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- Why he was killed
- The role of the French and Americans
- The Charles Taylor connection
The hopes of nationalists across Africa in the early 50’s and
60’s for the rapid development of Africa with the decolonisation of the
continent have continued to elude the continent, despite the numerous natural resources the continent is
blessed with. The initial enthusiasm of better governance that followed the independence
of various African countries quickly evaporated and was replaced with political
struggles between inept and corrupt leaders and visionary nationalists who
truly wanted to make a difference. Many have questioned why Africa has continued
to be undeveloped and leaders have continued to be at the receiving end of the
blames.
The roles played by various western governments and secret
agencies in the overthrow or deaths of visionary leaders in Africa such as
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, Patrice Lumumba of
Congo etc, who would have taken their
various countries out of poverty have all been documented. Western governments
while pretending to be big brothers have always made sure only inept, selfish,
greedy, and corrupt leaders mount the saddle of leadership and any leader who
wouldn’t toe the line must be removed. Another model usually employed is the
enslavement through IMF and World Bank loans. Corrupt leaders are granted loans
that would be embezzled and not used for any beneficial venture for the
country. And to repay, the countries natural resources must be mortgaged to
foreign corporations through privatisation. But the dangerous catch is that the
loans are structured in such a manner that they will never be repaid and the continent
will continue to serve as a fiefdom of the West.
It is very saddening to realise that despite western rhetoric
on their desires to develop Africa and eradicate poverty and bad governance,
and overt condemnation of exposed corrupt African leaders, that they have
always assiduously worked to perpetuate underdevelopment of Africa through
active and passive support of bad governments, encouragement of crises and
wars, as well as acceptance of the deposition of looted funds from Africa to in
their banks.
The story of Thomas Sankara, is a typical example of the
roles the West play in the undermining of Africa.
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The man Thomas Sankara
Capt Thomas Sankara was an officer of the army of the former Upper
Volta, a former colony of France and one of the poorest countries in Africa (semi-arid, hungry, indebted and with high infant
mortality rates), whose main export was the provision of cheap labour to
the neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire where lots of French corporations
were based. Sankara was “radicalised” while studying in Madagascar, where he
witnessed popular uprising against the government and got exposed to the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir
Lenin, which led to his
enlightenment on the role of the west in the undermining of Africa. On return
to his country he served in various military formations and in 1981 was appointed Secretary of State for Information in the military government.
However, his
outspoken stance for the liberation of the poor masses in his country led to
his resignation in April 1982. After a coup in November 1982 he was reappointed
as the prime minister, but this was short-lived as he continued to raise the
cause for the ordinary people. This led to his dismal and arrest in May 1987, after a visit by the then French president's son and African affairs
adviser Jean-Christophe
Mitterrand. In August 1983, a coup
d'état led by his friend
Blaise Compaoré installed him as president at the age of 33.
Sankara inspired
by the revolutionary stance of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, was determined to
liberate Upper Volta from the clutches of the imperialists. He embarked on a
wide range of reforms unprecedented in Africa. For a start he renamed the country from
the imperialist coined Upper Volta to a more meaningful Burkina Faso (land of
people of integrity).
His anti corruption campaign quickly purged
corruption from the government, he slashed the salaries of ministers while adopting
a simpler and austere approach to life, such as riding bicycle to work (until
he was forced to “upgrade” at the instance of his cabinet to a Renault 5 – one
of the cheapest cars available in the country at the time); living in a small
brick house, wearing only cotton that was produced, weaved and sewn in the
country and eating only food produced in his Burkina Faso (he ate millet, like Burkina
Faso peasants).”
Economic reforms were embarked and cuts were made from every possible means
including the lowering of the salaries of civil servants. In his words “Our ministers can
only fly economy, not first class. We have abolished presidential immunity, and
are in the process of lowering civil service salaries. There are court
proceedings against those who are robbing our country, and these are taking
place in public.”
