Long arms of justice in Burkina Faso

Almost 28 years after the murder of Thomas Sankara, perhaps one of Africa’s most charismatic leaders to date, his erstwhile deputy and long-standing ruler of Burkina Faso – president for 27 long years until he was forced to resign in 2014 and fled the country to Cote d’Ivoire on the heels of an uprising that arose when he surreptitiously attempted to amend the country’s constitution to allow him run for office again – has been indicted and an international arrest warrant issued in connection with the 1987 murder of Sankara. Prosper Farama, a lawyer for Sankara’s family, was quoted as saying, “I confirm that an international arrest warrant was issued against [ex-]President Blaise Compaore by the investigating judge.”

To be sure, then Captains Thomas Sankara and Blaise Compaore were intimate friends who first met in 1976 when they joined some of their military colleagues to form a secret organisation within the military known as the “Communist Officers” group. They became even closer friends when they discovered that they shared similar ideological persuasions. They were deeply dissatisfied with the situation of their country and decided to put their ideas into action by setting up a small group of radical left-wing soldiers called ‘Popular Republic’. This soon landed Sankara in trouble as he was arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason.

In 1983 and as a testament to their friendship, Blaise Compaore organised a coup, overthrew the corrupt military government of the day, freed his friend Sankara from jail and named him military president on August 4, 1983 at a young age of 33. Sankara, in turn, made Compaore his deputy, Minister of Defence, Minister of State at the Presidency, and Minister of Justice

Upon coming to power, Sankara attempted and indeed succeeded in translating most of the ideals of the “Communist Officers” and “Popular Republic” into practice. He had a total aversion for corruption, flamboyancy of government officials, foreign aid, and encouraged self-reliance and everything local – and most importantly, he led by example. He was particularly noted for his selflessness, integrity and anti-imperialist stand.  Sankara’s visionary leadership turned the once sleepy country to a dynamo of progress as he led one of the most ambitious programmes of sweeping reforms ever seen in Africa which sought to fundamentally reverse the structural social inequalities inherited from the French colonial order. A year after coming to power and to give bite to the new spirit of the country, he encouraged the country to change its name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Incorruptible People”. Sankara was a profile in humility as he disdained formal pomp and banned any cult of his personality.

Expectedly, Sankara’s austerity measures did not go down well with some of his cabinet members and especially Compaore. Also, France, which felt it could lose control of its former colony, reportedly wanted Sankara out and in those days where colonial powers easily determined their former colonies’ leaderships, it was easy to sponsor a coup against an unwanted leader.

Therefore, it was not surprising when Sankara and 12 of his colleagues were killed on October 15, 1987 during a coup that brought his friend and former comrade-in-arms Compaore to power. His remains and those of his colleagues were buried in unmarked graves without the knowledge of his family even as Compaore denied any connection with the killings. The government subsequently issued his family a death certificate describing his passing as a “natural death”. Compaore not only denied the Sankara family the permission to exhume Sankara’s corpse for about 27 years, but also did his best to repress every memory associated with Sankara and jailed all those who protested against his death. Expectedly, Compaore rushed to reverse Sankara’s entire revolutionary and nationalistic policies and returned the country to its pre-Sankara beggarly and wretched situation.

Interestingly, however, 28 years after Sankara’s death, his image still looms large not only in Burkina Faso, but in most of Africa, which saw in him the revolutionary, sincere and upright leader they had always yearned for. Despite Compaore’s best efforts to suppress all memories of Sankara, he failed as Sankara’s spirit was ultimately behind the protest movement that drove Compaore from power.

As an aside, the Sankara-Compaore case mirrors the fatality of political friendships in Africa – an area of research sadly neglected by philosophers, political scientists and students of power in Africa. Nigeria has also had its share of fatal political friendships. The cases of Yar’Adua/Babangida/Abacha, Abiola/Babangida/Abacha, and Bola Ige/Obasanjo come readily to mind. Perhaps, an engagement with these cases may lead to the development of a theory of political friendship.