made him into a myth.” Another journalist in Dakar observed that Sankara’s “legend” began “with a torrent of tears” and that he had become “the living symbol of a hero, and heroes, at least in the popular imagination, never die.” According to Lilyan Kesteloot, Sankara’s death stirred up deep concern among African writers, who expressed their sorrow over losing one of Africa’s “most worthy, most devoted sons.” But, across West Africa, while most ordinary people mourned Sankara’s passing, their government leaders were relieved. According to US embassy cables from Abidjan, Ivoirian officials expressed relief that Sankara had been overthrown, and they saw Compaoré as “closer to the moderate Ivoirian line.” Days after the coup, President Eyadema sent Compaoré a “message of congratulations and support.” In Bamako, the Malian government welcomed the change of government. Within the Malian military, in particular, many were reportedly “happy about Sankara’s demise.” Like much of the African political class, they were not surprised by the news of the coup, but they condemned the violence. In Niger, the Kountché government stated: “We didn’t like him but they shouldn’t have killed him.” Abdou Diouf in Senegal made it known that he supported Compaoré, who he thought “would likely be a better leader than Sankara.” But in the streets of Dakar, there was widespread sadness. For many young Senegalese of this generation,

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two memorable deaths of the 1980s produced widespread mourning: that of Bob Marley and that of Thomas Sankara. The only neighboring African head of state to really reflect the popular sadness was Jerry Rawlings, who declared a national day of mourning in Ghana. Rawlings was reportedly inconsolable and felt deeply betrayed by Compaoré. When a delegation led by Jean-​­Baptiste Lingani arrived in Accra on October 19 to explain what had happened, Rawlings refused to meet them. Ghana even provided refuge for a number of Sankara allies.13 Two months after the coup, people seemed to be getting over the initial shock of Sankara’s death, but it was “rare to find a person who supports the actual killing which occurred,” owing to the fact that “Sankara had been generally popular,” the US embassy reported. But many, such as civil servants and merchants, were relieved that the revolution was ending. For political elites, new opportunities were about to open up. Indeed, as things calmed down, Compaoré reached out to the French business community, “assuring businessmen that they will be basically free to operate without government interference,” reported the US embassy. He courted foreign investors, as his clique took over the economy, fashioning new clientelist networks, smuggling gold, and eventually drawing on new sources of wealth from the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Compaoré ingratiated himself with the Moro Naba, bearing gifts, such as a new car, in order to shore up support from the Mossi power structure. Most importantly, he approached the IMF and World Bank to discuss a structural adjustment program. According to World Bank representatives, on November 26, Burkina Faso “formally requested” a visit by a World Bank team. Included in the terms of the meeting was Burkina’s “desire to discuss a structural reform program.” World Bank representatives were reportedly “surprised and pleased that Burkina would focus on this issue so soon after the new government was named.” It would take a few more years of negotiation for Burkina Faso to formally sign on with an IMF-​­directed structural adjustment program in 1991. But the neoliberal project had finally been foisted on Burkina Faso. In this optic, given the eventual outcomes, the assassination was in certain ways a “neoliberal coup,” signaling a shift of policy in the direction of neoliberal reforms.14 Although the revolution ended in disappointment, Sankara was catapulted into revolutionary martyrdom, and he became a powerful symbol and political hero of the youth. African soldiers have often explicitly held up Sankara as a model of a “virtuous” coup, while African feminists celebrate

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him as a rare political leader who championed the cause of women. Within the Pan-​­Africanist frame, Sankara was kept alive in oral traditions and copious forms of popular culture. Fela Kuti composed his Afro-​­beat hit “Underground System” as a tribute to Sankara, protesting the subjugation of Africa by foreign powers and insidious transnational networks. The Ivoirian reggae band Alpha Blondy wrote “Sankara,” a combative praise song that excoriated the political class. Musicians like Malian Nahawa Doumbia, Chadian Koulsy Lamko, and Senegalese singer Cheikh Lo all wrote songs in honor of Sankara. More recently, Senegalese rapper, and leader of the Y’en a Marre youth movement, Fadel Barro, drew inspiration from Sankara, while the Burkinabé leaders of Balai Citoyen, rapper Smockey and reggae musician Sams’k Le Jah, were both self-​­identified “Sankarists.” Sankara was constantly invoked in political discourse; his name graced restaurants, stores, and even schools. His story filled popular chapbooks and graphic novels; he was the subject of numerous films. As Alfred Sawadogo remembered: “His legend travels the world. In most African countries, his memory remains alive. More than ten years after his disappearance, stickers of his photos are visible on taxis and mopeds in African capital cities. One speaks of him like a mythic personality, who only existed in legend.” In New York, Sankara was painted into a scene alongside other revolutionaries on a massive mural in Greenwich Village. In her writings, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes cosmopolitan Nigerians in the United States wearing Sankara T-​­shirts and invokes Sankara’s popularity. Beyond books, articles, and the copious videos now available on the internet, there are more prosaic Sankara products in wide circulation. In local African markets, and now online, there are handcrafted products and mass-​­produced items such as posters, T-​­shirts, mugs, stickers, magnets, tote bags, baseball hats, hoodies, wall tapestries, and even Christmas ornaments and iPhone cases, all bearing pithy quotes and Sankara’s effigy in the red beret. But Sankara’s image and words have often been decontextualized, reduced to symbols of resistance, without much understanding of his life and the revolution that he led. Moreover, memories are highly generational.15 One grassroots activist explained: People always talk about Sankara. Even politicians talk about Sankara. Many Sankarists, they just use the image of Sankara, but they don’t put in practice his ideas. They know that Sankara’s image pleases the youth, because there are many young people who love Sankara. But they were born after the revolution,

Conclusion | 299 and they only know Sankara through the speeches they listen to, and the image of Sankara. They listen to the cassettes, watch the videos, and they are inspired by Sankara. But when you try to tell them about the revolution, or make any criticisms of Sankara, they don’t want to hear it. They only want to hear how great he was. The fact is that most Burkinabé couldn’t handle Sankara because he was rigorous. He imposed discipline and rules. They don’t want to be bothered. They prefer to live in disorder. That’s the majority, so it’s difficult to fight against that. In this way, to be Sankarist in a real ethical sense is rare.16

Indeed, African youth have drawn their impressions of Sankara mostly from external sources via the internet, producing discrepancies between Sankara’s popular image outside of Burkina and the general opinion of the revolution within Burkina. During the revolution, even as grievances within Burkina had grown, there was an “enormous surge of sympathy outside of Burkina” for the revolution, issuing from “Africans in the younger age brackets and a good number of Western, tiers-​­mondiste, intellectuals,” Otayek observed. Sankara’s image took on multiple meanings and connotations within transnational contexts. He became known as the “African Che Guevara.” Certainly, many African political figures have been anointed with this title, changing with every generation: Amilcar Cabral, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, Ernest Ouandié, and others have all been called the “African Che Guevara.” But for Sankara, the appellation has shown remarkable durability. It first sprouted up immediately after his death. But it really exploded after Compaoré’s overthrow in 2014, and since then there’s hardly been an article on Sankara that does not use the phrase. Journalistically, it has its purpose of popularizing a figure who is unknown to most people, situating Sankara vis-​­à-vis global politics and revolutionary history. But because of the use of this phrase, Sankara has been essentialized and commoditized, perhaps in the way that Che was embodied in a two-​­tone red-​­and-black silkscreen image that took on a trajectory of meanings. However, Sankara’s friends, family, and fellow revolutionaries have expressed disappointment with the tendency to reduce Sankara to such a simplistic formula.17 In one representative testimony, Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo remarked: “They say he was the Che Guevara of Africa. But when people say that to me, I don’t get it. Thomas Sankara is Thomas Sankara. Che Guevara killed people to make revolution. You cannot compare these two men. My little brother, Thomas, was not an assassin. Sure, he’s an image like Che, but he has nothing in common. Why does all of Africa mourn the loss of Thomas Sankara? It’s

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because Thomas was a simple, honest man, who worked hard to peacefully build his country.”18 As we have seen, for the decade after Sankara’s death, there was an ongoing effort to erase his memory from history. There were periodic protests and acts of resistance, such as the popular uprising after the journalist Norbert Zongo was murdered by Compaoré’s henchmen in 1998. The Compaoré regime managed to keep a lid on things, but the protests in 1998 created a small opening for Sankara’s supporters, as the state begrudgingly tolerated Sankara iconography in the market stalls. In the coming decades, as further protests in 2008 and 2011 rocked Ouagadougou and new tools of mass communication proliferated, the consumption of Sankara’s speeches and documentaries increased markedly. After years of fear and silence around his death, the youth appropriated his legacy. His words became weapons, part of a usable past, in critiquing the political system. Young people were well aware of the fact that Sankara’s murderer remained in power. For them, it was the ultimate symbol of impunity that Compaoré could organize the assassination of their political hero and then sit comfortably on the throne for over two decades. Sankara represented the antithesis of Compaoré, the antidote to corruption.19 In 2013, a massive movement of civil disobedience picked up. The restive streets of Ouagadougou came alive with the words and images of Thomas Sankara. There were the Sankara quotes read by speakers at demonstrations, the Sankara posters and t-​­shirts, and the revolutionary slogans. With this revived revolutionary spirit, the people boldly took up where Sankara had left off. Spearheading the movement was the Balai Citoyen (“Citizen Broom”) collective, with the broom as the symbol of their aspirations to combat corruption. Its main Sankarist leaders, the reggae musician Sams’k Le Jah and rapper Smockey, frequently quoted Sankara and promoted his image at rallies. Balai Citoyen became a mass movement, organizing so-​­called “Cibal Clubs” modeled on the revolutionary CDRs, and building networks of supporters outside Burkina. There was a prevailing sense that the protests would not relent until Compaoré had left office. In the face of threats of ongoing daily protests, Compaoré moved forward with his plans to revise Article 37 of the Constitution, on term limits, in order to stand for reelection. Then, on October 30, 2014, the political class met at the National Assembly to vote on the constitutional change. A popular insurrection erupted. Street warfare ensued, as security forces used tear gas to disperse the crowds, and when that failed, they resorted to live

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ammunition, resulting in thirty deaths and hundreds of wounded. Seeing no way out, Compaoré fled to Côte d’Ivoire. The following day, after two weeks of military rule under Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, a transitional government was formed, with former foreign minister Michel Kafando as the interim president and Zida as prime minister until free elections could be held. In hindsight it was a curious choice, given that Kafando had been actively seeking to overthrow Sankara in 1985. Those in civil society felt that their revolution was being hijacked by Compaoré loyalists and the military oligarchy. But the trade unions and youth organizations stayed mobilized and kept up the pressure. A commission was soon created to investigate Sankara’s murder.20 For decades, the Sankara family, and groups of committed lawyers and activists, had continued their fight for justice. In 1997, Mariam Sankara hired Bénéwendé Sankara (of no relation), a lawyer who had been defending opposition politicians and journalists under the Compaoré regime. But it was a risky undertaking. “People forget that we lived under a reign of terror. The photos of Sankara weren’t found in the streets like today. That was strictly forbidden,” Bénéwendé Sankara remembered. “I was arrested many times, constantly threatened. They froze my bank accounts and sought to humiliate me. But we kept fighting, and over time the movement to seek justice fused with a wider opposition movement, with Sankara as the symbol of resistance. It was a process of a quarter century in the making.” The Sankara family drew on robust support from a broad international campaign and such groups as Justice for Sankara, Justice for Africa; the International Committee for Justice for Sankara (CIJS); and individuals like Bruno Jaffré and Aziz Salmone Fall, among many others. However, Compaoré’s control over the legal system ensured that the “Sankara dossier” went nowhere. It was not until Compaoré abdicated that the case made any progress. In May 2015, what was believed to be Sankara’s body was exhumed. It was determined that the bodies had been “riddled with bullets,” but the DNA tests proved inconclusive.21 As the judicial process took its course, it was announced that the findings on the circumstances of Sankara’s murder were to be made public on September 17, 2015. Arrest warrants were imminent. But on September 16, the transitional government was suddenly overthrown in a coup by Gilbert Diendéré, the individual responsible for assembling the hit team that killed Sankara. His powerful unit, the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP), burst into a cabinet meeting and arrested Michel Kafando, Isaac

