Thomas Sankara :Chronicle of an organized tragedy
- Posted on Monday 17 September 2007 - 14:12October 15, 1987
The tragic destiny of Thomas Sankara is related to the struggle for the advent of a social democracy. This struggle could not please the "Mafiafrique" made up of the groups of business peoples and their collaborators who control Africa. Then, he has to be exterminated. They found the armed hand in the local relays and the killing machine get going. Feedback on the causes of the sad & dark Thursday.
By Cheriff M. SY
"A the favour of the meanders of the history, this autocrat rose with the head of our Revolution for better choking it internally. This high treason was illustrated by the deride of all organisational principles, the various disavowals of the noble objectives of the RDP, the personalization of the power, the mystical vision, for the solutions to bring to the concrete problems of the populace, all things that generated the demobilization within the militant people.". Extract of the Proclamation of October 15, 1987.
"People of Burkina Faso, the speeding-up of the historical process often make parade the events in a way out of control by a human being, making one craftsman of undesired situations. The tragic moments that we lived on current 15 October belong to this type of exceptional events that often the history of the people provides us. As revolutionaries, we were with courage to assume our responsibilities. We did it through the proclamation of the Popular Front. We will continue to do it without fault and with determination for the triumph of the objectives of the Revolution of August. This brutal outcome shocks us all as human beings and me more than whomever to have been his comrade in arms, more, his friend. Also, for us, he remains a revolutionary comrade who was mistaken. "
In Message to the nation of the president of the Popular Front, the comrade captain Blaise Compaoré on October 19, 1987.
Thursday October 15, 1987, the process of the democratic and popular Revolution in Burkina was brutally stopped around 4:00 pm. In this afternoon of this Thursday, more than one militant of the RDP was reached of an inexpressible stupor. After the backfire of the Kalashnikov which lasted all the evening, the signed proclamation of a popular front fell thick like a rain interfered hail, surprising certain militants of the RDP in the same way just like those which did not find interest in the Revolution and were held remotely of it.
For a certain time, it was known that a serious crisis was undergoing in the national council of revolution (CNR). Its principal leaders, formerly unified were not able any more to get along on the orientation and the strategy of action. The four (4) historical leaders (Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré, Boukary Lingani, Henri Zongo) of the RDP appeared more and more "too numerous" to lead the revolutionary movement.
But the serious crisis that shook the leaders of the RDP will remain mainly hidden to the grass-roots militants, to point that they will be surprised by the extent and the brutality of the outcome of October 15. Thus, most sincere militants still regret today, the outcome of October 15 such as it has been presented, thinking there were a lot of tribunes where debates of ideas could have occurred to avoid this tragic event. But those who did the plot knew the significant risk they will undergo, letting Thomas Sankara the opportunity of a dialogue, because he had such a force of argumentation that it would have perhaps left him "victorious".
It is this same capacity of persuasion that led to certain decisions, judged a posteriori as "spontaneity, voluntarisms" whereas in his time, he did not receive the consequent criticisms from his detractors. And it is this same particularity of the personality of the late president who saved the head of more than one person, when certain close collaborators wanted once again to sacrifice on the furnace bridge of counter revolution.
In fact, it is necessary to convene on one thing: October 15 and rectification intervened precisely because the comrades who started the RDP with Thomas Sankara, were tired (already) and that they felt neither the force nor the heart to continue. And as the adversaries of the process existed and were influential, inside and outside the revolution, they did not have a sorrow to bring with them a whole world to counterbalance the RDP. The reason of the "treason to the initial way" was then quickly evoked.
However the captain Thomas Sankara was the first to realize the necessary democratization of the process, in his August 1987 speech in Bobo Dioulasso he declared that it “Burkina Faso needs a convinced populace, but not a looser populace, subjugated that undergo their destiny”. He had thus begun the true "correction" of the marked RDP of the remainder with the release of several political and common right prisoners. The wrongly sanctioned ones found the possibility of taking again their career.
But this policy initiated by Thomas Sankara quickly "was cut-off" by October 15 and was asserted by the Popular Front. It was necessary to leave the image of Sankara as a self-sufficient and hostile to the openings.
Also, the things accelerated very quickly after the speech of "reconciliation" of August 87 in Bobo Dioulasso where Sankara said in particular: "In recent years, we sometimes made errors. That will not have to occur any more on the crowned land of Burkina Faso. There must be place in the heart of each one of us for those who are not yet perfectly in harmony with the political speech of orientation and the objectives of our five-year plan. It is our duty to go to them and bring them to the revolutionary cause of the people… We must prefer a step together with the people rather than to take ten steps without the people ". (In Thomas Sankara, to dare to invent the future p.264 ED Pathfinder and the harmattan 1991).
