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Whether Thomas Sankara wanted the position of leader is irrelevant, and in spite of all the accusations that have been levelled against him, it appears that for the most part he sought to unite rather than to eliminate, to deepen his understanding, working unstintingly and seeking to convince rather than imposing his will by force. These assertions appear provocative in light of what has been said about him, even by sympathisers who acknowledge the positive aspects of his action but agree on his authoritarian tendencies. Where is the truth?

Relationships were patiently built up that enabled the political takeover in a relatively confident climate. Unfortunately, after 4 August 1983, and although the more right-wing elements of the army had been dismissed, it was necessary to reach a compromise with the army as a whole, going against the wishes of the political parties, which found themselves outnumbered by the military in the CNR [Conseil National de la Révolution, the National Revolutionary Council].

To foster a spirit of enterprise among the farmers, the country’s main producers of wealth, by giving them their rightful place in the political life of the country and by trying to give them a fair price for their labour. - To try to promote a planned national economy by developing local production and processing.

he concept of endogenous or self-centred development refers to the process of economic, social, cultural, scientific and political transformation, based on the mobilisation of internal social forces and resources and using the accumulated knowledge and experiences of the people of a country. It also allows citizens to be active agents in the transformation of their society instead of remaining spectators outside of a political system inspired by foreign models.

One of the pre-eminent theoreticians of endogenous development, Professor Joseph Ki-Zerbo, states, ‘If we develop ourselves, it is by drawing from the elements of our own development.’ To put it in another manner, ‘We do not develop. We develop ourselves.’

The first Popular Development Plan (PPD), from October 1984 to December 1985 was adopted after a participatory and democratic process including the most remote villages. The financing of the plan was 100 percent Burkinabe. It must be noted that from 1985 to 1988, during Sankara’s presidency, Burkina Faso did not receive any foreign ‘aid’ from the West, including France, nor the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He had relied entirely on his own strength and the solidarity of friendly countries sharing the same vision and ideals.

Despite the period of peace that Burkina experienced during this time, and a comparatively generous 13 Billion US Dollars in international development assistance, the country still ranks only 181st out of 187 countries in terms of human development. All of the other bottom ten countries in the HDI ranking experienced devastating civil wars during this time – except Guinea, which instead had to put up with a brutal military dictatorship. To put it bluntly: Blaise Compaoré is the only African head of state who managed to dramatically limit the development of his country without declaring outright war on it.*

Instead, Compaoré is obviously more concerned with developing his own personal fortune and that of his entourage. This can be observed clearly by visiting Ouaga2000, a newly built, extravagant part of the capital, where one can indeed find the “˜wide and well maintained’ roads that Keating and Nadoun mention in their article. While the rest of the city (not to speak of the rest of the country) has only a handful of surfaced roads, in Ouaga2000 new SUVs glide over a pristine tarmac in front of lavish villas and luxury hotels.

His predecessor Thomas Sankara (killed during a coup led by Compaoré) attempted to limit the power of traditional rulers and emancipate the country from conservative and authoritarian rule. Compaoré by contrast embraced the conservative elements of society, securing their privileges and making them the foundation of his power.

The second lesson is that international creditors are the enemy of democracy. The Troika, which really has been weighing heavily on the side of creditors, tried to bully the Greek government into not consulting with its people, as democracy requires, over further austerity proposals. In a blatant display of elitism, Yanis Varoufakis, the outgoing finance minister, was once asked: “How do you expect common people to understand complex issues“?

In its recent vote to reject austerity measures proposed by international creditors, Greece has shown that economic might does not always make right. Syriza’s tough stance has mirrored the approach that Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso had to structural adjustment, so this is nothing new.

The IMF and World Bank also tie reducing corruption and instituting transparency measure to loans.

A group called Balai Citoyen (‘Citizens’ Broom’) played a key role in the protests. Balai was founded by prominent musicians: Smockey, a rapper, and the reggae artist Sams’K Le Jah, whose music helped to energize the mainly young crowd—60 per cent of Burkinabès are under 24. As well as Balai Citoyen, other social movements mobilized, among them the Mouvement Ça Suffit (‘That’s Enough’), along with trade unionists and established opposition politicians such as Zéphirin Diabré and Saran Sérémé, who had formerly been members of Compaoré’s ruling party.

the Burkinabè protests bear comparison with the overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt—not just in their scale and militancy, but in their equivocal outcome: some of the old regime’s functionaries could soon be found at the head of Burkina Faso’s post-Compaoré government.