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Zida, and others. Diendéré took the presidential palace, and sitting in the luxurious surroundings of Kosyam, he declared himself head of state. As news of Diendéré’s coup spread, the population mobilized. Aside from Balai Citoyen, the labor unions, traditional leaders such as chiefs, hunters’ associations, the Moro Naba, and the heralded spatula-​­wielding women all rallied to oppose the coup. The RSP responded with lethal force, and 14 protesters were killed and over 250 injured in the street battles. The RSP raided the radio and television stations and destroyed the independent Radio-​­Omega, which had been crucial in coordinating the resistance. But, finally, as the National Army marched on Ouagadougou, Diendéré threw in the towel and was arrested on September 23. In 2019, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison for his role in the 2015 coup, along with his wife. Since then an arrest warrant has been issued for Blaise Compaoré, who took up residence in Côte d’Ivoire. His brother François Compaoré has been arrested for the murder of Norbert Zongo and awaits trial. Besides Diendéré, eighty-​­three others have been arrested for the September 16 coup and the assassination of Sankara and his companions. Unfortunately, many of the key actors in Sankara’s murder, such as Hyacinthe Kafando, have absconded and disappeared, while others are dead. Some were purportedly murdered. However, in the coming years, the Burkinabe judiciary will likely shed more light on the events of October 15, 1987. According to recent reports, twenty-​­four individuals, including figures such as Jean-​ ­Pierre Palm, have already been found guilty for complicity in the murder of Sankara and his associates.22 Two months after the failed coup, on November 29, 2015, Burkina Faso went ahead with presidential elections, in which Roch Marc Christian Kaboré won, making him the country’s first elected civilian head of state in fifty years. Now, as Burkina Faso enters a new democratic era filled with hope, Sankara’s ideas and legacy are more important than ever. Political circumstances have, of course, changed; few supporters are calling for a return to the revolutionary policies of the CNR. Moreover, in order to advance Sankara’s progressive agenda, the CNR took measures that were, by today’s standards, anti-​­democratic: curtailing freedom of the press, imprisoning labor leaders, breaking strikes, expelling communists from the ruling coalition, and even executing suspected coup plotters. In this vein, critics have accused Sankara of authoritarian tendencies, “Bonapartism,” or “Caesarism.” However, we should acknowledge that Sankara himself opposed cults of personality; he did not seek to hold on to power through

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military force; he used state power to improve the conditions of the people rather than to enrich himself. If there was a “Caesarist” strain to his mode of governance—and there were certainly top-​­down aspects to the CNR’s revolutionary mobilization and decision-​­making—it was not the “reactionary” form; it corresponded more with what Antonio Gramsci has observed: “Caesarism is progressive when its intervention helps the progressive force to triumph, albeit with its victory tempered by certain compromises and limitations.” That said, the only democratic elections held during the revolution were for local CDR delegates. There were never any national elections.23 Mousbila Sankara provided an explanation: Thomas said that things were not going to change with the system of fake democracy, where the single party wins with 99 percent of the vote and doesn’t change anything. He talked about “bourgeois democracy” in our country, but this was not real democracy. You look at the democracy of the previous regimes, but it was not representative. We wanted local democracy first. Thomas preferred popular democracy, more direct democracy, because “bourgeois democracy” was too expensive and it didn’t give voice to the people. We couldn’t send our kids to school or provide basic health services for the people. How could we justify spending all the state money on elections, choosing a chief that was not democratic? Now it’s different. We want open elections and transparent government.24

Indeed, when Sankara spoke of “democracy,” he meant radical or direct democracy. Two months before his death, when asked for his opinion on democracy, he explained: “Democracy is the people, with all of their strength and potential. Ballot boxes and an electoral apparatus in and of themselves don’t signify the existence of democracy.  .  .  . Democracy can’t be conceived of without total power resting in the hands of the people—economic, military, political, social and cultural power.” In Africa at the time, as far as most political observers could tell, liberal democracy was limited to sham elections. Thus, in a way, Sankara’s revolution represented a transition, a kind of avant-​­garde movement toward democratic modes of governance. Mahmoud Mamdani has located Sankara’s political itinerary within the context of the “second generation of radicals” (including Rawlings and Museveni), who sought to reform state institutions “from below.” Sankara had been seeking ways to give ordinary people a greater voice, distributing resources more evenly and diminishing the power of the chiefs while bringing women into government. Furthermore, according to Sawadogo, he even spoke with advisers about the possibility of holding nationwide elections.25 Valère Somé added his observations:

304 | Thomas Sankara We were too busy forming the CNR and the local democratic structures to start worrying about national elections. The country wasn’t yet ready institutionally. We were building grassroots direct democracy first. That was our preoccupation. But after the Mitterrand Speech at Baule in 1990, the National Conference in Benin, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, all of that may have prompted Sankara to adapt. He died just before all those big changes, so it’s impossible to say, but Thomas was a very intelligent man, and knowing him I think he would have adapted our system to the new standards of democracy. Thomas wasn’t interested in holding back the will of the people.26

In the end, beyond questions of democracy, Sankara has left a legacy that addresses urgent global problems. On many issues, he was even ahead of his times. Coming to power amid devastating drought and widespread famine, he made the environment and environmental justice a top priority. In this way, he took tentative steps toward building a “green state.” In other domains, he was equally prescient. We have seen his foresight in the critiques of neoliberalism and opposition to debt repayment, and in his calls for fair trade, self-​­reliance, and food sovereignty. He was especially concerned with raising political consciousness, “decolonizing mentalities” through culture and education as a way of attacking systemic social problems, and opposing all forms of “imperialism,” such as economic and cultural domination. Finally, Sankara pushed for gender equality, using the state to empower and protect women. Within a few short years, Burkina Faso became a leader in women’s liberation, even as the outcomes of Sankara’s policies and public statements fell short of their intended goals. In 1985, when the Swiss journalist Jean-​­Philippe Rapp asked Sankara what his legacy might be, Sankara said he wanted his life to be useful for others. In expanding on his response, he said: “I would simply hope that my contribution had served to convince the most disbelieving that there exists a force, called the people, and that we must fight for and with the people.” As a symbol of resistance, he was useful to the Burkinabé youth, who drew strength from his words when bringing down the Compaoré regime. It took twenty-​­seven years, but I think Sankara would have been proud to see his people standing up to tyranny. Indeed, when asked about the possibility of being killed, he responded in his quintessential manner: “Should Sankara be physically eliminated today, there will be thousands of Sankaras to take up the challenge.” Around the world, many others have taken up his struggle, drawing inspiration from his words. In the end, he saw politics as a human activity for improving people’s lives and bringing greater fairness to society. As an individual, he embodied his ideals and, despite his many

Conclusion | 305

shortcomings, never lost sight of basic human decency and the larger quest for virtue. It was a pursuit for which Sankara courageously sacrificed everything. This is why we should salute him.27

Notes 1. Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 114–116; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 41–42, 59–60; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 16, 27, 1987, FOIA; Ouattara, L’Ère Compaoré, 17–51, 257–266; “Cimetière des martyrs,” at ­https://​­lefaso​.­net​/­spip​.­php​?­article61255, October 16, 2014; Jeune Afrique, November 4, 1989. 2. Libération, October 21, 22, 1987; Jeune Afrique, October 29 and November 4, 1987; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 97–105; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 44–47; Martens, Sankara, Compaoré, 60–65. 3. “Yamba Malick Sawadogo: l’homme qui a enterré Sankara,” L’Observateur, May 28, 2015; Jeune Afrique, July 13, 2014; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 16, 1987, FOIA; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 41–42. 4. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 167–171; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 17, 1987, FOIA; Otayek, “Quand le tambour change de rythme.” 5. Somé, Thomas Sankara, 41–42. 6. Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Bénéwendé Sankara, interview, August 27, 2015; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2015; Jeune Afrique, March 30 and July 20, 1988. 7. Pauline Sankara, interview, July 13, 2014; Colette Sankara, interview, August 23, 2015; Pascal Sankara, interview, December 21, 2015; Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Fidèle Toé, interview, March 14, 2013; Sud Quotidien, November 30, 2004. 8. Valère Somé, interview, March 10, 2013, and August 22, 2015; Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 92–100; Somé, Les Nuits Froides, ix, 66, 5–93; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, December 23, 1987, FOIA; US Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1988,” 23–32; “Les nuits froides de décembre,” ­https://​­lefaso​.­net​/­spip​.­php​?­article66819, September 12, 2015. 9. AMEmbassy-​­Paris to SecState, October 19, 23, 28, November 24, 1987; AMEmbassy-​ ­Ouaga to SecState, October 16, 19, 20, 21, November 30, December 18, 1987; Somé, Thomas Sankara, 52; David Shinn, interview, June 25, 2014; Edward Brynn, ADST interview, April 28, 2000; Ellis, Mask of Anarchy, 24–26; Taylor “Trial Transcripts”; Hahn, “US Covert,” 19–47. 10. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 19, 20, 21, 1987, FOIA; Jeune Afrique, October 28 1987; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 99–110, 121–172. 11. Abdoul-​­Salam Kaboré, interview, August 25, 2015; Andriamirado, Il s’appelait, 96–120; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState, October 27, 1987, FOIA; see also Somé, Thomas Sankara, 53–58. 12. Anonymous political activist, interview, March 3, 2013. 13. Jeune Afrique, October 28 and November 3, 1987; Mudimbé, Surreptitious Speech, 391–392; AMEmbassy-​­Abidjan to SecState-​­WashDC, October 20 and November 5, 1987; AMEmbassy-​­Lomé to SecState-​­WashDC, October 26, 29, 1987, FOIA; AMEmbassy-​­Bamako to SecState-​­WashDC, October 19 and November 2, 1987; AMEmbassy-​­Niamey to SecState-​ ­WashDC, October 22, 30, 1987; AMEmbassy-​­Dakar to SecState-​­WashDC, October 29,

306 | Thomas Sankara 1987; AMEmbassy-​­Accra to SecState, October 21, 1987, FOIA; Cheikh N’Diaye, personal communication, June 2015. 14. AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, December 2, 21, 1987, FOIA. 15. Diouf, “(Re) Imagining an African City”; Mike McGovern, personal communication, April 16, 2020; Veal, Fela, 110; Harsch, “Resurrecting Thomas Sankara,” May 20, 2015, ­jacobinmag​.­com; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 17–19; New York Times, September 7, 1988; Militant, July 22, 1996; Adichie, Americanah; Adichie, Thing around Your Neck; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 315–347; Murrey, Certain Amount of Madness. 16. Ablasse Segda, interview, March 5, 2013. 17. Otayek, “Burkina Faso,” 26; Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution”; Wydra, “Generations of Memory”; “‘Africa’s Che Guevara’: Thomas Sankara’s legacy,” BBC, April 30, 2014, ­bbc​.­com; Shuffield, Thomas Sankara; Harsch, Thomas Sankara; Prestholdt, “Resurrecting Che.” 18. Jean-​­Pascal Ouedraogo, interview, August 24, 2015. 19. Edjou Kantiebo, interview, March 3, 2013; Ablasse Segda, interview, March 20, 2013; Edward Brynn, ADST Interview, 2000; Hagberg, “‘Enough Is Enough,’” 217–246; Hilgers and Loada, “Tension et protestations,” 187–208. 20. Bénéwendé Sankara, interview, August 27, 2015; Issa Baro (Balai Citoyen activist), interview, March 17, 2013; Arouna Saniwidi (Balai Citoyen representative), personal communication, December 19, 2015; Chouli, “L’insurrection populaire,” 148–155; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 315–347; Peterson, “Burkina Faso: A Thousand Sankaras Come of Age,” Think Africa Press, August 14, 2014. 21. Paul Sankara, interview, June 22, 2014; Bénéwendé Sankara, interview, August 27, 2015; Mariam Sankara, interview, March 13, 2016; “Dossier Thomas Sankara,” ­https://​­lefaso​ .­net​/­spip​.­php​?­article67381, October 13, 2015; “Burkina Faso,” ­r fi​.­f r, June 20, 2017; Jeune Afrique, December 21, 2015, and June 20, 2017; Le Monde, June 20, 2017; Sylla, Redécouvrir Sankara, 349–354; AMEmbassy-​­Ouaga to SecState-​­WashDC, October 24, 1987, FOIA. 22. Le Monde, September 17 and October 27, 2015; Jeune Afrique, October 11, 2017, and September 2, 2019; New York Times, September 17, 18, 21, 22, December 21, 2015; “Affaire Thomas Sankara,” Radio-​­Omega, February 1, 2019; Peterson, “After the Coup in Burkina Faso,” African Arguments, September 25, 2015; Hagberg, “‘Thousands of New Sankaras,’” 109–121. 23. Soumane Touré, interview, August 29, 2015; Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 219–223. 24. Mousbila Sankara, interview, August 21, 2015. 25. Afrique Asie, October 10, 1983; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 384; Mamdani, “Lectures,” 209; Bayart, “La Problématique,” 5–20; Sawadogo, Le Président Thomas Sankara, 90–92. 26. Valère Somé, interview, August 28, 2015. 27. Afrique-​­Asie, January 13, 1986; Carrefour African, October 4, 1985; Ziegler and Rapp, Sankara, 85–109; Sankara, Thomas Sankara Speaks, 228–231, 239–241.

