On April 6, 2022, Burkina Faso’s ex-President Blaise CompaorĂ© was tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for murder. It took 35 years for justice to catch up with him for murdering his revolutionary socialist predecessor, Thomas Sankara (the “Che Guevara of Africa”), in a 1987 right-wing military coup.
How long will justice take to catch up with the CIA and its French intelligence counterpart, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), for what appears to have been their part in masterminding or enabling the plot that overthrew and killed Sankara?
As young military officers in Burkina Faso during the 1970s and 1980s, Thomas Sankara and Blaise CompaorĂ© were the best of friends. The two traveled the country playing in a musical band together and Sankara’s parents adopted CompaorĂ© as his parents had died when he was young.
In 1983, Sankara and CompaorĂ© launched a coup against Burkina Faso’s military regime by Jean-Baptiste OuĂ©draogo. Sankara became president, and CompaorĂ© his deputy, their bond remaining unshakeable.
But four years later, in an act of treachery fit for a Shakespearian tragedy, Compaoré and a group of commandos stormed a government building where Sankara was in a meeting and shot him at point-blank range.
According to a witness who claimed to be in the room at the time, CompaorĂ©—possibly at the urging of his wife Chantal, the daughter of Ivory Coast leader HouphouĂ«t Boigny—was the one to pull the trigger.
The witness, Momo Jiba, an aide to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, stated, “I was right there when Thomas Sankara said ‘because you are my best friend, I call you my brother, and yet you assassinate me.’”
Upon hearing these words, CompaorĂ© allegedly made an irritated gesture, said something to Sankara in French and then fired the first shot. If he had not done so, a man named GuengĂšre, who later became Defense Minister, would have shot Sankara and become Burkina Faso’s next president.
Belated Conviction
On April 6, 2022, time and the law finally caught up with Compaoré, who was convicted in absentia in Ouagadougou for killing Sankara and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Hyacinthe Kafundo, CompaorĂ©’s former head of security, and General Gilbert DiendĂ©rĂ©, a former senior army commander with close ties to the U.S., were also convicted and given life sentences.
Five other people were found guilty of a range of offenses, including giving false evidence, bribing potential witnesses and complicity in undermining state security. Three were found not guilty, including the doctor accused of saying on Sankara’s death certificate that he died of natural causes.
Throughout his 27-year rule from 1987 to 2014, CompaorĂ© thwarted attempts to investigate the circumstances of Sankara’s death, including repeated calls for his remains to be exhumed (Sankara had been buried in a commoner’s grave), adding to speculation about CompaorĂ©’s part in the murder.
Africa’s Che Guevara
Considered the “African Che Guevara,” Sankara was the rare revolutionary who was able to implement his ideals in power and to affect positive change.
... Continue reading here.