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Ghanaian political scientist Eboe Hutchful who serves as the executive director of the Accra-based NGO, African Security Dialogue and Research, has suggested that his Ghanaian informants dispute the idea that Ghana released Taylor to Compaore; rather they contend that he was taken to the Ivorian border and released there. From Ivory Coast he is said to have made his way to Burkina Faso, “where the Libyans introduced him to Compaore,” rather than the other way around. Moreover, Hutchful suggests that Sankara may have already been killed by the time the Ghanaian authorities released Taylor.

We look on with puzzlement as Burkina Faso exports high quality vegetables and potatoes and strawberries to France.We take refuge only in our belief that we have a democracy and Mr Compaore, for all his peace-making and sophisticated outlook, was presiding over a fragile state.

When he built an impressive beachfront estate in the central region of our country, some of us wondered if Mr Compaore could possibly have been making retirement plans.Unfortunately he had obviously come to believe he was so much smarter than his neighbours; he had seen off three Ghanaian presidents - Mr Rawlings, John Kufuor and John Atta Mills. So why would he not outlast the incumbent, John Dramani Mahama? But the Burkinabe people had had enough, they intervened dramatically and the smooth operator had to flee to Ivory Coast; dishevelled and ruffled.I wish I could see the photo.

Back then our leader, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings was best friends with Thomas Sankara, and the suspicions made it difficult for relations to be warm between the two soldiers.

In the early 1990s, Mr Compaore, our neighbour, always seemed to manage to get the best of both worlds.I remember Captain Valentine Strasser telling me soon after he had overthrown Sierra Leone's President Joseph Momoh in 1992 that his inspiration was Mr Rawlings.

A civilian interim president, Michel Kafando, was appointed this week to guide the country on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert through to an election next year.

Sankara was again appointed Prime Minister in another military in January 1983 but dismissed in May 1983 because of revolutionary rhetoric which the French were uncomfortable with.

On 18 September 1989, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Henri Zongo and two other officers were arrested, alleged to be plotting to overthrow the regime, and were executed.

When Sankara was overthrown, the usurpers tried to placate all forces alleging the breaking of relations with those who not long before were friends and in this case they listed trade unionists and militant workers as well as relations with neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire and former colonial power – France. Gradually, Compaore reversed all the pro-people policies which were developed during the Thomas Sankara era. Blaise Compaore became a major ally of USA and France in the West African sub-region. He became a peace broker and facilitated peace, being the mediator in the Inter-Togolese Dialogue in 2006, in the crisis of Cote d’Ivoire in 2007 and between representatives of Malian coup d’etat and other regional leaders in 2012. He is also known to have had a hand in the brutal wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone as such being like a double edged knife.

The masses' uprising started on 29 October 2014. On 30 October, tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets and burnt government buildings, including the city hall, the ruling Congress of Democracy and Progress (CDP) party headquarters, and parts of the National Assembly. The state radio and television station was also stormed. A number of people died in the violence as police and soldiers tried to stop the uprising.

In this short but bold message to mark 27 years since the assassination of revolutionary President Thomas Sankara on October 15, his widow outlines some of the challenges facing Burkinabes under the failed Compaore regime and urges continued resistance.

Faced with this new challenge, the Burkinabé people have decided, in their overwhelming majority, to resist by marches which are the expression of the rejection of the policy put in place, disapproval of both the installing of a Senate and the modification of article 37 of the Constitution.

To conclude, I call for a gathering of Sankarists and of all progressive forces that aspire to change for the well-being of all Burkinabés. The fatherland or death, we will win! Madame Mariam SANKARA Montpellier, 14 October 2014

Thomas Sankara’s strategy was defined in his ‘Political Orientation Speech’[1] . It was a defiant alternative to neo-liberal development strategies. In contrast, it aimed to eliminate corruption, avert famine, make education and health real priorities (with a nation-wide literacy campaign and vaccination of 2.5 million children). It launched the most ambitious program for social and economic change ever attempted in Africa[2] .

