Thomas Sankara Memorial

[rowan]

Seems they have belatedly inaugurated a memorial to former Burkina and Faso president and revolutionary hero Thomas Sankara in the capital Ouagadougou today. A motorcycle-riding, jazz guitar playing pan-Africanist & anti-imperialist, Sankara was dubbed 'Africa's Che Guevara' after leading a popular Libyan-backed coup in 1983. He thus became the Western African nation's president at the age of 33 and changed its named from Upper Volta. He also sought to eliminate rampant corruption and French domination, nationalize land and resources, break away from the IMF and World Bank control, advance women's rights and outlaw female genital mutilation, introduce vaccinations for children and set up hospitals and schools, as well as implement road and rail construction plans. Sound too good to be true? Naturally. He was assassinated just four years later in an attack led by a former colleague Blaise Compaore, who would reverse many of Sankara's policies during his reign of 27 years, before being overthrown by popular protest two years ago. Sankara was one of a number of pan-Africanist, anti-imperialist leaders to have suffered the same fate, invariably with foreign involvement; others including Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Eduardo Mondlane, Amílcar Cabral, Steve Biko, Samora Machel and John Garang,

http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20161002-burk ... 2016-10-02