[ad_1]
Thirty-four years, almost to the day, since the shocking assassination of then Burkinabe President Thomas Sankara, 14 men are on trial, accused of complicity in the assassination of the man known as “Che Guevara”. of Africa “.
The charismatic Pan-Africanist was gunned down at the age of 37 by soldiers in a coup on October 15, 1987, which saw his close friend, Blaise Compaoré, come to power.
Four years earlier, the couple had organized the takeover that saw Sankara become president.
Mr. Compaoré is one of the 14 accused, but he is currently in exile in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire, where he fled after being forced to resign during mass protests in 2014. He has repeatedly denied any involvement in Sankara’s death and boycott the trial.
Despite the passage of time, Sankara remains something of an icon across Africa – stickers emblazoned with his face adorn taxis across West Africa, while across the continent in South Africa, the radical opposition leader Julius Malema cites it as one of his inspirations.
Why is Sankara considered such a hero?
“For us, Sankara was a patriot. He loved his people. He loved his country. He loved Africa. He gave his life for us, ”said Luc Damiba, secretary general of the Thomas Sankara Memorial Committee.
It was during his reign that the country was renamed – from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning “Land of upright people”.
Sankara himself led an austere life. He reduced his own salary and that of all civil servants. It also banned the use of government drivers and first class airline tickets.
Education was a key priority – while in power, the literacy rate rose from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987, and he also oversaw a nationwide mass vaccination campaign.
He also redistributed land from feudal owners and gave it directly to poor farmers, resulting in a huge increase in wheat production.
Sankara called for a united Africa to oppose what he called the “neo-colonialism” of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
He was once quoted as saying, “He who feeds you controls you.
He adopted an anti-imperialist foreign policy which challenged the domination of France, which retained enormous influence in several of its former colonies in Africa, such as Burkina Faso. His widow Mariam accuses France of orchestrating his assassination.
“He remains my president. What he has done for the population encourages us young people to do like him, ”a student from Thomas Sankara University in Ouagadougou told the BBC.
An imposing six-meter-high bronze statue at the Thomas Sankara Memorial Park in the capital, Ouagadougou, was unveiled in 2019 and then redesigned last year following complaints about the first version.
Mr Damiba says plans are underway to expand the park, including an 87-meter-high tower overlooking Ouagadougou.
There will also be a mausoleum for Sankara, a cinema hall and a media library that bears his name. These facilities are expected to transmit Sankara’s revolutionary ideas to future generations.
And his detractors?
Sankara’s radical left policies have been criticized by human rights organizations as draconian.
A report published by Amnesty International in 1986 revealed that suspected political opponents had been detained without trial and severely tortured.
“I think he was too slow to accept the idea of a pluralist democracy and that those who opposed him were not able to speak to him and be heard,” said Serge Théophile Balima, former minister of Information from the Sankara government.
Professor Balima added: “He wanted to give power to the people, so he delegated power to the proletarians who headed the committees for the defense of the revolution. [CDRs], who were recruited to moralize public and private life. In fact, they found themselves committing abuses that discredited his power.
In an interview with Africa Report in 2020, former President Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, who was ousted by Sankara, described him as having “an element of cynicism and political Machiavellianism”.
Why did the trial take so long?
His brother, Paul Sankara, said: “We have waited a long time, throughout the 27 years of Blaise Compaoré’s regime. During his reign, we could not even dream of the possibility of a trial.
His widow filed a criminal complaint in 1997 for the murder of her husband, but it took 15 years for the Supreme Court to decide the investigation could continue.
However, little progress was made until Mr. Compaoré was toppled in 2014.
The following year, remains believed to be his were exhumed, but DNA analysis could not confirm that they were his.
In 2016, the authorities of Burkina Faso officially asked the French government to publish military documents on the assassination of Sankara.
These archives were declassified and transmitted to Burkina Faso in three stages – the last in April 2021.
Who else is on trial?
Mr. Compaoré’s former chief of staff, General Gilbert Diendéré, and 11 others are scheduled to appear before the military court. They are accused of “endangering state security”, “complicity in murder” and “concealment of bodies”.
Diendéré is already in prison, after being sentenced to 20 years for his role in a failed coup in 2015.
Among the accused is Diébré Jean Christophe, the doctor who signed the death certificate, claiming that the former president had died of natural causes. He is accused of falsifying a public document.
The other man charged in absentia is Hyacinthe Kafando, the former security chief of Mr. Compaoré, for whom an international arrest warrant has been issued. He is accused of leading the group that killed Sankara and 12 other people.
What impact will the trial have?
There were fears that the trial would further destabilize Burkina Faso, which is already grappling with frequent attacks from jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Mr. Compaoré still retains considerable influence in the country and some analysts have warned that elements of the army that remain loyal to him could cause trouble.
But there are few signs of this.
On the contrary, President Roch Marc Kaboré hopes that the trial will ease tensions and promote national reconciliation.
“I do not think that such a trial could promote instability,” Mathieu Pellerin, Sahel analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), told French magazine Jeune Afrique in April 2020.
“Reconciliation is rarely achieved without justice,” he added.
Source link
