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The Burkina Faso leader had certain distinct blind spots: his rule was by no means unimpeachable and had an authoritarian bite. Sankara replaced political parties with “committees”, which he saw as a more direct form of public participation. He didn’t care for the unions, and after a general strike in 1985, he fired 1,300 civil servants and replaced them with often under-qualified loyalists. He instituted a type of public justice in the form of “revolutionary tribunals”, where people were punished for corruption but apparently also far vaguer crimes like being a lazy worker, or a “counter-revolutionary”. Sankara also increasingly clamped down on media freedom – somewhat ironically, since during his stint as Information Minister in the previous government, he reportedly resigned with the words “Misfortune to those who gag the people!”

Compaoré soon won back the support of Western powers by re-liberalising the economy and immediately re-joining the IMF and the World Bank. Today Burkina Faso remains one of the least developed countries in the world.

In other words, Sankara didn’t simply rail against violence against women or pay lip service to the need for gender parity. He was, to quote writer Sokari Ekrine, “meticulous in explaining class relations and the everyday ways in which African masculinities work in collaboration with capital in exploiting women’s labour and abuse of their dignity”.

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.

Deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries was one of the reasons given, with Compaoré stating that Sankara jeopardised foreign relations with former colonial power France and neighbouring Ivory Coast. Prince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord allied to Charles Taylor, told Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that it was engineered by Charles Taylor

At a recent, exhilarating and triumphant concert in Memphis by the Afrobeat star Seun Kuti, son of the late Fela and leader of his father’s band Egypt 80, the concert organizers felt compelled to apologize for his politics. Though “IMF,” a standout song from Kuti’s latest album, A Long Way to the Beginning, stands for “International motherfuckers,” it was his good-natured, often funny, but sincere bantering between songs, mostly about poverty and corruption and a few times laced with a swear word or two, which offended the venue management.

Like the Greek “no” voters, however, the audience responded to her with loud boos and later insulted Levitt Shell, the concert venue, on its Facebook page (One of my favorites was the comment describing the giant electronic message as “Orwellian”).

This 362 million dollars could give the 16.9 million citizens of Burkina Faso twenty-two dollars each, but could make a hand-full of people wealthy. In 2011, mining revenues earned Burkina Faso 127 billion CFA (US$247 million). Between 2007 and 2011, it brought in 440 billion CFA, (837 million US $) [variation in figures due to exchange rates] )http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_industry_of_Burkina_Faso

A major concern of the US appears to be protecting the pipeline from Chad to Cameroon and other oil and gas interests in the region. For France it would be protecting its uranium mines, and the pipeline for its energy needs, as well as oil and gas interests in the region. There is also the debt service. If Burkina Faso doesn’t pay its debt then the taxpayers of the loaning governments will have to pay. The US, for instance, borrows money in order to loan it!

The gold services the debt. The so-called “terrorists” may now indeed include Islamists, but also includes those non-Islamists protesting environmental destruction and exclusion from the benefits of the mining and/or the petroleum industry, along with Tuareg nationalists.

The US, Canada and others had to help protect French government owned Areva’s uranium mines (and surely other types of mines) in Operation Serval (a type of wildcat). Recall which three countries participated in the kidnapping of Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide? The US, Canada and France.