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310 | Selected Bibliography Glantz, Michael, ed. The Politics of Natural Disaster: The Case of the Sahel Drought. New York: Praeger, 1976. Glaser, Antoine, and Stephen Smith. Ces messieurs Afrique: Le Paris-village du continent noir. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1992. Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ———. “The First Ambassadors: Cuba’s Contribution to Guinea-Bissau’s War of Independence.” Journal of Latin American Studies 29, no. 1 (1997): 45–88. ———. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Gocking, Roger. “Ghana’s Public Tribunals: An Experiment in Revolutionary Justice.” African Affairs 95 (1996): 197–223. Goguel, Anne Marie. Aux Origines du Mai Malgache: Désir d’école et competition sociale, 1951–1972. Paris: Karthala, 2006. Gow, Bonar A. “Admiral Didier Ratsiraka and the Malagasy Socialist Revolution.” Journal of Modern African Studies 35, no. 3 (1997): 409–439. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International, 1971. Guha, Ramachandra. Environmentalism: A Global History. London: Longman, 2000. Guissou, Basile. Burkina Faso: Un espoir en Afrique. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995. Hagberg, Sten. “‘Enough Is Enough’: An Ethnography of the Struggle against Impunity in Burkina Faso.” Journal of Modern African Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 217–246. ———. “‘Thousands of New Sankaras’: Resistance and Struggle in Burkina Faso.” Africa Spectrum 50, no. 3 (2015): 109–121. Hahn, Niels. “US Covert and Overt Operations in Liberia, 1970s to 2003.” ASPJ Africa and Francophonie 5, no. 3 (2014): 19–47. Halen, Pierre, and Janos Riesz. Patrice Lumumba entre Dieu et Diable: Un héros Africain dans ses images. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997. Harrison, Paul. The Greening of Africa. London: Academy Science, 1987. Harsch, Ernest. Burkina Faso: A History of Power, Protest, and Revolution. London: Zed, 2017. ———. “The Legacies of Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary Experience in Retrospect.” Review of African Political Economy 40, no. 137 (2013): 358–374. ———. “Resurrecting Thomas Sankara,” May 20, 2015, ­jacobinmag​.­com. ———. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Hilgers, M., and A. Loada. “Tension et protestations dans un régime semi-autoritaire: croissance des révoltes populaires et maintien du pouvoir au Burkina Faso.” Politique Africaine 131, no. 3 (2013): 187–208. Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes. New York: Vintage, 1994. ———. How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Hugon, Philippe. Mémoires solidaires et solitaires: Trajectoires d’un économiste du développement. Paris: Karthala, 2013. Human Development Report, 1990. New York: UNDP, 1990. Iliffe, John. Honour in African History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Isaacman, Allen F. and Barbara S. Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2013.

Selected Bibliography | 311 Jaffré, Bruno. Biographie de Thomas Sankara: La Patrie ou la Mort. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012. ———. Burkina Faso: Les Années Sankara. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989. ———. L’insurrection inachevée: Burkina Faso 2014. Paris: Syllepse, 2019. Johnson, Prince. The Rise and Fall of President Samuel K. Doe. Lagos: Soma Associates, 2003. Judt, Tony. Marxism and the French Left: Studies on Labour and Politics in France, 1830–1981. New York: New York University Press, 2011. Kabeya-Muase, Charles. “Retour au Burkina: Un pouvoir des travailleurs peut-il être contre les syndicats?” Politique Africaine, no. 33 (March 1989): 50–58. Kaboré, Roger Bila. Histoire Politique du Burkina Faso, 1919–2000. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002. Kambou-Ferrand, Jeanne-Marie. Peuples Voltaïques et conquête colonial, 1885–1914 Burkina Faso. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993. Kansé, M. S. “Le CNR et les femmes.” Politique Africaine, no. 33 (March 1989): 66–72. Keita, Aoua. Femme d’Afrique: La vie d’Aoua Kéita racontée par elle-même. Paris: Présence Africaine, ­1975​.­ Kirkpatrick, Jeane. “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” Commentary 68, no. 5 (November 1979): 34–45. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph. Apôtre Alfred Simon Diban Ki-Zerbo: Premier chrétien de Haute-Volta. Paris: Ressource, 1999. ———. A quand l’Afrique? Paris: L’Aube, 2003. ———. “Non-alignement et cultures.” In Principles of Non-Alignment, edited by Hans Köchler, 252–260. Vienna: Third World Centre, 1982. Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Kraft, Michael E., and Norman J. Vig. “Environmental Policy in the Reagan Presidency.” Political Science Quarterly 99, no. 3 (1984): 415–439. Labazée, Pascal. “Discours et contrôle politique: les avatars du Sankarisme.” Politique Africaine, no. 33 (March 1989): 11–26. ———. Entreprises et entrepreneurs du Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala, 1988. ———. “Une nouvelle phase de la révolution au Burkina Faso.” Politique Africaine, no. 24 (December 1986): 114–120. ———. “Réorganisation économique.” Politique Africaine, no. 20 (December 1985): 10–28. Laclau, Ernesto. On Populist Reason. London: Verso, 2005. Lenin, Vladimir I. Selected Works. Moscow: Progress, 1975. ———. State and Revolution. New York: Penguin, 1993. Lentz, Carola. Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Le Vine, Victor. Politics in Francophone Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004. Lindsay, Lisa. Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Lindsay, Lisa, and John Sweet, eds. Biography and the Black Atlantic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Lodge, Tom. “Secrets and Lives: South African Political Biography.” Journal of Southern African Studies 41, no. 3 (2015): 687–697. Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Anchor, 2007. Machel, Samora. Le Processus de la Révolution Démocratique Populaire au Mozambique: Textes du Président du FRELIMO, 1970–1974. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1977.

312 | Selected Bibliography Madiéga, Yénouyaba-Georges, and Oumarou Nao. Burkina Faso cent ans d’histoire, 1895–1995. Paris: Karthala, 2003. Maïnassara, Ibrahim Baré. Mon ambition pour le Niger. Paris: Jeune Afrique Livres, 1997. Malley, Robert. The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Mamdani, Mahmoud. “Lectures: Autour d’un livre.” Politique Africaine 73, no. 1 (2009): 193–211. Margadant, Jo Burr, ed. The New Biography: Performing Femininity in Nineteenth-Century France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Martens, Ludo. Sankara, Compaoré et la révolution Burkinabé. Berchem, Belgium: EPO, 1989. Martin, Guy. African Political Thought. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. ———. “Ideology and Praxis in Thomas Sankara’s Populist Revolution of 4 August 1983 in Burkina Faso.” Issue: A Journal of Opinion 15 (1987): 77–90. Mbembe, Achille. Afriques Indociles: Christianisme, Pouvoir et État en Societé Post-coloniale. Paris: Karthala, 1988. ———. “Provisional Notes on the Postcolony.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 62, no. 1 (1992): 3–37. McAdams, A. James. Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. McCann, James. Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800–1990. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1999. McGovern, Mike. Making War in Côte d’Ivoire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. ———. Unmasking the State: Making Guinea Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. McNeil, John. The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Mikell, Gwendolyn, ed. African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Morgenthau, Ruth. Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. Mudimbé, V. Y., ed. The Surreptitious Speech: Présence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Muehlenbeck, Philip. Betting on the Africans: John F. Kennedy’s Courting of African Nationalist Leaders. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Murrey, Amber, ed. A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics, and Legacies of Thomas Sankara. London: Pluto Press, 2018. Nicholson, Sharon. “Review Article: The West African Sahel: A Review of Recent Studies on the Rainfall regime and its Interannual Variability,” ISRN Meteorology (2013). Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence. New York: Palgrave, 2004. ———. Big Men, Small Boys, and Politics in Ghana. London: Frances Pinter, 1996. Otayek, René. “Avant-propos.” Politique Africaine, no. 20 (1985): 3–9. ———. “Avant-propos: Rectification.” Politique Africaine, no. 33 (1989): 2–10. ———. “Burkina Faso: Between Feeble State and Total State, the Swing Continues.” In Contemporary West African States, edited by Donal Cruise O’Brien, John Dunn, and Richard Rathbone, 13–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ———. “La crise de la communauté musulmane de Haute-Volta.” Cahiers d’études africaines 24, no. 3 (1984): 299–320.

Selected Bibliography | 313 ———. “Quand le tambour change de rythme il est indispensable que les danseurs changent de pas.” Politique africaine, no. 28 (1987): 116–123. Ouattara, Vincent. L’Ère Compaoré: Politique, crimes et gestion du pouvoir. Paris: Publibook, 2014. Ouedraogo, B. Lédéa. Entraide villageoise et développement: Groupements paysans au Burkina Faso. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990. Ouedraogo, Lassane. “Mediated Sankarism: Reinventing a Historical Figure to Reimagine the Future.” African Studies Quarterly 18, no. 1 (2018): 19–30. Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol. New York: Norton, 1997. Pajot, Florian. Joseph Ki-Zerbo: Itinéraire d’un intellectual africain ah XXe siècle. Paris: Karthala, 2007. Peterson, Brian J. “After the coup in Burkina Faso: Unity, Justice, and Dismantling the Compaoré System,” African Arguments, September 25, 2015. ———. “Burkina Faso: A Thousand Sankaras Come of Age,” Think Africa Press, August 15, 2014. ———. Islamization from Below: The Making of Muslim Communities in Rural French Sudan, 1880–1960. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. ———. “The Perils of Non-alignment: Thomas Sankara and the Cold War.” In A Certain Amount of Madness, edited by Amber Murrey, 36–50. London: Pluto Press, 2018. Pondi, Jean-Emmanuel. Thomas Sankara et l’emergence de l’Afrique au XXle siècle. Yaoundé: Afric’Eveil, 2016. Poster, Alexander O. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988. Vol. 41, Global Issues II. Washington, DC: US Government Publishing Office, 2017. Prestholdt, Jeremy. “Resurrecting Che: Radicalism, the Transnational Imagination, and the Politics of Heroes.” Journal of Global History 7, no. 3 (2012): 506–526. Prignitz, Gisèle. “Aspects lexicaux, morphosyntaxiques et stylistiques du français parlé au Burkina Faso, période 1980–1996.” Doctoral thesis, University of Paris III, 1996. Pringle, Robert. “Draft Memoir.” Unpublished manuscript. Rassool, Ciraj. “Rethinking Documentary History and South African Political Biography.” South African Review of Sociology 41, no. 1 (2010): 28–55. Remington, Thomas. “A Socialist Pluralism of Opinions: Glasnost and Policy-Making under Gorbachev.” The Russian Review 48 (1989): 271–304. Riall, Lucy. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. ———. “The Shallow End of History? The Substance and Future of Political Biography.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 40, no. 3 (2010): 375–397. Ribot, Jesse C. “A History of Fear: Imagining Deforestation in the West African Dryland Forests.” Global Ecology and Biogeography 8, no. 3–4 (May 1999): 291–300. Riley, Barry. The Political History of American Food Aid: An Uneasy Benevolence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Rouamba, Palingwindé Inès Zoé Lydia. “La Participation des femmes à la vie politique au Burkina (1957–2009).” PhD diss., Université du Québec à Montréal, 2011. Rouvez, Alain. Disconsolate Empires: French, British, and Belgian Military Involvement in Post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.