He did not spare himself. Sankara was known
as the poorest president in the world, being on a salary of only $450/month,
had only three guitars (he was a renowned guitarist, four bikes, a fridge, a
broken freezer, and small house as his personal possession. He refused to use the AC
in his office because according to him that was a luxury most Burkinabe’s could
not afford.
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| Thomas Sankara was brutally assassinated by Western powers |
All this he did to liberate his country from
the control and dominance of the West. In one of his famous quotes, he alleged
that western government control Africans through dependence on foreign food
supply. He stated “’Where is imperialism?” Look at your plates when
you eat. These imported grains of rice, corn, and millet - that is
imperialism.”
His idea of liberation was to locally grow
foods to feed the nation - “Let us consume only what we ourselves control!”
Through his motto 'two meals a day and ten litres of water a day for all every
day', the country was led to self-sufficiency within 4 years. This was
confirmed by Jean Ziegler, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
stated that “hunger was a thing of the past” in Burkina Faso.
Through his charismatic nature, he was able
to undertake a huge mobilisation of Burkinababes, who began to build their
country with their own hands. Other sectors of the economy (health and
education) boomed, millions of children were immunised, and massive literacy
campaign was carried out to facilitate education in the country that had had
over 90% illiteracy. Basic infrastructures were constructed across the country,
natural resources were nationalised, and local industries were supported. Desertification
to boost agriculture was embarked on through the planting of millions of trees.
He carried out massive campaigns for the
liberation of women who he considered highly indispensible especially in the
development of the agricultural sector. He saw the emancipation of women as
vital to breaking the hold of the feudal system on the country. He recruited
women into all professions (including military and the government), ended the
pressure on women to marry, involving women in the grassroots revolutionary
mobilisation. "We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity
or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the
revolution to triumph," He posited.
Sankara’s sins
Sankara committed three atrocious sins in the
eyes of the west which led to the decision to assassinate him. The first was
his nationalisation of the nation’s resources and the inhibition of a free
global market system. The second sin was his political, social and economic
reforms, which led to the country’s self sufficiency and almost to the absolute
freedom from the dominating clutches of the west. His third and most prominent sin was his
refusal to accept or depend on international aids/loans from IMF and the World
Bank, and
his unwillingness to repay the country’s debt accrued by previous governments.
Very clear on the dangers of such venture, he had called on other African
countries in similar situation with his country to join hands in denouncing the
debts. During the 1987 conference of the then Organisation of African Unity he
tried to persuade fellow African leaders to disclaim their debts. "Debt is
a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one
of us into a financial slave. Those who led us into debt were gambling, as if
they were in a casino. There is talk of a crisis. No. They gambled. They
lost... We cannot repay the debt because we have nothing to pay it with. We
cannot repay the debt because it is not our responsibility.” But as he saw
that other leaders of the continent were making individual arrangements with
western governments for slight debt restructuring, he further proposed common
public action that would free all of Africa from western domination, “We must speak in one
voice, saying this debt cannot be paid. And since I am the lone voice, I will
be assassinated. We must say together, we cannot pay, because we have to work
to build a future for our people. If only Burkina Faso refuses to pay, I will
not be here at the next conference.” And just like a prophet, he was not to be at
the next conference as he was assassinated that year.
The assassination of Sankara – the western connection
A week before his assassination, Sankara remarkable
stated that “although revolutionaries, like individuals may be murdered, no one
will ever be able to kill ideas.” Just as if he got the premonition that his
death was around the corner, on 15 October 1987, Thomas Sankara was
assassinated by a group of soldiers led by his closest friend who four years
earlier, made him the president of the country. Blaise Compaoré, the current president of the country in
company with Dominigo Guengere, Jean-Baptiste Lingani and Henri Zongo, and loyalists
of Charles Taylor brutally murdered Sankara in a military coup that he
described as an accident.
Although Compaoré has repeatedly denied
his involvement in the killing of Sankara, recent revelations from close
friends of former Liberian warlord Cjarles Taylor have squarely placed him in
the room where Sankara was killed. In the interview conducted by Silvestro Montanaro, an Italian journalist with the RA13, former aides and close
friends of Taylor, Momo Jiba and Cyril Allen revealed some of the dirty secrets
leading to the assassination of Sankara.