For this speech, it was necessary to hurry up to overthrow him, otherwise leaving time to Thomas Sankara to really start the democratization of the RDP, means living any opportunity to justify the plot.
The commemoration of the speech of October 2nd in Tenkodogo will be the occasion for the plotters to accelerate their operations of liquidation of the revolution and to undertake concrete actions that led to October 15, 1987.
The crisis that prevailed for a certain time on the political ground gained as usual the army, and it was necessary since the weapons speak to untie it. That has always been the tactics of politicians in Burkina Faso. They always create a rot which obliges the soldiers to intervene. In the case of CNR, it is necessary to add to it the fact that the preached rigour was not the desire of everyone, in particular of certain commandos, craftsmen of the revolutionary plot of August 4, 1983. They asserted with insistence a good share of the cake. To this request, Thomas Sankara has opposed a constant negative response, asserting that the soldier must "live with the populace" and preaching "a quarter of chicken per day per soldier". This negative response appeared to know little about those that requested a villa, a rank in order to enjoy the fruit of the risk incurred in the night of August 4.
It comes to us for this purpose that the latter during the regular meetings with their head posed this complaint constantly. To what the head in question answered that he did not see there a disadvantage but that "it is Sankara who is opposed". The soldiers retorted: "why don’t we remove him?”. Constantly repeating every day, one ends up by "removing" Thom' Sank on October 15, 1987.
What happened this day?
Gilbert Diendéré declares in "Sankara, Compaoré et la revolution Burkinabè" of Ludo Martens, on pages 65 and 66: "on October 15 thus, with the meeting of the officers, the elements of the palace accused the soldiers of Pô to have come to organise a plot. The atmosphere heated. We separated without an agreement being carried out. It appears that at the same moment, another meeting was held with the presidency, to which Sigué and other heads of army assisted. But the register of the presidency disappeared after the 15.
As the soldiers of the presidential guard belong to our battalion, all were not in favour of the confrontation. Thus the driver of Sankara, caporal DER and others came to warn us that Compaoré, Lingani and Zongo would be arrested this evening. During the meeting of OMR (note: Revolutionary military organization), the council would be encircled by the troops of FIMATS (note: Rapid deployment force of the ministry for the territorial administration and safety) and ETIR (note: Squadron of transport and fast intervention). A group of soldiers should put the three in a state of arrest, while the large one of the forces should be held ready with any possibility. Although one had not exactly spoken us to liquidate the three, we were convinced that a slaughter could not be avoided. The three would not accept to be arrested without reacting, and men’s like Sigué and Koama would not hesitate a second to kill them. Our reaction was that Sankara has to be arrested before the irrevocable occur. The decision was made in a general climate of concern close to panic. We did not have really the choice. We could never believe that Sankara was going to be caught some to his three companions. Blaise was at the house, sick. We did not want to inform him because we knew that he would not agree to stop Sankara. It was a serious decision, but it is necessary to think the panic that reigned at this time among our soldiers.
We knew that Sankara held a meeting at the council at four pm and we decided to go to arrest him over there…
Little after four pm, Peugeot 205 of Sankara and a car of his guard arrived in front of the door of the house; a second car of the guard went to be parked a little further. We encircled the cars. Sankara was in sports gear. He held as always his weapon, an automatic gun, in his hand. He immediately drew and killed one of ours. At this time, all the men broke out, everyone made fire and the situation has escaped with any control…
After the events, I telephoned the house of Blaise to inform him. When he arrived, he was extremely discouraged and dissatisfied, especially when he noted that there were thirteen died ".
The plot was thus made without the knowledge of Blaise Compaoré!
Blaise Compaoré declares in the above mentioned book on page 67: «when I arrived to the council, after the shooting and that I saw the body of Thomas lying in the ground, I failed to have a very violent reaction against the authors. That would undoubtedly have been a monster carnage which I would certainly not have left alive. But when the soldiers provided me the details of the business, I was discouraged, disgusted. I remained prostrate during at least twenty-four hours…
When I asked my men why they had stopped Sankara without informing me, they answered me that if they had done it, I would have refused. And it is true. I knew that my political camp was strong. Thomas did not control any more the State. I did not need to make a plot. But, my men took fear when they learned, after midday, that we must be stopped at twenty hours ".
But nevertheless!
The "Matin de Paris» on 27 October 1987, quoted «Il s'appelait Sankara» of Sennen A. the testimony of an element commando which says: " the Lieutenant warned us the morning only to prepare us to destroy the president because now, he was unbearable. Blaise knows him better than whomever: he knows that even if one were going to lock up him, he was going to leave by an ant hole ".
And yet!