314 | Selected Bibliography Sandwidi, Kourita. “Syndicalisme et pouvoir politique, de la repression à la renaissance.” In Le Burkina entre révolution et démocratie, 1983–1993, edited by René Otayek, F. Michel Sawadogo, and Jean-Pierre Guingané, 325–352. Paris: Karthala, 1997. Sankara, Thomas. Thomas Sankara, Oser Inventer l’avenir, la Parole de Sankara. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1991. ———. Thomas Sankara Speaks. New York: Pathfinder Books, 2007. ———. Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle. New York: Pathfinder Books, ­1990​. ­Saul, Mahir. “Art, Politics, and Commerce in Francophone African Cinema.” In Viewing African Cinema in the Twentieth Century, edited by R. Austen and M. Saul, 139–159. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. ———. “Beer, Sorghum and Women: Production for the Market in Rural Upper Volta” Africa 51, no. 3 (1981): 746–764. ———. “Development of the Grain Market and Merchants in Burkina Faso.” Journal of Modern African Studies 24, no. 1 (1986): 127–153. Saul, Mahir, and Patrick Royer. West African Challenge to Empire: Culture and History in the Volta-Bani Anticolonial War. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001. Savonnet-Guyot, Claudette. Etat et sociétés en Burkina Faso: Essai sur le politique africain. Paris: Karthala, 1986. ———. “Le Prince et le Naaba.” Politique Africaine, no. 20 (December 1985): 29–43. Sawadogo, Alfred. Le Président Thomas Sankara, Chef de la révolution burkinabé: 1983–1987 Portrait. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001. Sawadogo, H., F. Hien, A. Sohoro, and F. Kambou. “Pits for Trees: How Farmers in Semi-arid Burkina Faso Increase and Diversify Plant Biomass.” In Innovation in Africa: A Source of Inspiration for Agricultural development, edited by Chris Reij and Ann WatersBayer, 35–46. New York: Routledge, 2001. Sawadogo, Kimseyinga, and Claude Wetta. “The Impact of Self-Imposed Structural Adjustment: The Case of Burkina Faso, 1983–1989.” UNICEF Innocenti Occasional Papers 15 (1991). Schmidt, Elizabeth. Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. ———. Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939–1958. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005. Schwartz, Alfred. “L’évolution du pouvoir local villageois sous l’impact de la révolution Sankariste dans les sociétés acéphales de l’Ouest.” In Le Burkina entre révolution et démocratie, 1983–1993, edited by René Otayek, F. Michel Sawadogo, and Jean-Pierre Guingané, 157–167. Paris: Karthala, 1997. Scott, James C. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Shillington, Kevin. Ghana and the Rawlings Factor. New York: Macmillan, 1992. Short, Philip. A Taste for Intrigue: The Multiple Lives of François Mitterrand. New York: Holt, 2014. Shuffield, Robin. Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man (film). Paris: Zorn Production, 2006. Skinner, Elliott. The Mossi of Upper Volta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964. ———. “Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution.” Journal of Modern African Studies 26, no. 3 (1988): 437–455. Slobodian, Quinn. Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

Selected Bibliography | 315 Somé, Valère. Les Nuits Froides de Décembre: L’exil ou la mort. Ouagadougou: Millénium, 2015. ———. Thomas Sankara: L’Espoir Assassiné. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990. Speirs, Mike. “Agrarian Change and the Revolution in Burkina Faso.” African Affairs 90, no. 358 (1991): 89–110. Swift, Jeremy. “Desertification: Narratives, Winners, and Losers.” In The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment, edited by Melissa Leach and Robin Mearns, 73–90. Oxford: James Currey, ­1996​.­ Sy, Cheriff. Burkindlum: Mes Cahiers de la Résistance. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017. Sy, Cheriff, and Dieudonné Nkounkou. L’affaire Thomas Sankara, le juge et le politique. Mexico City: NK, 2007. Sylla, Ndongo Samba. Redécouvrir Sankara: Martyr de la liberté. Dakar: AfricAvenir, 2012. Touré, Adama. Une vie de militant: Ma lute du college à la révolution de Thomas Sankara. Ouagadougou: Hamaria, 2001. Tse-Tung, Mao. On Guerilla Warfare. New York: Dover, 2012. Ukadike, Frank. Black African Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Van de Walle, Nicolas. African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Van Onselen, Charles. The Seed Is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894–1985. Oxford: James Currey, 1996. Veal, Michael. Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. Verschave, François-Xavier. La Françafrique: Le plus long scandale de la République. Paris: Karthala, 1998. Vestal, Theodore. “Famine in Ethiopia: Crisis of Many Dimensions.” Africa Today 32, no. 4 (1985): 7–28. Wardman, A., and L. Salas. “The Implementation of Anti-erosion Techniques in the Sahel: A Case Study from Kaya, Burkina Faso.” Journal of Developing Areas 26, no. 1 (1991): 65–80. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Anchor, 2007. Westad, Odd. The Global Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. White, Luise. The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo: Texts and Politics in Zimbabwe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. White, Luise, Stephan E. Miescher, and David William Cohen, eds. African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ­2001​.­ Wilder, Gary. Freedom Time: Negritude, Decolonization, and the Future of the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Winterbottom, W., and P. Linehan. “The Dinderesso Forestry School: Case Study of Extension Training in Burkina Faso.” Rural Africana (1985–1986): 107–111. Woodward, Bob. The Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. World Bank. “Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action.” Washington, DC: World Bank, 1981. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Wright, Bruce. “Pluralism and Vanguardism in the Nicaraguan Revolution.” Latin American Perspectives 17, no. 3 (1990): 38–54. Wydra, Harald. “Generations of Memory: Elements of a Conceptual Framework.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 60, no. 1 (2018): 5–34.

316 | Selected Bibliography Young, Crawford. Ideology and Development in Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Zagré, Pascal. Les Politiques économiques du Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala, 1994. Ziegler, Jean. Terre qu’on a. Paris: Atelier, 1989. ———. La Victoire des Vaincus: Oppression et résistance culturelle. Paris: Seuil, ­1988​.­ Ziegler, Jean, and Jean-Philippe Rapp. Sankara: Un nouveau pouvoir africain. Lausanne: Favre SA, 1986.

INDEX

Abuja summit (Economic Community of West Africa), 264 activism, 7–8, 33, 36, 108–9, 300–301. See also protests Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 298 adultery, 254, 255 AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council), Ghana, 80 Africa: and Cuba, 214–15; environmental challenges of, 204–5; Sankara mourned by, 1–2; Sankara’s image in, 299–300 Africa Cell, 239 African Americans and Sankara, 215–17 African political biography, 16–17 African tour, 1984, 170–72 African unity, 14, 170–71, 173, 204–5, 263–65, 283–85 African Unity, Organization of, 170–71, 173, 223, 263–65 Africare, 199 Agacher strip war, 68–69 agriculture: colonialism in, 29–30; commandos working in, 71–72; in the cult of the peasant, 255–56; in food security, 145, 158–59, 201, 242–43; revolutionary change in, 185–86, 204–5; in revolutionary education, 56, 61 Algeria, 36–37, 43, 150–51, 212 allies, regional, 232–33, 246 Alpha Blondy: “Sankara,” 298 Alpha Commando literacy drive, 193–94 A Luta Continua (Van Lierop, Robert), 192–93 ambition, 10, 33–34, 41, 98 Andriamirado, Sennen, 14; Il s’appelait Sankara, 294; Sankara le Rebelle, 258–59 Antananarivo, Madagascar, 60 anti-colonialism/anti-colonial movements, 13–14, 29–30, 35–38, 50–51, 57–59 anti-GOUV conspiracy, 153

anti-imperialism: in African Unity, 173; childhood revolt against, 35–38; in confronting neocolonialism, 142–44, 145, 149; in generation gap, 2; in international politics, 213–14, 216–17, 218–19, 223; in nation building and revolutionary change, 192, 200; of the “people’s president,” 130–31; of the political left, 78; in political thought, 13–14; in populist rhetoric, 97–98, 99–101; as revolutionary duty, 236, 238, 241–42; in revolutionary ideas, 57–59; in Sankara’s legacy, 108, 304; in the struggle for unity, 172–73 Antsirabé military academy, 53–60 apartheid, 14, 59–60, 170, 223, 236–37, 281–82 Armée du Peuple, 93 arms shipments from Libya: in the August 4 revolution, 96, 100–101, 106, 150–51; to Compaoré, 294–95; to Liberia, via Compaoré, 251–52; in the October 15 coup, 273–74, 282–83, 285 arrests of Sankara, 101–3, 106 athletics/athleticism, 34, 188 Aubaret, André, 49 Audibert, Jean, 49, 239, 272–73, 294–95 Aurillac, Michel, 243–44 Ausseil, Jean, 107 austerity measures, 46–47, 80–81, 82, 121–22, 139. See also structural adjustment programs (IMF) authoritarianism, 11, 67, 149, 198, 266, 302–3 Balai Citoyen (Citizen Broom), 7, 298, 300–301 Balima, Serge Théophile, 12, 82, 130, 139–40, 237–38, 284 Bambata Forum against apartheid, 281–82 Bamouni, Paulin, 82, 130, 240, 291 Band Aid Trust, 199 Banfora, Upper Volta, 35

317

318 | Index Barro, Fadel, 298 Barro, Justin Damo, 139, 243–44 Barry, Djibrina, 239–40 Barry, Pierre, 39 Bassolé, Léandre, 275 Bationo, Emmanuel, 291 Baxter, John C., 153 Baxter Affair, 153 Bazié, Hubert, 82 beer taxes, 256–57 Bella, Ahmed Ben, 43 Berg, Elliot, 243 Beye, Alioune, 228 Bila, Jean, 163–64 biographies, 14–16 birth of Sankara, 23, 24–25 Bissongo, Bebey, 184 black consciousness movement, 60 Bobo-Dioulasso, 35, 39, 42, 66–67, 101, 104, 227–28, 268–69 bodyguards, 278, 283, 286 “Bold Union” military maneuvers, 138 Bongo, Omar, 171 books on Sankara, 258–59 Botha, Pierre, 236–37 Bouda, Gustave, 71–72, 75–76 bourgeoisie: in 1987 anniversary address, 268–69; corrupt, 99; in the DOP, 141–44; in nation building and revolutionary change, 190–92; political elites as, 147–48; revolutionary education in views of, 56, 58–59; in UN speech, 218–19; in “Voltaization,” 67; withdrawal of support by, 267 brush fires, 206–7 budgetary support, French, 138–39, 173, 174–75, 249–50, 271 bureaucracy, 11, 99, 121–22, 123–24, 143–44, 147–48, 176–77, 267 Burkinabé Communist Group (GCB), 176 Burkina Faso: map of, within West Africa, 24; naming of, 3, 181–82 Burkina-Ghana Economic Union proposal, 257 business interests: and CDRs, 139–40; and Compaoré, 245–46, 297; and development funding, 250; in divisions and discontent,

239–41; as enemies of the people, 143; in the françafrique system, 49; and IMF restructuring, 243; in October 15 coup, 3–4, 272, 277, 297; and the revolution of August 4, 115. See also private sector Cabral, Amilcar, 58–60, 138 Caesarism, 302–3 Camdessus, Michel, 249 campaigns, commando style, 187–88 Carrefour African, 130–31, 172–73, 227 Casey, William, 84 cash crops, 29–30, 200, 243, 249. See also agriculture Castro, Fidel, 98, 214–15, 217, 246–47 Catholic Church, 27–28, 95–96, 115, 177–78 Catholicism, 13–14, 26–27, 33 Catholic Relief Services, 199 CDRs (Revolutionary Defense Committees): in the August 4 revolution, 113–14, 115–16, 118; competition over control of, 139–40; direct democracy through, 144–45; female delegates on, 194–95, 196; in nation building and revolutionary change, 194–95, 196, 203–4, 206–7; reform of, 232, 241–42; in the struggle for unity, 158, 161, 177; UNPB in, 255; women in, 194–95, 196 CEAO (Economic Community of West Africa), 151–52, 211, 222, 228, 239–40, 256 CFA franc zone, 257 Chad, 146, 151 characterizations of Sankara, 4–5, 12–13, 93, 96, 136, 238 character of Sankara, 10–14, 68 charisma of Sankara, 10–11, 51, 92, 98, 129–32, 182–83, 280–81 chiefs/chieftaincy, 27–28, 29, 38, 95–96, 117–18, 166–67, 177–78, 186 childhood, of Sankara, 23–43 China visit, 220–21 Chirac, Jacques, 238–39, 248–49 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, U.S.), 100–101, 135–36, 150, 153, 169–70, 232–33, 275–76 cinema, 31–32, 40–41, 72, 85, 192–93, 217, 253 civilian friends, 52–53, 57–58, 65, 94

Index | 319 civilian left: 1982 crackdown on, 89; in the August 4 revolution, 91, 107–9, 112–15, 116–17, 120–21; Compaoré in marginalizing, 245–46; in nation building and revolutionary change, 190–92; and soldiers, 64–85, 91; in the struggle for unity, 159–61, 168, 175–77. See also labor unions; PAI civil service/civil servants: in the aftermath of the October 15 coup, 297; in the August 4 revolution, 121–22; in collective farm labor, 159; in French colonialism, 29; in internal austerity measures, 139; in Madagascar, 60–61; in nation building and revolutionary change, 190, 191–92, 197–98; in the October 15 coup, 267, 269 civil society, 67, 91, 98–99, 108, 300–301 clan of the Sankara family, 25–26 class, socioeconomic in the DOP, 143–44 clean town campaign, 189 clientelism/clientelist networks, 67, 121–22, 163, 238–40, 243, 297 climate change, 3, 199–200, 205–6 CMRPN (Military Committee for the National Recovery and Progress), 81–83, 84–85, 91–92, 95–96, 147–48 CNEC (National Center for the Training of Commandos), 71–73 CNR (National Council of the Revolution): in the August 4 revolution, 113–14, 119–21; Compaoré’s supporters in, 225; in confronting neocolonial order, 136–38, 139–40, 144–45, 147–48; corruption in, 3–4; labor unions mobilized against, 257–58; in nation building and revolutionary change, 182, 183, 190–92, 193–94, 195–96, 199; in the October 15 coup, 271, 284–85; in the struggle for unity, 159–61, 164–65, 166–67, 169, 175 Cœurs Vaillants (Brave Hearts), 34 Cohen, Herman, 275 Colombes de la révolution, 195–96 colonialism: childhood revolt against, 34–38; clan and minority ethnicity in, 25–26, 28– 29; as context, 17–18; and debt repayment, 283–84; in environmental destruction, 200; in life of Joseph Sankara, 26–28; in politics of Upper Volta, 29–30; Sankara’s

