Thomas Sankara

Early life and military career

Thomas Sankara was born on December 21, 1949, in Yako, in what was then French colonial Upper Volta. He trained as an army officer. In 1970 he was sent to Madagascar for officer training, where he saw a popular uprising, and he later attended a parachute school in France before returning home in 1972. He became known for his part in the 1974 border war with Mali, a war he later called useless and unjust.

Rise to power

In January 1983 Sankara became prime minister under Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. He was removed and arrested in May. On August 4, 1983, a group led by his ally Blaise Compaoré freed him and overthrew the government, and Sankara became president of the National Council of the Revolution at 33. A year later the country was renamed Burkina Faso, usually translated as "Land of Incorruptible People."

Policies

Sankara called his program a "democratic and popular revolution." Its goals included ending corruption, expanding health care and schooling, and promoting self-reliance. His government brought more women into office, ran a national literacy campaign, and vaccinated more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. Britannica credits these programs with lowering infant mortality and raising literacy and school attendance. About 10 million trees were planted in his first year to slow desertification. He spoke out against neo-colonialism and rejected IMF aid.

A contested record

Admirers, including many Africans and his biographer Brian J. Peterson, see Sankara as an anti-imperialist who took on corruption, poverty, gender inequality and environmental damage, and who was still widely admired at home and across the continent when he died.

Critics point to the methods of his government. Amnesty International reported detention without trial of opponents and named jailed trade unionists prisoners of conscience, including some 30 arrested in 1987. It also reported that seven men convicted of a 1984 coup plot were executed the day after the verdict, and that Popular Revolutionary Tribunals tried former officials without defense lawyers. The U.S. State Department reported that political parties were banned, that Committees for the Defense of the Revolution sometimes held people without charge, and that the largely state-owned media did not seriously criticize the government. Peterson's research also describes factional infighting, the marginalization of union leaders and civilian leftists, and former colleagues who traced some of the revolution's mistakes to Sankara's style of governing. Britannica notes economic problems and opposition from traditional leaders, and says his support gradually declined.

Death and trial

On October 15, 1987, Sankara was killed in a coup led by Compaoré and two others. Compaoré then ruled until 2014, when he resigned amid popular protests and went into exile in Côte d'Ivoire.

Fourteen people were charged over the killing, and their military trial opened on October 11, 2021, with Compaoré tried in absentia. On April 6, 2022, the court found Compaoré and nine others guilty of complicity and Hyacinthe Kafando guilty of the murder. Compaoré, Kafando and General Gilbert Diendéré received life sentences, eight others received lesser terms, and three were acquitted.