Sankara and his allies were committed to achieving their egalitarian ideals, but these were imposed rather than being won through collective action of the workers and mass of the poor people. Despite its many significant achievements, this was socialism from above, not the self-emancipation of the working class and popular masses. This approach was to lead to the regime coming into conflict with sections of the working class and its organisations.

A union front was set up in January 1985 against the decline in democratic and trade union freedoms. This was to stay active throughout the “revolutionary” Sankara, period even though the trade unions and independent organisations were considerably weakened as a result of repression (including dismissal of civil servants, arrests and torture, etc).

There are no official restrictions on print news. I can't speak for other press'why there is a conspiracy of silence. There are no official restrictions on L'Independant. Unofficially, they tried to bribe me in the first year of operations. I worked for one press where they did bribe the editors so I left and created L'Independant. They came and offered me 50 million CFA (US$ 20,000 [8]) 'just to help you' they said, with the understanding that you won't be critical of the government. One man came, I don't know his name, he said, 'I agree with your writing and President Compaore does too. We want to help you.' But there was an understanding of self-censorship. It was clear the man worked for the government.

Zongo: There are over 200 mining companies operating in Burkina Faso now, all multinationals into gold mining. Many American, Canadian, U.K. and other companies. Multinationals have been heavy here for at least five years; most came with the new government. The situation today is that it is obvious the government has clear links with mining companies. Each company has its own links. There are no restrictions on these companies or other multinationals.

The brief cites Daf as the source of the testimony and then it cites Abu Keita. But Daf actually testified that going on this trip - he testified that going on this trip and he says that the material was originally supposed to be obtained from Libya and that this was changed to Burkina Faso. It is clear that none of the witnesses cited purportedly give different accounts at all.

And they indicate that, in this case, Blaise Compaoré and Muammar Gaddafi could have been indicted. Of course, a Prosecutor has an obligation to only indict those that they can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and we welcome the fact that the Defence, from the evidence that’s been heard in this case, believes that the involvement of Muammar Gaddafi and Blaise Compaoré has been proven, because as your Honours know, having heard all the evidence, certainly there is evidence that these individuals or the governments that they headed aided the RUF.

Recalling, of course, that golden thread, fashioned in Libya, including among its operatives, Gaddafi, a person who will have to loosen the purse strings for this one and a half million, and Burkina Faso. So why no mention of the other pillar of that triumvirate, Charles Taylor, why not?

We’ve received evidence in this trial, both from the UN panel of experts, I believe that’s P-18, about that March 1999 shipment, which was Ukrainian arms routed through Burkina Faso.

Sankara engaged a German brew master who experimented successfully, so the German ambassador told me, with locally grown maize added to the beer. The brew master showed that the popular local brew, dolo, made with sorghum, could be produced industrially and bottled, to replace some of the beers imported from Europe. Unfortunately, the German ambassador then had a visit from his French counterpart, who informed him that Burkina Faso and Burkinabé beer were both part of the French domain. The German brew master went home, and the experiments ended.

I was listening to the speech live on state radio, with a group of friends from several European and African countries. There were some chuckles. There was some open-mouthed incredulity. Someone said Sankara had really gone crazy. Another said he was becoming a “banana republic dictator.” Someone else said there was biblical significance in the speech.

I told him that I had seen no one celebrating. Apart from a few unruly groups of drunken young men from the disbanded “Committees for the Defence of the Revolution” lurching about, the roads of Ouagadougou had been eerily deserted in the vacuum left by the assassination. The only crowds I had seen had been weeping and grieving at the graveyard in Dagnoen. Compaoré looked confused when I said this, then haltingly explained that this was because “the Burkinabé don’t like bloodshed.” And he said repeatedly that he never wished to be president.

Notably, Vital Kamerhe, leader of Congo's Union pour la Nation Congolaise, has tweeted a message of solidarity for Burkina Faso's protesters, saying they are in the "same struggle." And while many analysts are hesitant to make the comparison, some Burkinabè protesters have likened the protest to the Arab uprisings that began in 2010. "October 30 is Burkina Faso’s black spring, like the Arab spring,” Emile Pargui Pare, an official from opposition party the Movement of People for Progress, told the AFP.