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Sankara and the Burkinabé Revolution: Charisma and Power, Local and External Dimensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Captain Thomas Sankara, Comrade President of Burkina Faso, was assassinated on 15 October 1987, allegedly in accordance with the wishes of Captain Blaise Compaoré, Major Jean-Baptiste Lingani, and Captain Henri Zongo. These three officers, said to have feared for their lives, had ordered the arrest of Sankara in order to avoid plunging their country into a blood-bath. The radio broadcast announcing the execution referred to Sankara as a ‘renegade’, a ‘traitor to the revolution’, ‘an autocratic mystic’, and a ‘paranoid misogynist’. It added that the ex-President's ‘high treason’ was illustrated by his trampling upon all organisational principles, his betrayal of the noble objectives of the democratic and popular revolution, his personalisation of power, and by his ambitious use of mysticism to solve the concrete problems of the masses. ‘This’, the broadcast concluded, ‘was inexorably leading us towards total chaos.’1 When he finally broke his silence, Compaoré, the alleged leader of the coup d'état, accused Sankara of ‘wanting to lead the world revolution’.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Page 437 note 1 ‘Dateline Africa’, in West Africa (London), 26 October 1987, p. 2133.

Page 437 note 2 ‘For Better or Worse?’, in ibid. 2 November 1987, p. 2147.

Page 437 note 3 Cf.Apter, David E., The Gold Coast in Transition (Princeton, 1955), p. 174: ‘Around the slogans and the demands, around the green, white, and red of the C.P.P. banners, around the almost mythical person of Kwame Nkrumah there slowly emerged a faithful flock, shepherded by the leader into the paths of nationalism and independence. We shall call Nkrumah a charismatic leader.’Google Scholar

Page 438 note 1 Sankara had asked me to call upon him in New York in 1984, and during a long conversation had sought to assure me that many of the persons I knew in Ouagadougou were safe, including former members of the Government. He did not reveal until my visit to Burkina Faso in 1986, as a delegate to the inaugural meeting of the Institute of the Black World, that as a young cadet at the military school in Ouagadougou, he had visited my Embassy to receive a prize he had won in a contest held by the United States Information Agency. I had become increasingly troubled by the President's moralistic views of foreign relations, and I also sensed during visits to Ouagadougou that he was losing some support. These forebodings led me to write on 30 April 1987 from West Africa that my contribution to the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in Denver in November 1987 would be entitled, ‘Sankara and the Revolution in Burkina Faso: the limits of charisma’. By the time of the A.S.A. meeting, Sankara himself was dead, and his revolution called into question.

Page 438 note 2 Sankara, Thomas, ‘Mon dernier message: la tolerance’, in Jeune Afrique (Paris), 1400, 4 11 1987, p. 11; my translation, as elsewhere in this article.Google Scholar

Page 438 note 3 Yahmed, Béchir Ben, ‘Un rêve brisé’,Google Scholar in ibid. 1399, 28 10 1987, p. 4.

Page 439 note 1 According to the hypothesis advanced by Auma-Osolo, Agola, ‘The more Africans produced charismatic leadership, the more they intensified their resistance to the colonial discriminatory policy’ Cause-Effect of Modern African Nationalism on the World Market (New York, 1983), p. 138.Google Scholar

Page 439 note 2 Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago and London, 1965), pp. 324–5.Google Scholar

Page 439 note 3 Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York and London, 1947 edn.), pp. 358–73.Google Scholar

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Page 440 note 2 Diallo, Siradiou, ‘Haute-Volta: qui sont les nouveau dirigeants?’, in Jeume Afrique, 1146, 22 12 1982, pp. 50 ff.Google Scholar

Page 441 note 1 Ibid.

Page 441 note 2 Ibid.

Page 441 note 3 Diallo, Siradiou, ‘La Chute de l'aigle’, in Jeune Afrique, 1169, 1 06 1983, pp. 24ff.Google Scholar

Page 442 note 1 Andriamirado, Sennen, ‘Thomas Sankara entre Rawlings et Kaddafi’Google Scholar in ibid. p. 30.

Page 442 note 2 Maïga, Mohamed, ‘Haute-Volta: douze heures avec Thomas Sankara’, in Afrique-Asie (Paris), 26 09–9 10 1983, pp. 18 ff.Google Scholar

Page 442 note 3 Ibid.

Page 443 note 1 Ibid.

Page 444 note 1 Cf.Skinner, Elliott P., The Mossi of the Upper Volta: the political development of a Sudanese people (Stanford, 1964), pp. 13 ff.Google Scholar

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Page 446 note 1 ‘Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso) reçu hier par le Président’, in Fraternité Matin (Abidjan), 20 August 1987, p. 24.

Page 447 note 1 Maïga, Mohamed, ‘Haute-Volta: la rentrée d'un peuple…’, in Afrique–Asie, 29 Augusts–11 September, 1988, p. 20;Google Scholarand Brooke, James, ‘Young Voice in Africa: sports and clean living’, in The New York Times, 7 September 1987, p. 10.Google Scholar

Page 448 note 1 Jeune Afrique, 1399, 28 October 1987, p. 35.

Page 448 note 2 Brooke, loc. cit. p. 8.

Page 448 note 3 Quoted in ibid.

Page 448 note 4 Namely, Bamouni, Babou Paulin, Burkina Faso: processus de la révolution (Paris, 1987),Google ScholarZiegler, Jean, Sankara: un nouveau pouvoir africain (Paris, 1986),Google Scholar and Andriamirado, Sennen, Sankara le rebelle (Paris, 1987).Google Scholar

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Page 449 note 2 ‘Coup in Burkina Faso’, in West Africa, 26 October 1987, p. 5.

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Page 451 note 2 U.S. State Department, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, West Africa (Washington, D.C.), 15 10 1987, p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 452 note 1 Sankara, ‘Mon dernier message’, loc. cit. p. 9.

Page 452 note 2 Harsch, Ernest, ‘Burkina Special Report: a revolution derailed’, in Africa Report (New York), 33, 1, 1988, p. 36.Google Scholar

Page 452 note 3 Ibid.

Page 452 note 4 U.S. State Department, op. cit. 19 October 1987, p. 24.

Page 453 note 1 Quoted from Le Monde (Paris) in ‘Leader Mourned in Burkina Faso’, The Washington Post, 18 October 1987, p. A36.

Page 453 note 2 U.S. State Department, op. cit. 20 October 1987, p. 24.

Page 454 note 1 ‘Compaoré Takes Over’, in West Africa, 26 October 1987, p. 2104.

Page 455 note 1 Diallo, Siradiou and Thibout, Monique, ‘Burkina: Compaoré est-il en train de réussir?’, in Jeune Afrique, 1417, 03 1988, p. 25. Sankara's death is still being mourned by Africans both on the continent and in the diaspora. In the words of an editorial in theGoogle ScholarAfrican Connection (New York), 1, 6, 1988, p. 2, ‘Thomas Sankara, your works, dedication and commitment have put you forever among the legends of modern Africa. You have transformed a little known country, Burkina Faso, into an emerging political influence on the continent.’Google Scholar

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