Thomas Sankara: Our Homeland or Death: a brief bio

Thomas Sankara took over from French occupation in what was known then as Upper Volta in West Africa. Landlocked with no access to the sea and and a desert to the north, it didn’t have much in natural resources. One of the first leaders in the world to stand for women’s rights, and certainly the first in Africa. He banned opposition parties and trade unions but even his detractors did not know him to use violence like other military leaders. Some of his other reforms as part of his revolution program include:

- Boosted cotton production by imposing a national shirt compulsory for public servants made from Burkina Faso cotton

- An environmentalist at heart before it was hip, he saw to the planting of thousands of trees to counter desertification 

- Built railway lines and roads connecting rural Burkina Faso to developments in city with many people volunteering

- Confiscated Mercedes Benzes from public servants and replaced them with cheaper cars and banned them from using first class flights 

- Went on a mass national vaccination program to curb polio. It was so successful that it prompted WHO to congratulate him

And oh he always looked so sharp and stylish even in his military garb.

At an AU summit in Addis Ababa, he called called on fellow African state heads to refuse to pay the national debt to their former colonial masters remarking that in that way they’d avoid being assassinated as individuals if they stand together. 

After three years of the revolution the neocolonial upper class were becoming weary and accusing Sankara of not respecting individual rights. At the height of this growing dissatisfaction, about 1200 teachers went on strike and were dismissed only to be replaced by so called “revolutionary teachers” who were actually just volunteers from the civil and military ranks. Furthermore he was accused of not being able to delegate following his program of mass military training aimed at checking civilian enthusiasm from over-pouring.

As the peak of Western dissatisfaction towards him at an event where Sankara had invited the the French president, he blasted France for allowing South African Apartheid president, Pieter Botha, for allowing Botha to visit France and thus “dirtying France with his bloodied hands and feet.” 

He was assassinated at the order of his close friend and French collaborator, Blaise Comapaore. He was 39 and had always predicted he’d die before 40, just as Malcolm X. Another missed opportunity for Africa to come out of its abyss.

Malik Mahlangu