childhood under, 23–43; in shaping Sankara’s personality, 30–31; veterans in, 26–27, 30, 32–33. See also anti-colonialism/ anti-colonial movements; imperialism; neocolonialism commando campaigns, 186–88, 194 commandos: in the August 4 revolution, 105, 106, 112–14; in communications during imprisonment, 89–90; in the October 15 coup and assassination, 245–46, 268, 276–77, 278, 284–85, 286–87, 294, 295–96; political education of, 78; Pô training base for (CNEC), 71–73 “Communiqué to all workers,” 257–58 communism/communists: of African students in Paris, 77; in the August 4 revolution, 114–15, 117, 119, 120; Catholic opposition to, 95–96; in confronting neocolonialism, 141–42, 151–52; discourse on, in Sankara’s youth, 29, 33; in international politics, 211–13, 227–28; leftist soldiers as, 69–70; in “Operation Truth” rally, 99–100; in representations of Sankara, 9–10; in revolutionary rhetoric, 184–85; in Sankara’s political thought and education, 13–14, 73–75, 78–79; in the struggle for unity, 175–76. See also Marxism-Leninism; socialism Compaoré, Blaise: arrest warrant for, 302; in the August 4 revolution, 106, 107, 112–13, 120; in CPPC’s anticorruption drive, 253; as delegate to France, 174–75; in efforts to erase Sankara’s memory, 300; on executions for Mossi Plateau plot, 168–69; flight of, 300–301; friendship with, 68–69, 76, 127–29, 224–25; in internal war, 245–46; in international politics, 223–25; marriage of, 223–24; as member of ROC, 69–71; as a “moderate,” 4; in nation building and revolutionary change, 190–91; in the October 15 coup and assassination, 1, 265–67, 268–69, 270–71, 272, 274–75, 277, 278, 291–92; in PAI-LIPAD-military conflict, 166; and Qaddafi, 151, 251–52; as Sankara’s deputy, 79–80; takeover of the university by, 358 Compaoré, Bonaventure, 291

320 | Index Compaoré, Chantal (wife of Blaise), 239–40, 253, 277–78, 285, 297 Compaoré, Françoise, 302 Compaoré, Ousseini, 145–46, 295 competitiveness of Sankara, 33–34 computers, introduction of, 123 Conference on Woman, UN, 196 confidence of Sankara, 30–31, 51, 98, 123, 280–81 consciousness, political, 60, 73–74, 115–16, 181–82, 192, 193–94, 304 Conseil de l’Entente, 37–38, 118–19, 141, 226–27, 291–92 corruption: of civil servants, 122; in CMRPN, 82–84, 92; CNR in ending, 3–4; in confronting neocolonialism, 143; in Dédougou prison, 90–91; in generation gap, 2; in international politics, 213–14, 222–23, 226, 228–29, 240; of military officers, 67–68, 69–70; in the October 15 coup, 270–71, 276–77; and revolutionary duty, 240, 252–53; in revolutionary education, 56, 90–91; Sankara on, as prime minister, 94–95, 99–100; in the struggle for unity, 161–63 Côte d’Ivoire, 137–38, 151–52, 170–71, 223–24, 226–29, 231, 272–73. See also HouphouëtBoigny, Félix cotton production, 200, 242–43 Coulibaly, Célestine Ouezzin, 35, 37 Coulibaly, Daniel Ouezzin, 30 countryside. See rural areas coup October 15: aftermath of, 292–94; as an international plot, 270–77; Compaoré in, 1, 265–67, 268–69, 270–71, 272, 274, 275, 277, 291–92; corruption in, 270–71, 276–77; grievances in, 267, 268–70, 279–80, 299; implementation of, 283, 284–87; international politics in, 264–65, 270–71, 274–77; in martyrdom, 297–300; murder of Sankara in, 1–2, 4–7, 14–15, 286–87, 301; as neoliberal coup, 297; rumors and warnings of, 277–82 coups: 1966, 46–48; 1980, 81; of 1982, 91–92; CIA in attempts, 153; plot of 1984, 166–69 CPSP (Provisional Council for the Salvation of the People), 92–109

Crocker, Chester, 150 CSB labor confederation, 190–91 CSP (Council for the Welfare of the People), 92–93 CSV (Voltaic Union Confederation), 70–71, 85 Cuba, 138, 214–15, 247–48 cult of personality, 7–8, 128–32, 172–73 cultural revolution, 183–84, 304 culture, 129, 183–85, 192, 195–96 Dabany, Guy Aïssa, 54–55 Dadjoari, Emmanuel, 164 Dagnoën cemetery, 4, 292–93 Dahlberg, Eva, 206 Dakané, Françoise (fiancée), 52–53, 60–61 death certificate, 4, 293 debt, 3, 65, 80–81, 173, 236–37, 247–48, 262–65, 304 decentralization, 144–45 decision-making: CDRs in, 144–45; by CNR, 119–20, 159; in diplomatic challenges, 244–45; impulsive, 11–12, 267–68; in the October 15 coup and assassination, 267–68, 277; as the people’s president, 123–24, 126–27; spontaneity in, 190, 244–45, 259; in the struggle for unity, 168–69, 176–77; top-down, 302–3 Dédougou military camp, 89–91 defense spending, 231 deficits, 174–75, 249–50 deforestation, 200, 238 democracy, 3, 78–79, 144–45, 302–4 “Democratic and Popular Revolution,” 13–14 “democratic centralism” of the CNR, 119, 144–45, 165–66 dependence, economic, 137–38, 173, 214, 220–21, 249–50, 255, 257 dependency theory, 56 desertification of the Sahel, 64, 198–99, 204–6. See also drought destabilization: by Burkina Faso in Togo, 236, 246; Compaoré and Qaddafi in, 252; concerns about Sankara as agent of, 84–85, 96, 137–38, 275; drought in, 64; international interests in, 17, 97, 152, 153, 163–65, 169–70, 226–33

Index | 321 development: agricultural, 201, 255–56; environmental consequences of, 200–201; in nation building and revolutionary change, 186–90, 200–201; in political education, 56; public participation in, 240–41; rural, 60–61, 187–90; in the struggle for unity, 157–58, 161 Development Crossroads Affair, 240 de Villiers, Gerard: Putsch à Ouagadougou, 169 Diakité, Moussa, 222, 240 Diallo, Arba, 120, 152–53, 175, 176–77, 225–26 Diallo, Daouda, 150 Diallo, Fatima, 255 Diallo, Fatou, 195–96 Diallo, Fermin, 294 Diallo, Salif, 294 Diallo, Siradiou: Sankara: Cet homme qui dérange, 148–49 diamond trade, 252, 274, 295 Diawara, Mohamed, 163, 222–23, 240 Diawara, Youssouf, 65 Diawara Affair, 222–23, 228 Diboulo, Anatole, 32 Diendéré, Gilbert, 76–77, 185, 255, 276–77, 278, 286, 291–92, 301–2 Dinderesso School forestry program, 48, 221–22 diplomacy. See international politics diplomatic cables as sources, 17 discipline, military, 30–31, 72, 122–23 divisions, 53, 92–93, 100–101, 116–17, 159–61, 165–70, 183. See also factionalism Doe, Samuel, 250–51 DOP (Political Orientation Speech), 140–45, 194 drought, 23, 64–65, 67–68, 104–5, 157–59, 198–99, 306–7. See also desertification of the Sahel Dumont, René, 204; l’Afrique noire est mal partie, 56 Dupuch, Michel, 273 École Militaire Préparatoire of Ouagadougou, 48–53 economy, national: decision-making on, 255–57; in the DOP, 145; and foreign aid,

174–75, 243–44, 249–50; French control of, 49, 249; grievances on policies on, 256–58; and the October 15 coup, 271–72, 297; in revolutionary movements, 80–81; sovereignty in, 12–13, 14, 65, 80–81, 139, 257, 264–65; technology in, 242–43 education: access to, in colonial Gaoua, 32; Madagascar “green berets” in, 60–61; military, 48–60; in nation building, 193–94; political, 50–51, 56, 69–71; revolutionary, 46–61; in Sankara’s legacy, 304; of women, 196–97, 254 elders, 3–4, 115, 118, 146–47, 149, 172, 177–78 elections: of 1969, 67; of 1978, 73–74, 78–79; in the CDR system, 13–14, 114, 161; in direct democracy, 144–45; French, of 1986, 238–39; presidential of November 2015, 302–3; in Sankara’s view of democracy, 78–79, 303–4 elites: African, 2, 3–4, 56, 90–91, 127, 222–23, 226, 264; in the aftermath of October 15, 297; austerity measures for, 121–22; as beneficiaries of debt, 263–64; in bureaucracy, 147–48; concern about Sankara of, 2, 222–23; corruption of, 56, 90–91, 127, 163, 226, 263–64; in exploitation, 95–96; political, 147–48, 163, 263–64, 297; provocation of, 94; revolution as threat to, 2, 3–4; Sankara’s popularity among, 264; in territorial status for Upper Volta, 29; urban, 3–4, 29 Ellis, Stephen, 250 embourgeoisement, 253 “enemies of the people,” 95–96, 98–100, 113–14, 143, 177–78 Englebert, Pierre, 142–43 Environment, Ministry of, 203–4 environment/environmental justice, 3, 104–5, 198–207, 304 ethics, 2, 72, 193, 241, 279–80. See also morality ETIR (Rapid Intervention and Transport Squadron), 277, 285–86 executions, 117, 168–69 exiles, 118, 163–64, 227–28, 293–94, 295–96 exploitation, 74–75, 140, 143, 149, 218, 219, 253–54

322 | Index factionalism: in the August 4 revolution, 116–17; clientelist networks in, 239–40; in CNR, 3–4, 139–40; as fight to the death, 259; idealism in difficulties with, 12; in leftist parties, 77–78; in October 15 OMR meeting speech, 282–84; and the struggle for unity, 159–61, 165–70, 175. See also divisions fair trade, calls for, 304 family planning, 196–97 famine, 64–65, 67, 104–5, 157–59, 165, 199 farms, collective, 159 faso dan fani (homespun fabric), 185 Faso Yaar, 186 fatalism of Sankara, 277–79, 280–81, 283–84, 285–86 FEANF (Black African Students Federation in France), 57–58, 77 female circumcision, 195–96, 197 feminists, African, 297–98 FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de la Télévision de Ouagadougou), 85, 192–93, 217, 253 FIMATS (Intervention Force of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Security), 278 Foccart, Jacques, 238–40, 243–44 Foccart network, 49, 238–40, 243–44 food aid, 64–65, 69–70, 157–58, 199–200, 212–13, 221–22, 241–43 food self-sufficiency/sovereignty, 145, 158–59, 201, 242–43, 255–57, 304 foreign aid: in confronting neocolonialism, 138–39; in dependence, 249–50; in development projects, 186; French, reduced, 223; international politics in, 212–14, 219, 221–22; reliance on, 173; in revolutionary education, 56; structural adjustment in, 243–44 foreign investment, 188, 297 foreign policy: in the DOP, 145; independence in, 211–12, 214; reciprocity and equality in, 136; Soviet, 220; U.S., 97–98, 212–13, 215, 220, 247. See also international politics forestry, 200, 201–4, 221–22, 238

“framework law” of 1956, 37–38 françafrique networks, 49, 82, 96, 102, 238–40, 250–51 France: African student radicalization in, 77; colonial-era reports by, 17–18; on Compaoré’s policies, 4; control of Upper Volta by, 49–50; diplomatic relations with, 223, 236–40, 294–95; in efforts to remove Sankara, 102, 106–7, 227–30; in engineering war with Mali, 231; financial support of, 138–39, 173–75, 244; FrancoAfrican summit, 1983, 145–47; influence on national economy of, 249; interests of, in May 17 putsch, 105–6; and Libya, 252; military intervention considered by, 135–36; in the October 15 coup, 271–73; political change in, 238–39; in the struggle for unity, 163–64 Franco-African summits, 145–47, 223, 230 freedom of expression, 83–84, 85, 136–37 freedom of the press, 136–37, 168, 302–3 French press, 5–6, 148, 229–30, 238 friends/friendships: childhood, 32, 39–40; civilian, 52–53, 57–58, 65, 94; with Compaoré, 68–69, 76, 127–29, 224–25; loyalty in, 12; in military academy years, 52–53; revolutionary ideas of, 57–58 frugality, 125, 127–28 fruit imports, 255–56 Gabon, 171 Gaoua, Upper Volta, 29–37 GCB (Burkinabé Communist Group), 176 gender equity, 34–35, 193, 194–98, 304 generation gap: in the August 4 revolution, 115, 118; in CNR government, 120; with elder African leaders, 149; in popularity, 264; in Sankara’s popularity, 258–59; in the struggle for unity, 160–61, 165–66; in support for Sankara, 2 Ghana, 80, 153–54, 172–73, 257, 296–97. See also Rawlings, Jerry GIFA (Group for Instruction of Armed Forces), 66 gifts/gift giving, 127–28 gold mine, Poura, 188