Sankara having been considered a thorn in
the flesh of Western governments and incurred the wrath especially of France
had his life hanging on a balance. And with the corporation of local gangsters,
it was a matter of time before this was actualised. This has always been the
model favoured by the western government in entrenching dominance in Africa – the
use of local hands to actualise their plans. It’s only on very few occasions
such as in the recent removal of Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d'Ivoire that the “hidden hands” became so obvious.
In the case of Sankara, the dynamics fell in
place when Charles Taylor a former stooge of western secret agency approached
Sankara for his support in the removal of Samuel Doe, the then president of
Liberia. According to General Momo Jiba aide-de-camp of Taylor, “my boss told
me to approach Sankara for help in taking power in Liberia. In return, he
offered lucrative business opportunities. Thomas Sankara told him he was not
interested and asked him to leave the country. He told him that he would not
help and asked him to find another staging point for his rebellion. Guengere,
who is currently Burkina Faso’s minister of defence, Blaise Compaoré, Charles
Taylor, and a [soon-to-be] president of Chad all met in Mauritania for a whole
day. . . after a while they were joined by a white man from Paris. The
discussions carried on, and then there was another meeting in Libya, where the
Sankara problem was discussed some more. What emerged was that if we were to
use Burkina Faso as a launching pad, Sankara had to be eliminated. Blaise
Compaoré, would become president, and he would help us…
“France sent word that they were in
support of the coup d’état. . .better yet . . . provided funds and indicated
that they would recognise Compaoré’s government. Blaise told Domingo Guengere, one
time Burkinabe army chief to avail a group of commandos, Taylor provided other
troops, and the coup was staged.”
These allegations that France was
“totally involved” by General Momo, were corroborated by Cyril Allen, a onetime
leading figure in Taylor’s party and former head of the Liberia’s National Petroleum Company, who also insisted
that it was not only France but “The
Americans and the French sanctioned the plan. There was a CIA operative and the
US embassy in Burkina Faso working closely with the secret service at the
French embassy, and they made the crucial decisions.”
According to Allen and Momo, having decided on the
elimination of Sankara the French secret service “sent their men, some
commandos, and then there was Prince Johnson, and myself. We communicated by
walkie-talkie, we had all the information on Sankara. . . when he left home,
and when he returned. . . everything was planned,” Momo confirmed.
Momo confirmed also that he was in the room
when Sankara was assassinated, “Of course, I was in Burkina Faso, I was part of
the operation. . . I was in the room when he was assassinated. . . there were
important discussions taking place and Blaise Compaoré, after seeming to have
returned home at exactly midnight, was there, ready to act with the others . .
.he entered the room and fired.” I was right there when Thomas Sankara said,
'Blaise, you are my best friend, I call you my brother, and yet you assassinate
me?' Blaise made an irritated gesture and said something to him in French – I
don’t understand French very well – and then he fired a shot.
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| Blaise Compaoré current President of Burkina Faso was a close friend of Sankara and was used to assassinate him |
If Blaise Compaoré had not shot Sankara, Guengere would have done so, and would now be president. All of this was part of America’s interest in controlling Burkina Faso.”
Ever since the death of Sankara, the country has once again been plunged into darkness. Compaoré had reversed all the reforms made by Sankara, and has introduced western backed reforms such as privatization and liberalization of the market, acceptance of loans from IMF, which has led to the devaluation of the CFA franc in value in relation to the French franc (at the insistence of Paris and the IMF). Compaoré has lived ostentatious life such as purchase of presidential jet compared to the austere life of Sankara, having amassed a considerable personal wealth from his position. Various allegations of corruption and nepotism under his regime have been made. For instance power from a new hydro project has been diverted to electrify Compaoré’s home village, Ziniaré, while big towns have been ignored. Ironically, he has remained the darling of France and other western countries and has remained in power since 1987, and the country plunging deeper into poverty.
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