Eighty per cent of government expenditure is covered by international aid. [2]

The ‘old’ discourse first emerged during the 1930s and became increasingly important in the post World War II decades.[4] According to Maxwell and Slater, food policy was here rather focusing on the rural population. It was rural peasants that were regarded as being food-insecure and the general focus of food policy was on agricultural technology and production.

a “new” paradigm debate finally kicked off in 2007/2008 when both oil and agricultural commodity prices around the world exploded. Scholars as well as policy makers recognized that the former discourse with much emphasis on local agricultural production was outdated and global market complexities had to be taken into account when addressing issues of food security and sustainability.

While it seems that the literature assumes that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ emerging discourse contradict each other, I rather believe that both approaches have to be taken into account to the same degree. Interestingly, as I later on argue in this paper, the revolutionary government in Brukina Faso during the 1980s took that already for granted when addressing the issue of its population’s food security.

While the military has certainly played a crucial role in the overthrow of his own government, it was mass popular mobilisation that sowed the seeds of Compaoré’s downfall. Reflecting this, perhaps one of the most provoking images to emerge from the crisis was that of ten young civilians posing in jubilatory fashion in the main state TV broadcasting room where normally one would expect to see a stony-faced junta issuing its message to the nation.

acking a vibrant middle class or robust civilian institutions capable of managing a truly popular revolution, the army has proven to be the final arbiter in forcing Compaoré from office. It also appears increasingly likely to step into the void left by his departure. But the army’s rule is likely to be short-lived. International pressure to restore civilian rule will be considerable, even if it means a transitional arrangement. The age of the military seizing power in West Africa and declaring indefinite rule is receding as accountability pressures grow, driven both by increased popular activism and international responsiveness.

But domestic and international stakeholders are likely to fudge a solution that sees an eventual transition within a year back to fully elected rule. Businesses in Burkina Faso, and indeed the wider West African region, will be watching with unease. The crisis highlights the volatility and unpredictability of many West African frontier markets.But investors can take reassurance from the fact that not all coups signal that a country has entered a state of free-fall. The risk of civil conflict in Burkina Faso is in fact limited; the country lacks pronounced ethnic and sectarian divisions, there is no precedent of civil conflict and no widespread possession of arms by non-state groups. Compaoré’s overthrow will generate considerable institutional turmoil and policy inertia in the year ahead and the political environment will certainly become more fractious with the loss of such a long-standing leader. However it will not usher in radical policy changes or fundamental changes in the way that the Burkinabé political system works. Risks will remain manageable for those prepared and equipped to play the long game and wait for the dust to settle on what has been a landmark moment in Burkinabé and indeed West African politics.

Exxon (Esso) has for decades mined uranium in an international consortium exploiting vast tracts of the Sahara. Barrick Gold -- a George H.W. Bush (former CIA director and US President), Brian Mulroney (former Prime Minister of Canada), Howard Baker (former U.S. Senator) enterprise -- operates by dictator's proxy in Mali and Niger -- in the Liptako frontiere with Burkina Faso. No matter. Foreign interests are anathema to the media mythology of poverty, famine, overpopulation, drought and desertification in the Sahel.

Ouagadougou is a nightmare of unregulated exhaust, traffic and noise. Attendants make a dollar an hour at shiny new Royal Dutch/Shell gas stations. Shell adverts cycle over the TV. Forced child marriage and female genital mutilation keep the women down.

Local newspapers get their international news shipped to them by the U.S. Embassy. 'Every week we get a package of information from the U.S. Embassy,' said Mr. Ouedraojo, the Directeur de L'Observateur newspaper, 'the information from the U.S. Embassy is in French, and it is very good.'

Probably most important is the suggestion that in the post-Compaoré period there would be an audit of mining revenues. In this context the recent (Aug. 6) suspicious looking bankruptcy-liquidation of the UK’s Amara, formerly Cluff, Gold’s Burkina Faso subsidiary (Seguénéga Mining SA (“SMSA”) appears interesting. Additionally declaring Force Majeure due to a coup would allow other, perhaps failing, mining companies to receive insurance monies.

Probable Amara Sega extension to Kalsaka Mine, zoom of upper left corner. The biggest institutional investor of Amara is (or was) reportedly the rather mysterious Franklin Advisers, Inc. which is a privately owned investment manager in San Mateo, California. The biggest fund investor is (or was) reportedly Franklin Gold and Precious Metals Fund.

The mining costs claimed by Amara appear excessive compared to the Burkina average and even more so if they did not pay the contractor doing the work!

When most African countries depended on imported food and external assistance for development, Sankara championed local production and the consumption of locally-made goods. He firmly believed that it was possible for the Burkinabè, with hard work and collective social mobilization, to solve their problems: chiefly scarce food and drinking water. In Sankara’s Burkina, no one was above farm work, or graveling roads–not even the president, government ministers or army officers. Intellectual and civic education were systematically integrated with military training and soldiers were required to work in local community development projects.