Index | 323 gold smuggling, 253, 297 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 246–47 Gouem, Abdoulaye, 114, 291 governance, style of, 121–25, 190, 302–3 grain production, 242–43 Gramsci, Antonio, 74, 131, 303 Great Green Wall, 204–5 green bean scandal, 165 “green berets,” Madagascar, 60–61 Grenada, 152–53 grievances, 9–10, 197–98, 206–7, 256–58, 267, 268–70, 299 Guebré, Fidèle, 117 Guerandi, Mbara, 151, 251–52 Guevara, Camilo, 281 Guevara, Che, 125, 129, 277–78, 281, 299–300 Guissou, Basile, 221, 225–26 hagiography, 7–8, 15–16, 25, 128–29 Hall, Peter, 90 Harlem, New York, 1984 visit to, 215–17 health care system, 187–88, 196–97 Hernu, Charles, 228 hero, Sankara as, 5–7, 103, 130–31, 172–73, 297–98 Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 137–38, 151–52, 165, 223–24, 226–29, 252, 270, 272–73. See also Côte d’Ivoire housing, development and policy, 189, 190, 241 Huff, Rodney, 107 Hugon, Philippe, 61 Hull, Thomas, 84, 92 humanism, 74–76 humility in image of Sankara, 33–34 humor, 10–11, 130, 264 “husbands to the market day,” 195–96 iconography of Sankara, 5–7, 300–301 idealism, 7–8, 12, 15, 94, 127–28, 131–32, 255, 304–5 ideas, revolutionary, of the African political left, 57–58 identity, 25–26, 31, 41–42, 129, 183–84 ideology: in the August 4 revolution, 92–93, 105; in confronting neocolonial order, 139–41, 149; in nation building, 186; in

political approach, 12–14; in revolutionary education, 50–51, 56–57, 59, 66, 74; of soldiers and the political left, 74–76, 77 ILO (International Labor Organization), 257–58 image of Sankara: cultivation of, 9; fatalism in, 258–59; foreign visits in, 246–48; imprisonment at Dédougou in, 89; journalism in, 14–15, 94–95, 128–29; as man of the people, 83; meanings and connotations of, 299–300; popular, 5–6, 14–15, 16–17, 296–97; post-coup, 295, 297–300; state promotion of, 130–31 IMET (International Military Education and Training Program), 80, 107, 274, 276 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 138–39, 174–75, 243–44, 249–50, 263–65, 271–72, 297. See also structural adjustment programs (IMF) immigrants, African, in France, 236–37 imperialism: in environmental destruction, 200; as exploitation, 149; French, as the enemy, 223; in rhetoric, 97–98, 99, 142, 143–44; in the struggle for unity, 158, 172; in UN General Assembly speech, 218 imports/import policy, 137, 145, 192, 255–57 imprisonment in 1982, 84–85, 89–91 improvisation, 9, 98–100, 129–30, 165–66, 216–17, 236–38 impulsiveness, 11–12, 267–68 incorruptibility of Sankara, 5–7, 10 independence: economic, 219–20, 257; in foreign policy, 211–12, 214; political, 37–38, 43, 49–50, 97–98, 113–14, 248–49 Independence Day, Upper Volta, 72, 107–9, 112–13, 114–15. See also revolution of August 4 indigenous practices, 27–28, 185 Information Ministry, CMRPN, 82–85 infrastructure projects, 116, 186–87, 189. See also development innovation, 61, 123, 184–85 intellect/intellectual formation of Sankara, 10–11, 13–14, 51, 65, 74–75, 76–78 intellectuals, 58–59, 65, 105–6, 141–42, 143–44, 190–91, 218

324 | Index Inter-CDR, 166 international left, 57–58 “international plot” thesis, 270–77 international politics: in the aftermath of the October 15 coup, 294–95; anticorruption campaign in, 213–14, 222–23, 226, 228–29; in character and political thinking, 12, 14; Compaoré’s offensive in, 224–25, 246, 250–52; in confronting neocolonialism, 135–38, 145–47, 149–54; corruption in, 213–14, 222–23, 226, 228–29, 240; in destabilization of the revolution, 223–33; economies in, 121; in foreign aid, 212–14, 221–22, 223–24, 243–44, 264–65; foreign aid in, 212–14, 221–22; as minister of information, 83–84; in the October 15 coup, 264–65, 270–71, 274–77; PanAfricanism in, 97–98, 170–71, 215–17; as prime minister, 96, 97–98; public/private personas in, 129; revolutionary duties and perils in, 236–40, 244–45, 246, 247–49, 250–52; with the socialist world, 211–12, 214–15, 220–21, 247–48; in the struggle for unity, 167, 169–75; at the United Nations, 216–20; in war with Mali, 228–33. See also foreign policy International Women’s Day speech, 1987, 253–54 interviews, as sources, 16–17, 18–19 investigation of Sankara’s murder, 301 Irele, Abiola, 1 irrigation projects, 158–59 Island of Youth training facility, Cuba, 246 isolation, 228–29, 232–33, 245–46, 248–49, 267, 270–71 Israel, public criticism of, 97–98 Jaffré, Bruno, 15, 301 Jeune Afrique, 128–29, 146–47 Johnson, Prince, 285 journalists/journalism: in revolutionary image, 14–15, 94–95, 128–29; on Sankara and Qaddafi, 136, 148; on Sankara at the Vittel Conference, 147, 148–49; on Sankara in the 1982 coup, 92; in Sankara’s popularity, 181–82; support for, as information minister, 83–85

justice/injustice, 33, 34–35, 65, 74–75, 142–43, 225 Justice pour Sankara, 7 Kaboré, Abdoul-Salam, 107–8, 112, 116–17, 165–66, 187, 237–38, 278, 295–96 Kaboré, Barnabe, 169–70 Kaboré, Boukary, 277, 280–81, 285–86, 295–96 Kaboré, Gaston, 193 Kaboré, Roch Marc Christian, 239–40, 302 Kaboré, Roger Bila, 130 Kabué, Buana, 174, 225–26 Kafando, Hyacinthe, 102, 286 Kafando, Michel, 97, 100–101, 227–28, 300–302 Kamboulé, Jean-Claude, 91, 103, 112–13, 167, 227–28 Kanak nationalists in New Caledonia, 248–49 Kennedy, John F., 40–41 Kenya, Green Belt Movement in, 205 Kiemdé, Frédéric, 291 Kinda, Marguerite (mother), 24–25, 27 Kinda, Valentin, 227 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 213–14 Ki-Zerbo, Joseph, 67, 118, 147–48, 163–64, 167 Koama, Michel, 277 Kodjo, Edem, 246 Kompienga Dam project, 244 Konaté, Allassane, 52 Koné, Ibrahim, 166 Koudougou military base massacre, 295–96 Kountché, Seyni, 96, 138, 150 Koussa, Moussa, 251–52 Kuti, Fela, 253, 298 labor unions: in the 1966 coup; CNR’s attack on, in mobilization, 257–58; in conflict with CNR, 190–92; in the CSV, 70–71; general strike against one-party state by, 71; in investigation of Sankara’s murder, 300; on leadership of the CDR, 116–17; in rhetoric on the 1982 coup, 93–94; strikes against CMRPN by, 85; in the struggle for unity, 160; in the war on the petty bourgeoisie, 190–92 Lacaze, Jeannou, 229–30

Index | 325 Lamien, Watamou, 175–76 Lamizana, Sangoulé, 47, 50, 67–68, 71, 162–63 land degradation, 200–201 leadership, qualities and style of, 30–31, 40, 53, 55–57, 123–27 Le Blanc, Jacques, 223 legacy of Sankara, 4–7, 302–3, 304–5 leisure activities, 31–32, 34, 40, 57, 66–67, 72, 128, 131–32 Le Jah, Sams’k, 298, 300 Le Monde, 85, 148, 169, 198, 230–31 Lenin, Vladimir: State and Revolution, 74–75. See also Marxism-Leninism liberalization, economic, 138–39, 185 liberation theology, 13–14, 33, 75–76, 218 Liberia, 250–51, 285, 295 Libya: in the August 4 revolution, 96, 100–101, 106, 150–51; concerns over, in international politics, 96, 135–37, 138, 148, 150–51; in destabilization, 228–29, 230, 232–33; in the Liberian war, 250, 251–52; in the October 15 coup, 273–74; relations with, post-October 15 coup, 294–95; U.S. bombing of, 244–45, 250–51. See also Qaddafi, Muammar Lingani, Jean-Baptiste, 69–70, 106, 108, 120, 164, 291 LIPAD (Patriotic League for Development), 70–71. See also PAI-LIPAD literacy drives, 193–94, 196–97, 247–48 L’Observateur, 168 Lougué, Kouamé, 276–77 Lumumba, Patrice, 43 luxuries, 121, 126, 224, 253 Lycée Ouezzin Coulibaly, Bobo-Dioulasso, 39–41, 42–43 Machel, Samora, 171–72 Macron, Emmanuel, 18 Madagascar, 53–60, 171 Maïga, Hamidou, 278, 286–87 Maïga, Mohamed, 10–11, 94–95, 161–62 Maïnassara, Ibrahim Baré, 54, 56–57 Mali, 42–43, 61, 67–69, 138, 222–23, 228–33 Mamdani, Mahmoud, 303 “man of the people” image, 83, 131–32, 281 Maoism, 57, 60, 65–66, 71–72, 143–44

Marley, Bob, 81–82, 101, 296–97 Marnes-la-Coquette mini-summit, 1983, 149 marriage, forced, 195–96 married life, 81–82 Marti, José, 214 Martin, Guy, 12–13 martyrdom, 5–6, 9–10, 265–66, 285–86 martyrdom of Sankara, 297–300 Marxism-Leninism: in confronting neoliberal order, 136, 141–42, 144–45; iconography of, in Sankara’s office, 125; in intellectual formation and political thought, 13–14, 65, 74–75, 77–79; in international politics, 212–13, 218, 227; Marxist revisionism, 57, 74–75; in revolutionary education, 50–51, 59, 61; rhetoric of, in nation building, 184–85; in Sankara’s political program, 9–10; of soldiers and the political left, 65, 74, 77–78; in the struggle for unity, 165–66. See also PAI; ULC mass grave at Dagnoën cemetery, 292–93 Mass Sports Day, 188 McNeil, John, 205 media: democratization of, in memory of Sankara, 6–7; in iconography of Sankara, 6–7, 130–31; Western, 2, 136, 169. See also journalists/journalism memory, 298–99, 300 memory of Sankara, 5–7 mentorship, 32, 36–37, 52–53 merchants, 115, 192, 206, 241, 242–43, 256–57, 297 Middle Eastern politics, 97–98 migration, 64–65, 68, 185–86, 198–99 military: arrests of Sankara’s faction, 295–96; in attacks on labor unions, 257–58; in the August 4 revolution, 112–13, 116–17, 118–20, 122–23; in confronting neocolonialism, 138, 140, 145; in CPSP divisions, 92–93; democratization of, 94–95; in education of Sankara, 46–47, 48–60, 61; and international politics, 232–33; in nation building and revolutionary change, 186–87; in the October 15 coup and assassination, 266, 276–77, 284–86; Sankara-Compaoré rivalry in, 245–46;

326 | Index military (cont.) in Sankara’s childhood, 30–38; Sankara’s training and career in, 10, 53–60, 64–65, 66, 67–70, 71–73, 76–77; in the struggle for unity, 140, 158–60, 165–68, 175, 176 military, French, 29–30, 49–50, 92–93, 271–72, 275–76 military academy, 48–53 Military Committee for the National Recovery and Progress (CMRPN), 81–85 military officers: in the 1984 coup attempt, 166–67; disillusionment of, with the revolution, 276–77; progressive, 69–71, 73–74, 107–8, 118–19; resistance to ending polygamy by, 197 Ministers, Council of, 164–65, 193–94, 256, 277–78, 282 Mitterrand, François, 77, 81–82, 146–47, 227–30, 236–38 Mitterrand, Jean-Christophe, 239 MLN (National Liberation Movement), 67 mobilization, mass: “blackness” in, 215–16; identity construction in, 129; in nation building and revolutionary change, 182–83, 201–4; in opposition to Diendéré’s coup, 301–2; in protest of Sankara’s 1983 arrest and imprisonment, 7; in the struggle for unity, 158–59; in sustaining the revolution, 144–45; of women, 194–95 modesty, 10–11, 19, 33–34, 40, 42, 95, 121, 280 morality: in approach to politics, 12, 13–14; Catholic upbringing in, 33; in debt forgiveness, 264; hope for, in the 1966 coup, 47; in liberation theology, 74–76; of the Nonaligned Movement, 97; revolutionary, 162, 241, 252, 279–81; in Sankara’s legacy, 304–5; sexual, 255; in stance against prostitution, 196–97; in UN General Assembly speech, 218. See also ethics Moro Naba of Ouagadougou, 95, 297 Mossi chiefs, 27–28, 29, 38, 95–96, 117–18, 166–67, 168–69 Mossi clan and ethnicity, 25–26, 270, 274, 278 mourning for Sankara, 1–2, 292–93 Mozambique, 171–72 murder: in Compaoré’s consolidation of power, 291; of Sankara, 1–2, 4–7, 14–15,

