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.

The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project.

“He [Compaore] is a guy that we’ve sort of been able to work with to help with some of the issues in the region, in terms of being able to use Burkina strategically to counter the unsavories in the neighborhood,” the U.S. official said. “This change is a change that [the U.S. government] is going to have to contend with.”

It’s the kind of help -- along with millions of dollars yearly in foreign aid -- that the U.S. is counting on Burkina Faso needing, whoever is in charge.

Michel Kafando, the head of the current interim government, has agreed, seeing a resolution of Sankara's death as necessary for national reconciliation - and as a way to smooth the country's transition to democracy. National elections are planned for October 2015.

The question now is whether the Burkinabe judiciary will go beyond exhuming Sankara's remains, and start calling high-ranking officials to testify in court over what happened in October 1987.

It remains to be seen if the interim government has the capacity - and international support - to do so. The next step for the activists is to connect with sympathisers and champions of Sankara beyond Burkina Faso's borders.

President Obama’s second term has been particularly marked by an intensification of warnings against African rulers tempted to modify their country’s constitutions for their personal ambitions. Such warnings have been delivered, either in person or in writing, by Secretary of State John Kerry, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and US Special Envoy for the DRC and the African Great Lakes Region, Russ Feingold. French president Francois Hollande, on the other hand, publicly spoke about the need for African rulers to uphold their countries’ constitutions on several occasions, including the fifteenth Francophonie Summit, a major event that gathered the leaders of 57 French-speaking countries in Dakar, Senegal in late November 2014. “Where constitutional rules are abused, where freedom is violated, where the alternation of power is prevented, I affirm here that the citizens of these countries will always find, in the Francophone sphere, the necessary support to uphold justice, law and democracy” said President Hollande, whose speech was very similar in message to the one Francois Mitterrand, France’s longest-serving president, made in 1990 at the sixteenth Franco-African Summit. President Mitterrand’s speech, delivered in the coastal resort of La Baule, France, set the tone for fresh relations between France and its former colonies, by conditioning aid on the adoption of democratic reforms.

Regardless of how the West decides to persuade African rulers to change their ways, a new wave of democracy is making its way throughout the continent. This is the same wave that swept away a stubborn Blaise Compaoré. The same wave that recently pushed large groups of youth to the streets of Kinshasa to protest a controversial electoral bill. And finally, the same wave that gave the people of Burundi the courage to publicly denounce their president’s decision to run for a third term.

The neighboring countries, especially Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Benin, but also Ivory Coast, have a vital interest that Burkina gains stability, again. But I think it will be France, and the US, in the end, which will weigh in and make the difference. The military knows that. They know there is no turning back to pre-2000 or even pre-1996. Democratisation has arrived in the heads, and, in form of mobile communication, in the hands of the people. News are traveling much, much faster today. And the Burkina-bé are proud of their democratic progress. Very much so.

The perspective that only the USA and France have the wisdom to sort out the Burkinabes problems is malodorous and ironic given that Mitterrand undoubtably installed Compaore in the pool of Sankara's blood replacing an African solution of full employment and equal rights with the "politique de la ventre" that they are much more comfortable with. It would be convenient in media terms if a messanaic leader rose to lead the revolution but maybe with the will of the masses, it has.

It didn’t take long for the noble ideals of Burkina Faso’s people-powered revolution to succumb to the harsh, nasty realities of the world in which we live. Just three days, in fact. (In this excellent piece on Africa is a Country, Siddhartha Mitter argues that it was actually as little as six hours.)

Rushing into the power vacuum, as they always seem to do, were the men with guns (who may or may not have precipitated the unrest in the first place – popular protests are rarely as popular, or spontaneous, as they seem). One faction of the army declared themselves to be the new government, and then another, competing factions followed suit.

The African Union has a strict policy of refusing to recognise coups and unconstitutional changes of government. This policy makes no exception for popular revolutions. There is a strong element of self-interest in this, of course – Africa’s many authoritarian governments are hardly likely to incentivise radical change – but it’s also a recognition that sudden, dramatic change is more often than not counter-productive.

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.

Meanwhile, international commentaries on the Burkinabé protests immediately drew upon a discourse of ‘uncertainty’ in post-revolutionary moments. In the shadow of post-Arab Spring disappointments in Egypt, people have rushed to consider, ‘Will this revolution be just like Egypt?’ or to posit that‘Unfortunately, this will probably be business as usual’. This fatalistic discourse fails to appreciate the enormous energy required by people to rise up against 27-years of presidential power—indeed, the energy required by people to rise up. Period.

we should learn from the political situation in post-Arab Spring Egypt. However, to immediately and reflexively raise doubts over whether this revolutionary moment will bring about serious political, economic or social empowerment for the people of Burkina pays a disservice—even if inadvertently so—to the protest movement as well as to the transformative potential it represents.

Let us celebrate this moment and look with both an optimistic anticipation fed by this recent victory as well as a critical eye for the ways in which political mobilizations in the past have been sabotaged—not because sabotage is inevitable in Burkina today but precisely because it is preventable.

In recent months unrest and strikes among the working class have increased in West Africa. In Ghana, to the south of Burkina Faso, a general strike impacting oil workers, educators and other public sector employees has prompted legal actions by the government to force the employees back on the job.

Both Ghana and Burkina Faso have been lauded for their increasing rates of economic growth. Nevertheless, if these profits from the production of gold and other strategic minerals are not shared with the people, the working class and youth will continue to demonstrate and strike in opposition to neo-colonial rule.

Despite French military presence and political intolerance of opposition, the myth surrounding one of Africa’s long serving tyrants has been broken by the masses of working people showing what people’s power is. France launched its supposed anti-terrorist programme making Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, one of its bases just in August 2014.

The opposition is splintered and state institutions are weak. By contrast, the military has been gobbling up resources for two decades and is likely to remain involved in running the country in one way or another. If anything, its motivation to do so has increased recently. New mineral finds mean that whoever is in charge will control growing mining revenues.

The American and French armed forces have used it to keep an eye on Mali and Nigeria as well as the wider Sahel and Sahara regions. Mr Zida, the interim leader, received training from the American army, as did the leader of the most recent coup in Mali.

At the "Villa des Hotes", the government mansion where the president took shelter on Friday from the storm rocking his country, the clipped lawns are flawless and the wrought-iron gates firmly locked. Compaore, his wife Chantal and their entourage were spotted rolling towards the flat-roofed villa in a 27-car convoy - one for each of the 27 years he held onto power until popular anger forced him out last week.

Their convoy was seen heading for the southern Burkinabe garrison town of Po, home to a key army training centre.But the residents of Po had other plans - announcing they would barricade the streets rather than welcome the loathed ex-leader.

The Ivorian government later confirmed it had taken in the couple, housed in the guest villa dubbed the "Giscardium" after it was inaugurated by France's onetime president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.Barring a few local journalists scouting for news, few Ivorians have ventured close to the mansion, set among the vast, quiet avenues of the administrative capital.

MPs who backed Mr Compaore's unconstitutional bid last year to extend his 27-year rule would be barred from office, the law states.

Three former ministers are among the eight allies of Mr Compaore whose arrests have been confirmed by the authorities. They include the former ministers of interior, mining and infrastructure - Jerome Bougouma, Salif Kabore and Jean-Bertin Ouedraogo respectively.