Thomas Sankara, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Thomas Sankara

First President and Revolutionary Leader of Burkina Faso

Date of Birth: 21-Dec-1949

Place of Birth: Yako, Nord Region, Burkina Faso

Date of Death: 15-Oct-1987

Profession: military personnel, politician, guitarist

Nationality: Republic of Upper Volta

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius


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About Thomas Sankara

  • Thomas Isidore NoĂ«l Sankara (French pronunciation: ?[t?ma s?~ka?a]; 21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a BurkinabĂ© revolutionary and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987.
  • A Marxist and pan-Africanist, he was viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, and is sometimes referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara".
  • However, many supporters dislike this nickname, because by calling him that, he is put in the shadow of another man that did not ‘walk in his shoes’.A group of revolutionaries seized power on behalf of Sankara (who was under house arrest at the time) in a popularly-supported coup in 1983.
  • Aged 33, Sankara became the President of the Republic of Upper Volta.
  • He immediately launched programmes for social, ecological, and economic change, and renamed the country from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("Land of Incorruptible People").
  • His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalising all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
  • His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritising education with a nationwide literacy campaign and promoting public health by vaccinating 2,500,000 children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.Other components of his national agenda included planting over 10,000,000 trees to combat the growing desertification of the Sahel, redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents and establishing a road and railway construction programme.
  • On the local level, Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary, and had over 350 communities build schools with their own labour.
  • Moreover, he outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy.
  • He appointed women to high governmental positions and encouraged them to work outside the home and stay in school, even if pregnant.Sankara encouraged the prosecution of officials accused of corruption, counter-revolutionaries and "lazy workers" in Popular Revolutionary Tribunals.
  • As an admirer of the Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.His revolutionary programmes for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa's poor.
  • Sankara remained popular with most of his country's citizens.
  • However, his policies alienated and antagonised several groups, which included the small, but powerful BurkinabĂ© middle class, the tribal leaders who were stripped of their long-held traditional privileges of forced labour and tribute payments, as well as the governments of France and its ally the Ivory Coast.
  • On 15 October 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise CompaorĂ©, who assumed leadership of the state shortly after.
  • A week before his assassination, Sankara declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas".

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