286–87, 301; of Sankara allies on October 15, 285–86, 291 music, 52, 183–84, 195–96 Muslims, 27–28, 67, 76, 115, 197 Naam movement, 204 National Council of the Revolution (CNR). See CNR (National Council of the Revolution) nationalization of land, 185–86 National Movement of Pioneers, 207 National Renewal government of Lamizana, 67–68 National Social Security Fund (CNSS), 190–91 National Union of Burkinabé Peasants (UNPB), 255 National Week of Arts and Culture, 183–84 National Week of Women, 194–95 nation building and revolutionary change: agricultural reform in, 185–86; biography in, 115–16; cultural identity in, 183–85; development in, 186–90, 200–201; environmental challenges in, 198–207; mass mobilization in, 182–83, 201–4; naming of Burkina Faso in, 181–82; political consciousness in, 181–82, 192, 193–94; revolutionary language in, 184–85; rights of women in, 194–98; war on bourgeoisie in, 190–92 N’Diaye, Jean-Pierre, 258 négritude, 215–16 Neher, Leonardo, 213–14, 230, 231, 265, 275 neocolonialism: in 1983 arrest of Sankara, 103; in the aftermath of the October 15 coup, 294–95; in the August 4 revolution, 113–14; confronting of, 135–54; Conseil de l’Entente in, 37–38; as the enemy of the people, 99, 143; French, françafrique system in, 49, 82, 102; in left-wing politics, 64–65, 74, 81–82; in political education, 50–51, 58, 59–60; realities of, and anti-imperialist rhetoric, 173–74; and revolutionary change, 192; as revolutionary peril, 239, 245–46; Sankara’s quest to liberate Upper Volta from, 3; in the struggle for unity, 173–74; in the war

Index | 327 on the petty bourgeoisie, 192. See also colonialism neoliberalism: in the aftermath of the October 15 coup, 297; as context for Sankara’s revolution, 2–3; in the end of NIEO, 80–81, 219–20; legacy of Sankara in critiques of, 304; in the October 15 coup, 265, 271; resistance to, 138–39; as revolutionary peril, 243, 255–56 New Caledonia, 248–49 New Delhi Nonaligned Movement Summit, 97–98 newspapers as sources, 17–18 New York City visit in 1984, 215–20 New York Times, 220, 258–59 N’Gom, Moussa, 222, 240 NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), 78–79, 158, 199–200, 204 Ngouabi, Marien, 61 Nicaragua, 152–53, 220, 247 NIEO (New International Economic Order), 14, 65, 80–81, 219–20 Niger, 96, 138, 149–50, 296–97 Nkomati Accord, Mozambique/South Africa, 171–72 Nkrumah, Kwamé, 46, 59–60 nomads as climate refugees, 199 nonalignment/Nonaligned Movement, 3, 97–98, 99–100, 171, 173, 218, 244, 247 nonconformity, 2, 207 N’Soni, Nabié, 286–87 Nucci, Christian, 240 Nugent, Paul, 15 Les Nuits Froides de Décembre (Somé), 294 Nyerere, Julius, 59–60, 170–71 OAU (Organization of African Unity), 170–71, 173, 223, 263–65 OCV (Voltaic Communist Organization), 65, 73–74, 77 Olympio, Gilchrist, 246 Olympio, Sylvanus, 43 OMR (Revolutionary Military Organization), 94, 108, 119, 282–84 one-party system, 160–61 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), 64, 65

“Operation Truth,” 95, 98–100 operation “white city,” 189 oppression, 33, 75–76, 79, 93–94, 194–95, 196, 254 oral histories, 16–17 Oramas, Oscar, 138 orator, Sankara as, 9, 130 Order of José Marti (Cuba), 214 Ortega, Daniel, 216–17, 220, 247 Otayek, René, 18–19 Ouagadougou (capital city), 42–43, 79–80, 189, 239–40 Ouattara, Alassane, 244, 249 Ouattara, Famoro, 281, 286 Ouedraogo (original Sankara family surname), 25–26 Ouedraogo, Adéle, 196 Ouedraogo, Ernest Nongma, 32, 40, 120–21, 282 Ouedraogo, Idrissa, 193; Yam Dabbo, 193 Ouedraogo, Jean-Baptiste, 92–93, 100–101, 105, 112–13 Ouedraogo, Jean-Pascal, 52–53, 280–81, 299–300 Ouedraogo, Joseph, 46–47 Ouedraogo, Joséphine, 196, 197, 199 Ouedraogo, Pascal, 32 Ouedraogo, Philippe: in the 1982 coup, 91; in the Council of Ministers, 120; detention of, in 1987, 257–58; leader of FEANF, 57–58; leader of LIPAD, 70–71; in political education of progressive officers, 74; in protesting Sankara’s 1983 arrest, 103–4; in resistance to union busting, 84–85; in Sankara’s decision to join the CSP government, 93; in the struggle for unity, 176–77; on the student strike of 1958, 36–37; in writing the DOP, 140–41 Ouedraogo, Pierre, 116–17, 151–52, 175–76, 295, 358 Ouedraogo, Wallilaye, 291 Oxfam, 204 pacifism of Sankara, 69 PAI (African Independence Party), 58, 105–6, 107–8, 119, 165–66, 176–77. See also Marxism-Leninism

328 | Index PAI-LIPAD: in the 1982 coup, 93; in the 1982 crackdown on the left, 89; in the 19823 coup, 107–8; arrests of leadership, 84–85, 257–58; in the August 4 revolution, 120–21; in confronting neocolonialism, 139–40; in political education of progressive officers, 73–74; in the struggle for unity, 159–60, 175 Palm, Jean-Marc, 76, 175–76 Palm, Jean-Pierre, 175–76, 245–46, 276–77, 294 Pan-African Green Belt Network, 205 Pan-Africanism: in 1984 meeting with African heads of state, 170–71; in nation building, 182; on Sankara’s agenda in New Delhi, 97–98; in Sankara’s image, 5–6, 9–10, 172–73, 297–98; solidarity of, 192–93, 281–82; visit to Harlem in commitment to, 215–17 paratrooper training, 76–77 Paris, 76–77 patriarchy, war on, 197, 255 patriotism, 12–13, 114–15 “pause” in the revolution, 268–69 PCRV (Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party), 77, 119, 175–76. See also communism/communists; OCV (Voltaic Communist Organization); UCB (Burkinabé Communist Union) Peace Corps, expulsion of, 245 peasants: CNR austerity helping, 121–22; cult of, 255–56; as focus of 1987 revolution celebrations, 268–69; as focus of development, 161, 255–56; interest in helping, as a soldier, 64–65, 71–72; in nation building and revolutionary change, 182–83, 187–88, 189–90, 197; open discontent of, 240–41; Sankara’s emphasis on, 95; as “the people,” 143–44 Penne, Guy, 102, 145–46 People’s Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (CPPC), 252–53 “People’s President,” 121–32 persecution of Sankara’s family, 4–5 personality of Sankara, 10–11, 30–31, 33, 130, 264 personal life, 10, 81–82, 124–26 personas, private/public, 12, 16–17, 129

Pitroipa, Germaine, 12, 27–28, 131, 194–96, 195, 203–4 plot of the Mossi Plateau, 166–70 pluralism political, 266–67, 269 Pô, Upper Volta, 71–73, 245–46 Political Bureau of CNR, 119, 212, 278 political class, pre-revolutionary, Voltaic, 3–4, 37–38, 115, 163–64, 166–67 Political Orientation Speech (DOP), 18–19 political parties: in the August 4 revolution, 113–14, 118, 119; in nation building and revolutionary change, 182; in the October 15 coup, 266–67; of the political left, 67–68, 73–74, 77–78; in the struggle for unity, 159–61, 166, 175–76, 177–78. See also under party name political prisoners, 84–85, 89–91, 105–6, 190–91, 198 politicization, 39–40, 42–43, 92 Politique Africaine (France), 93–94 polygamy, 195–96, 197, 255 popular culture, Western, 40–41 Popular Front, 291, 295 popularity of Sankara, 9–10, 14–15, 98–99, 181–82, 226, 258–59, 264 Popular Revolutionary Tribunals, 161–63, 167–69, 190–91, 198, 226 population control, 196–97 populism, 12–13, 82–83, 92–95, 98–99, 147, 211–12 Pourcet, Guy, 61 poverty: capitalism in, 199–201; and democracy, 79; IMF in, 243; in liberation theology, 74–75; in the lost decade, 2–3; and the military, 49–50, 64–65; in political thought, 14; of Sankara’s family, 127–28, 281 power struggles, 3–4, 165–69, 267–68 PPD (Popular Development Program), 186–88, 201–2 pragmatism, 9–10, 13–14, 59, 139, 240, 243–44, 245–46, 274 prime minister in CSP government, 94–101 Pringle, Robert, 129, 275–76 private life, 60–61, 81–82, 94, 126–27 private sector, 116, 139, 188, 240–41, 244, 250 privilege, 25, 30–31, 32, 118, 121–22, 127, 191–92

Index | 329 pro-business faction, 240, 250, 277 prostitution, 196–97 protests, 6, 6–7, 104, 300. See also activism provinces, 161, 194–95. See also rural areas Prytanée Militaire de Kadiogo (PMK). See École Militaire Préparatoire of Ouagadougou purges, 29, 118–19, 166, 175, 184–85, 214 Qaddafi, Muammar: and Compaoré, 151, 251–52, 294–95; “Green Book,” 78; in the October 15 coup, 230, 273–74, 283; Sankara’s “relations” with, 84, 135–37; in war in Liberia, 250–51; Western fears of alliance with, 96, 100–101. See also Libya Rabat, Morocco, 76 Rabhi, Pierre, 204 Radio-Télévision, 172–73 railroad construction, 188–89, 193, 243–44 rallies: in the August 4 revolution, 103–5, 114–15; of children, 35; in nation building and revolutionary change, 185, 190–91, 195–96; of October 30, 2014, 300–302; in Operation Truth, 95, 98–100; in Ouagadougou, May 2014, 6, 6–7; as the “People’s President,” 130; Sankara’s image in, 300–301; in the struggle for unity, 166; for youth, 101. See also protests Ranger, Terence, 15–16 Rapp, Jean-Phillipe, 304–5 Ratsiraka, Didier, 60, 61 Rawlings, Jerry, 80, 94–95, 100, 138, 139, 232–33, 257, 296–97. See also Ghana RDA (African Democratic Rally), 29, 35–36, 67, 78–79 Reagan, Ronald and administration, 84, 164–65, 212–14, 244–45 “reassurance tour” across West Africa, 137–38 reconciliation, 90–91, 231–33, 269 “Red Scare” tactics, 29, 67–68 reforestation, 200, 201–4 reforms, 67, 69–70, 185–86, 193–94, 232, 241–42, 297, 303–4 refugees, climate, 64–65, 198–99 regreening initiatives, 204–5

relief organizations, 64–65. See also NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) religion, 26–28, 33–34, 74–76, 125–26 rent-free housing, 190, 241 resistance: African, in political education, 50–51; in the aftermath of the October 15 coup, 293–94; to changes in gender relations, 197; to collective farm labor, 159; to colonialism, 26, 29–30, 47–48; to IMF conditions, 249–50, 264–65; Sankara as symbol of, 6–7, 301, 304–5; in UN General Assembly speech, 218 Revolutionary Solidarity Fund, 157–58 revolutionary theory, 142 revolutionary threat, 148, 222–23 revolution of August 4: celebration of, 114–15; civilian activism in, 108–9; consolidation of, 115–19; context of, 2–3; creation of the CNR in, 113–14, 119–21; exportation of, in international efforts at destabilization, 229; failure of, in changing national mentality, 267–68; family in, 127–28; grassroots shaping of, 139–40; military in, 112–13, 116–17, 118–20, 122–23; over personalization of Sankara’s role in, 130–31; planning of, during Sankara’s imprisonment, 91–92; as popular struggle against colonialism, in the DOP, 142–43; Sankara’s radio address in, 113–14; structural adjustment in, 121–22; style of leadership of the People’s President, 123–32 rhetoric: anti-imperialist, and foreign aid, 173–74; against debt and financial aid, 244; in decision-making, 11–12; in diplomatic relations with Western nations, 213–14; improvisational oratory in, 9, 98–100, 129–30; inflammatory, in foreign relations, 213–14, 236–38; of nation building, 184–85; populist, 82–83, 98–100; risk-taking in, 11–12 Le Roc (“The Rock”), 69 ROC progressive officers group, 69–70. See also OMR (Revolutionary Military Organization) Roland-Billecart, Yves, 223 Roy, Gérard, 56