In truth, this day, Thomas Sankara was in work meeting with some of his collaborators in a room at the Council. 70 meters from there, always in the council, one 504 white started. On its board, 7 people. The vehicle arrives on the place of the meeting. The few elements of the guard in front of the room do not worry, because the passengers of the vehicle are their colleagues. The vehicle pulls over, the passengers were: K.Y; O.A.O; N.N; N.W; O.N; T; K.M. They open fire immediately. A gendarme and two drivers are shot dead. They collapse. Thomas Sankara in the room where he hears the shooting , stand up, his gun in the hand and said to his collaborators "stay in, stay in, it is me that they want "!". Just after crossing the door, he is taken by the grapeshot nourished of one of the "killers". He collapses. Does one stop there? Not. The attackers enter in the room and killed his collaborators.
In short, let us suppose - with difficulty- the thesis that the captain Blaise was put in front of the accomplished fact is true. Would that innocent him? Wouldn't him been in an indirect way at the base of the tragic events of October 15? Isn’t him the main beneficiary of the plot?
The man, if he has never been really thirsty of power as he claims it, leaves sceptic all the observers of the political life of Burkina Faso. Indeed, after October 15, he proved that the power cannot be divided. Will learn it at their expense, the entire troop on intellectuals that constituted the "insurrectionary committee" that psychologically prepared the advent of October 15 by a series of filthy leaflets and intrigues of bottom stages. Will learn it at their expense the commandant Boukary Lingani and the captain Henri Zongo.
Today 20 years after, what one should keep in mind?
Behind any rhetoric "dialectician" debate, Sankara died to have been a package of patriotic and progressive convictions; but also to have prevented from a synergy between his theory and praxis, some of his civil comrades and soldiers to eat luxuriously, drinking fresh and semi-sparkling, to belch fatty, to sleep soft and to royally spend it at the detriment of their people.
The Man
When the Man came to power, his country was a "painful synthesis of all the sufferings of humanity". Thus his country held a sad prize list:
• World record of infant mortality
• Agricultural balance constantly negative
•Trade Balance permanently overdrawn
•Public Debt extremely high
The Man wanted to make his country a land of dignity and freedom.
Then courageously, he redefined the sum of possible and thinkable way by which the development of a country among the most stripped in world could be considered.
On the basis of the obviousness that the underdevelopment and the dependence could not find a solution without the integration of the marginalised, the usual excluded from the social mainstream: the peasants, the women and the young people, the Man engaged his country in a social progress and progressive process of transformation.
His revolution?
Simple: work more, spend less and better, and to produce more taking into account the priorities & needs of his country! He said: "Our revolution is and must be permanent, the collective action of the revolutionaries to transform the reality and to improve the concrete situation of the populace of our country. Our revolution will have value only if while looking behind us, while looking at our sides and while looking in front of us, we can say that Burkinabè are due to the revolution, a little happier, because they have healthy water to drink, because they have an abundant & sufficient food, because they have a resplendent health, because they have education, because they have decent housing, because they are better clothed, because they are entitled to the leisure; because they have the occasion to enjoy more freedom, more democracy, more dignity. Our revolution will have its right to be only if it can answer these questions concretely»
The Man, who did what he says and said what he did, decided to find the solutions adapted to the above mentioned existential questions. He engaged at the same time on several projects:
• Economic guideline according to the necessities and the real needs of the people and not according to the requirements and interests' of the world capitalist economy.
• The land reform by which the land belongs to who cultivates it.
• The administrative reform to ensure good governance
• Women's empowerment by their participation in the political and economic life, the fight against the prostitution, the adoption of a family code, the prohibition of female genital mutilation…
• Environmental protection by the fight against desertification
• Etc…
In a few years, the Man made achieved a qualitative jump for his country. But he was aware that the essential questions of his people were that of his entire continent and all the exploited and oppressed people. Panafricanist and alter globalisation activist, he become the voice of the voiceless.
Moral rigour.....Integrity....
Supreme naivety.....Courage.
The felony won over the Man.
An afternoon, the Man was shot by assassins’ bullets.
The Man fell, but he had had the time to sow seed and to sprinkle it with his blood; he had time to remove thus a releasing chain link, freeing the oppressed, freeing the African youth.
He will have been a precursor of an alternative policy to the dependence and the control that the world economic institutions continue to impose by their model of development based on the debt.
But more significant, the Man will have contributed to the conscientisation of his people and all the oppressed, making them understand that there will never be an external credible alternative coming to save them. Therefore it is only by assuming themselves, trusting on their inner capacity «to dare to invent the future" that they will find the keys of their development and their freedom.
Today, in our social movements, political and cultural blooming, the Man lies in us.
The Man will remain forever in the collective conscience.
And, his example will always be used as breviary by the combatants of the liberation of humankind.
The Man was called Thomas Sankara.
Cheriff SY
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