When most African countries depended on imported food and external assistance for development, Sankara championed local production and the consumption of locally-made goods. He firmly believed that it was possible for the Burkinabè, with hard work and collective social mobilization, to solve their problems: chiefly scarce food and drinking water. In Sankara’s Burkina, no one was above farm work, or graveling roads–not even the president, government ministers or army officers. Intellectual and civic education were systematically integrated with military training and soldiers were required to work in local community development projects.

There are indeed ideological similarities between Sankara and Malema, with both pushing a pro-nationalisation, pro-land redistribution, anti-imperialist agenda. But particularly in personal respects, there seem stark differences also.

“Four years after Sankara came to power, Burkina Faso was practically self-sufficient in its demand for basic foodstuffs,” wrote Peter Dorrie for Think Africa Press in 2012. “Today, the government has to import much of its food, even in years with a good harvest.”

Sankara saw his most important project as “transform[ing] people’s attitudes”, releasing the Burkinabe – as he called them – from a neo-colonial mindset. For this reason he was opposed to the idea of foreign aid and the financial assistance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. “He who feeds you, controls you,”

Sankara vehemently and publicly denounced odious debt and rallied African political leaders to do the same.

What distinguishes Sankara from many other revolutionary leaders was his confidence in the revolutionary capabilities of ordinary human beings. He did not see himself as a messiah or prophet, as he famously said before the United Nations General Assembly in October of 1984. It is worth quoting from Sankara at length, when before the delegation of 159 nations, he said: ‘I make no claim to lay out any doctrines here. I am neither a messiah nor a prophet. I possess no truths. My only aspiration is…to speak on behalf of my people…to speak on behalf of the “great disinherited people of the world”, those who belong to the world so ironically christened the Third World. And to state, though I may not succeed in making them understood, the reasons for our revolt’.

In an interview with the Cameroonian anticolonial historian Mongo Beti, he said, ‘We are fighting for the equality of men and women - not a mechanical, mathematical equality but making women the equal of men before the law and especially in relation to wage labor. The emancipation of women requires their education and their gaining economic power. In this way, labor on an equal footing with men on all levels, having the same responsibilities and the same rights and obligations…’.

His government spurned foreign aid and tried to stamp out the influence of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the country by adopting debt reduction policies and nationalising all land and mineral wealth.

Compaore, though, has had some success. The mining industry has seen a boost in recent years, with the copper, iron and manganese markets all improving. Gold production shot up by 32 percent in 2011 at six sites, according to figures from the mines ministry, making Burkina Faso the fourth-largest gold producer in Africa.

"Sankara had many enemies because he wrested privileges from looters in favour of the poor," Yabré said. "Maybe he did this too radically and within too short a time."

For mineral-rich Burkina Faso, a west African gold producer, 100 percent of its exports to Switzerland over this period, accounting for 15 percent of all exports, also "vanished".This all adds to the levels of opacity associated with Switzerland, and the companies involved have not come under the kind of international pressure for disclosure that has been exerted on the country's famously secretive banks.

The example of Ecuador was at the forefront of everyone’s minds at the time. After a few meetings with some MPs who were interested in the project, including Mabrouka M’barek whose support was decisive, a bill was drafted and signed by MPs from all parties except Ennahdha. On 17 July 2012 an African parliament tabled for the very first time a bill on a citizens’ audit of public debt. It was a tribute to everyone who had risen up against the injustice of the debt that was used to humiliate and oppress the continent, and of course a tribute to the distinguished assassinated President of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara.

Blaise Compaoré and Françafrique killed Thomas Sankara in the belief that they could extinguish the example he set for African youth and progressive forces across the continent. They could not have been more wrong. One week before his assassination, in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Thomas Sankara declared: ‘Ideas cannot be killed, ideas never die.’ Indeed, the history of humanity is replete with martyrs and heroes whose ideas and actions have survived the passage time to inspire future generations.

His unrelenting struggle against corruption, long before the World Bank and the IMF picked up on this issue, made Sankara an enemy of all corrupt presidents on the continent and of the international capitalist mafia for whom corruption is a tool for conquering markets and pillaging the resources of the global South.

‘Our revolution in Burkina Faso is open to the suffering of all peoples. It also draws its inspiration from the experiences of peoples since the dawn of humanity. We wish to be the heirs of all of the revolutions of the world, of all of the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World.’

Sankara was a junior officer in the army of Upper Volta, a former French colony which was run as a source of cheap labour for neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire to benefit a tiny ruling class and their patrons in Paris. As a student in Madagascar, Sankara had been radicalised by waves of demonstrations and strikes taking place.

“’Where is imperialism?” Look at your plates when you eat. These imported grains of rice, corn, and millet - that is imperialism.”

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler says that a combination of massive land distribution, fertiliser and irrigation saw agricultural productivity boom; “hunger was a thing of the past”.