330 | Index RSP (Regiment of Presidential Security), 301–2 rural areas: CDR system in, 115–16, 161, 240–41; investment and development in, 60–62, 187–90; Mossi influence in, 29; nation building and revolutionary change in, 182–83, 187–90, 201–3; opposition to import policies and taxes in, 255–57; special interest in, 95; in the struggle for unity, 157–58, 161; tree-planting in, 202–4 Saba, Christophe, 291 Sada, Hugo, 83, 128–29, 168, 272–73 Sahel region, 23, 64–65, 157, 198–99 Sahrawi Arab democratic Republic (SDAR), 223 Samo ethnic group, 39–40 Sandinistas, Nicaragua, 80–81, 152–53, 220, 247 Sankara, Bénéwendé, 301 Sankara, Colette (sister), 5 Sankara, Florence (sister), 127 Sankara, Godefroy, 75 Sankara, Joseph (father), 26–28, 29–30, 293 Sankara, Marguerite (mother), 24–25, 27–28, 33, 35, 42, 127, 293 Sankara, Mariam (wife), 126–27, 224, 270, 284, 293, 301 Sankara, Mousbila (uncle), 108–9, 273–74, 303–4 Sankara, Pascal (brother), 66–67, 292–93 Sankara, Paul (brother), 293 Sankara, Pauline (sister), 28, 66–67 Sankara, Valentin, 27, 52 “Sankara: Cet Homme qui Dérange” (Jeune Afrique), 146–47 Sankara family, 4–5, 23–33, 41–42, 89–90, 124, 127, 265–66, 293; in the aftermath of assassination, 4–5, 293; and childhood in colonial Gaoua, 23–33; communications with, during imprisonment, 89–90; concern over Compaoré rivalry, in final months, 265–66; modesty expected from, 127; name change from Ouedraogo, 41–42; neglect of, during the presidency, 124 Sankara le Rebelle (Andriamirado), 258–59 Sankara merchandise, 298 Savimbi, Jonas, 236–37 Sawadogo, Alfred, 10–11, 158

Sawadogo, Amadé, 291 Sawadogo, Amadou, 168 Sawadogo, Noufou, 291 Sawadogo, Rita, 196 Sawadogo, Yacouba, 204 Sawadogo, Yamba Malick, 292 schools, 196–97. See also education security guards, 245–46, 276–77 self-enrichment, 69–70, 91, 188, 240, 250–52, 270–71. See also corruption self-reliance: championship of, 9–10, 71–72; in international politics, 213; in nation building and revolutionary change, 186–87, 193; as revolutionary duty, 241–42, 243–44, 255–57; in Sankara’s legacy, 304; in water and food security, 157–59 Senghor, Leopold Sedar, 59–60 Sérémé, Saran, 294 Sermé, Mariam (fiancée), 76, 79. See also Sankara, Mariam Shultz, George, 135–36, 153–54 Sidibé, Lansina and Harry, 60–61 Sidwaya, 168, 172–73 Sigué, Vincent “Askia,” 106, 113, 225–27, 285–86 Simporé, Jean, 53–54, 80 Sissili Province, 199 Six S Association, 204 Skinner, Elliot, 12, 216–17 Smockey, 298, 300 SND (National Development Service), 186–87 SNEAHV (National Union of African Teachers of Upper Volta), 147–48, 163–65 sobriety, 41, 126 socialism: absent from the DOP, 141–42; in affinity for Mali, 42–43; African, 74; in the August 4 revolution, 114–15; in confronting neocolonialism, 141–42, 144–45; in intellectual formation, 13–14; in international politics, 211–13; in nation building and revolutionary change, 200– 201; in political education, 50–51, 59–60; of students in West Africa and France, 65, 77–78. See also communism/communists; Marxism-Leninism soil restoration, 200

Index | 331 soldiers: African, in French colonialism, 30, 49–50; in the October 15 coup, 272; and the political left, 64–85; Sankara as hero to, 297–98. See also military officers solidarity: and African unity, 172–73; with the international left, 14, 97–98; in international politics, 215–16, 218, 219–20; Pan-African, 192–93, 281–82; in seeking food sovereignty, 159 Somda, Der, 114, 286, 291 Somé, Basa Jude, 36 Somé, Gaspard, 285–86 Somé, Jonas, 279 Somé, Valère: in the anti-imperialist movement, 58–59; arrest and torture of, 293–94; in the August 4 revolution, 120–21; in confronting neocolonial order, 140–41; friendship with, 32, 77–78; Les Nuits Froides de Déciembre, 294; and the May 17 putsch, 103–4; and the October 15 coup, 258, 279, 283–84; on PAI-LIPAD and the struggle for unity, 159–60; in political education of commandos, 78; on religion in upbringing, 33; in Sankara’s decision to join the CSP government, 93 Somé, Yorian, 89, 91, 92–93, 103, 105, 117 Soré, Patenema, 291 SOREMIB (Société de Recherches Ministères du Burkina), 188 Sourou Valley, 158–59 South Africa, 59–60, 170, 171–72, 220, 223, 236–37, 281–82 sovereignty: economic, 12–13, 14, 65, 80–81, 139, 257, 264–65; food self-sufficiency in, 145, 158–59, 201, 242–43, 255–57, 304; and foreign aid, 172–73; French military ties in, 49–50; political, 12–13 Soviet Union, 152–53, 211–12, 219–20, 246–47 Sovoncom state distribution mechanism, 186 Special Cabinet, 269 special operation training, 53–60 speeches: anniversary, 197–98, 268–69; antiimperialist, in 1983 arrest, 101; attempts at rectification in, 268–69, 279–80; to CEAO leaders, 222; on debt repayment, at OAU, 263–65; on the environment and drought, 199–201, 206–7; on factionalism, for the

OMR meeting, 282–84; improvised, in relations with Mitterrand, 236–38; in legacy, 6–7, 9–10, 298–99, 300, 303–4; morality in, 14; in Mozambique, 171–72; in Nicaragua, 247; for the Nonaligned Movement summit, 97–98; on opening of Popular Revolutionary Tribunals, 161–62; as the “People’s President,” 128, 130–31; Political Orientation Speech, 18–19, 140–45, 194; in popularity, 98–99; on reconciliation with Mali, 231–32; resignation speech, 1982, 85; sales of, 226; as sources, 18–19; to the teachers union, 93–94; in Tenkodogo, 279–80; United Nations General Assembly, 215–20, 222; on women’s rights and equality, 194–95, 197–98, 253–54. See also orator, Sankara as; rhetoric strikes, 36–37, 71, 73, 81, 85, 163–65, 267 structural adjustment programs (IMF), 3, 121–22, 238, 243–44, 264–65, 271, 297. See also IMF (International Monetary Fund) students: in the 1966 coup, 46–48; in the August 4 revolution, 117; Black African Students Federation, France, 57–58, 77; noncooperation with the CDR system by, 258; socialism of, 65, 78–79; strikes by, 36–37 Summer Olympics of 1984, 170 Tarnagda, Harouna, 103 Taylor, Charles, 250–52 teachers, 32, 73, 163–65 technologies, 34, 61, 123, 242–43 teenage years, 39–43 television, 82–84 Tenkodogo monument unveiling, 279 terrorist attack on France in 1986, 238–39 theater: high school interest in, 40–41; in nation building, 192–93; political, 12, 129, 162, 181, 182, 252–53 Thiombiano, Amirou, 58, 70–71 Third Worldism, 14–15, 59, 81–82, 129, 141–42, 218 thought, political, 10–14, 53–54, 56–60, 65, 73–75, 78–79 Tiendrébeogo, Didier, 167, 169–70

332 | Index Toé, Fidèle, 31–32, 33, 39–40, 53, 82, 94, 120–21 Togo, 231, 246 Touré, Adama: in 1982 coup planning, 91; in the Council of Ministers, 120; as delegate to Côte d’Ivoire, 137; detention of, in 1987, 257–58; in left-wing education of soldiers, 70–71; in protests of Sankara’s imprisonment, 103–4; radical activism by, 36; in revolutionary education, 50–51, 58; in the struggle for unity, 161–62, 167–68, 176–77 Touré, Mamadou, 239–40 Touré, Sekou, 43 Touré, Soumane: in 1982 coup planning, 91; arrest and imprisonment of, 190–91, 257–58; attacks on CMRPN by, 84–85; friendship with, 32, 40; ILO complaint by, on trade union freedoms, 257–58; on leadership of the CDR, 116–17; in left-wing education of soldiers, 70–71, 73–74; in the struggle for unity, 159–60, 166, 175 Tout à Coup Jazz, 184 tracts, 69–70, 190–91, 258, 259, 266–67, 270, 280 trade: with China, 220–21; of diamonds, 252, 274, 295; fair, in legacy, 304; global economic downturn in, 80–81; and the NIEO, 65, 219–20; and the Nonaligned Movement, 97–98; protectionist food policy and free trade agreements, 256; in wood, 200, 206 Traoré, Alouna, 291 Traore, Honoré, 283 Traoré, Luc, 74–75, 79, 176, 193–94 Traoré, Moussa, 138, 222–23, 228–33 tree-planting campaign, 201–4, 202 tribalism in division, 183 Twining, Charles, 187 UCB (Burkinabé Communist Union), 175–76 UFB (Women’s Union of Burkina), 196 UGEV (General Union of Voltaic Students), 77 Ukadike, Frank, 193 ULC (Union of Communist Struggle), 77, 78, 91, 93, 103–4, 117. See also Marxism-

Leninism; OCV (Voltaic Communist Organization) ULCR (Union of Communist StruggleReconstructed), 119, 120–21, 160, 166, 176 United Nations, 65, 153–54, 196, 215–20, 221–22, 248–49 United States: bombing of Libya by, 244–45; concerns about Libya of, 96; criticism of, in Nicaragua, 247; criticism of, in the UN General Assembly Speech, 219–20; in effort to remove Sankara, 100–101, 107, 152–53; in food relief, 199; Marxism in policy on Africa, 212–13; and the October 15 coup, 275–76; opposition to, on the UN Security Council, 153–54; in the plot of the Mossi plateau, 169–70; reduction of aid from, 221–22 University of Ouagadougou, 258 Upper Senegal-Niger colony, 26 Upper Volta: colonial, 23–43; formal independence of, 37–38; renaming of, in nation building, 181–82 urban dwellers, 46–47, 187–88, 256–57 urban renewal, 189 USA for Africa, 199 USAID, 196–97, 199, 203–4 vaccination campaign/Commando Vaccination, 187 “vanguard party,” 266–67, 268–69 veterans in French colonialism, 26–27, 30, 32 violence, domestic, 35, 195–96 Vittel Conference, France 1983, 145–47 Volta-Bani revolt of 1919, 26 Voltaization, economic, 67 VOLTELEC takeover, 139 WACL (World Anti-Communist League), 227–28 Walker, Julius, 107, 135, 136, 152–53, 169–70, 216–17 war: with Mali, 228–33; on terrorism, French, 238–39 water, 71, 157–58, 204–5, 242–43 Water, Ministry of, 157–58

Index | 333 “Watergrain” scandal, 69 Webster, William, 275–76 wedding with Mariam Sermé, 79 Westad, Odd, 152, 212–13 White, Luise, 15 WHO (World Health Organization), 187–88 women: childhood interest in rights of, 34–35; in the CNR government, 3; liberation and equality of, 145, 219, 253–54, 304; male reaction to liberation of, 255; in the military, 201; in nation building and revolutionary change, 194–98; political engagement of, 35 Women’s Union of Burkina Faso (UFB), 254 wood cutting, 206–7 workers/working class, 143–44, 189–90, 240–41, 257–58, 269. See also labor unions World Bank, 138–39, 243–44, 263, 297

Yako, Burkina Faso, 23 Yameogo, Louis Johanny, 276–77 Yameogo, Maurice, 37–38, 46 Yameogo, Paul, 51, 53–56, 80 Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, 226–27 youth, 1–2, 172–73, 207, 222–23, 264, 293, 299–300, 304–5 Zagré, Patrice, 291 zaï technique, 204 Zerbo, Saye, 81–85, 91–92, 163 Zida, Isaac, 300–302 Ziegler, Jean, 26, 161, 277–78 Zongo, Etienne, 66, 124, 281, 282–83, 295 Zongo, Henri, 106, 108, 120, 244, 277, 291 Zongo, Norbert, 7, 302 Zoumbara, Paul: Jours de tournements, 193 Zoungrana, Paul, 95–96

BRIAN J. PETERSON is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Union College. He is author of Islamization from Below: The Making of Muslim Communities in Rural French Sudan, 1880–1960.