Thomas Sankara

The Democracy Of The Strongest Is Always The Best

May 1, 2026 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. Educate! Assassination, Burkina Faso, colonization, Thomas Sankara

On 15 October 1987, Thomas Sankara, the leader of Burkina Faso, was assassinated alongside twelve of his senior officials. At the time, which I remember well, there was great confusion as to who had carried out this unforgivable act. The assassins, too afraid to face Sankara, shot him from behind, hitting him multiple times before targeting those who were at the meeting with him. Shortly thereafter, one of Sankara’s associates, Blaise Compaoré, defended the coup by claiming that Sankara had endangered relations with France and Côte d’Ivoire, a close French ally.

Agroecology Is A Form Of Resistance And Decolonization

November 26, 2025 Pedro Stropasolas, People's Dispatch. Create! Agroecology, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Burkina Faso, Decolonization, Desertification, Food sovereignity, Ibrahim Traore, Pan Africanism, Thomas Sankara

In Burkina Faso, agroecology flourishes as an act of resistance. In a country where more than 80% of the active population makes their living off agriculture, peasant movements and social organizations have defended the production of healthy food and food self-sufficiency as a path to liberation from the wounds left by French neocolonialism. Leading this effort is the Yelemani Association, founded in 2009 by Blandine Sankara, sister of revolutionary leader and former president Thomas Sankara, who governed the country from 1983 to 1987, when he was assassinated.

Burkina Faso Is Moving Towards Self-Sufficiency In Food Production

November 13, 2025 Pedro Stropasolas, People's Dispatch. Create! Agrarian Reform, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Burkina Faso, Food Sovereignty, Ibrahim Traore, Pan Africanism, Thomas Sankara

Dependence on foreign aid, political instability, chronic poverty, and the effects of climate change are among the obstacles preventing Burkina Faso from achieving its longed-for food sovereignty. Currently, about 80% of the population of the Sahelian nation is involved in agricultural activity, which accounts for a third of the GDP. Even so, the country still imports more than 200,000 tons of rice per year. In response to this challenge, President Ibrahim Traoré’s government launched the so-called Agricultural Offensive in 2023, which has been revolutionizing the rural environment and serving as a model for the continent.

Repoliticizing A Generation

October 22, 2025 Amber Murrey, Africa Is A Country. Strategize! Africa, Anti-Imperialism, Pan Africanism, Thomas Sankara

Yesterday marked the 38th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara, who, on October 15, 1987, was killed alongside twelve of his comrades during a coup led by Blaise Compaoré. Sankara’s brief but transformative presidency (1983–1987) reoriented Burkina Faso’s political economy toward self-reliance, gender equality, ecological stewardship, and non-alignment in global affairs. For more than three decades, Aziz Salmone Fall, a pan-African activist, political scientist, and coordinator of the International Campaign Justice for Sankara (ICJS), has worked with Sankara’s family, Burkinabè activists, and international allies to demand truth and accountability.

Thomas Sankara’s Legacy Is Alive In The Sahel

August 15, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Africa, Burkina Faso, Revolution, Thomas Sankara

In the months after the 1987 coup in Burkina Faso that killed President Thomas Sankara, screen printers in the capital, Ouagadougou, began to churn out shirts with Sankara’s face on them. The image soon spread throughout the country. Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s former minister of justice, went on to rule the country until 2014. He was suspected from the outset of orchestrating Sankara’s murder, but it would take the Burkinabé courts until 2021–2022 to find him guilty. By then, he had long fled to Côte d’Ivoire, where he remains a fugitive. Throughout his time in office, Compaoré claimed to be a follower of Sankara – a political legacy he could not afford to disavow.

Brother Of Pan-Africanist Leader Thomas Sankara Grateful For Traore

August 13, 2025 Pedro Stropasolas, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Anti-colonialism, Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, Neocolonialism, Pan Africanism, Thomas Sankara

We’re standing in front of the Thomas Sankara Memorial, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital. Inaugurated on May 17 in the presence of various African heads of state and public figures, the site symbolizes a collective desire to preserve the legacy of the Burkinabé pan-Africanist leader Thomas Sankara and his 12 comrades who were assassinated in the 1987 coup d’état. The massacre, orchestrated by Sankara’s then-ally Blaise Compaoré – who became president and ruled until 2014 with support from France – interrupted a wave of transformative reforms meant to eliminate the scars of neocolonialism in the Sahel nation. In just four years, Sankara redistributed land to peasants and raised the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987. His radical transformation also extended to public health: 2.5 million children were vaccinated against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles.

Sankara’s Revolution Rises Again

August 5, 2025 Jonis Ghedi-Alasow, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Pan-African unity, Revolution, Sahel region, Thomas Sankara

August 4, marks 42 years since Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso, revitalizing the spirit of national liberation across Africa. His assassination in October 1987, though a setback, could not extinguish the struggle for Africa’s emancipation, for which he lived and ultimately died. His critique of foreign debt as “a skillfully managed reconquest of Africa,” delivered at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit three months before his murder, still resonates today. Nearly four decades after these initial steps, in the southern Sahel, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Venezuela Presents Anti-Blockade Policies To Burkina Faso Delegation

February 9, 2024 Ariadna Eljuri, Orinoco Tribune. Resist! Blockade, Burkina Faso, Neocolonialism, Sanctions, Thomas Sankara, Venezuela

This Wednesday, Venezuelan vice minister for anti-blockade policy, William Castillo, made a presentation to the visiting delegation from Burkina Faso. Castillo’s presentation covered the impact on Venezuela’s economy of the illegal coercive measures—euphemistically referred to as “sanctions”—imposed by the US and its vassals and spoke about how Venezuela has overcome them. In a statement, Castillo wrote that both parties agreed that “the sanctions are part of an illegal and criminal foreign policy and of a model of neocolonialism that uses attacks on the economy as a spearhead for the geopolitical control of free nations.” Burkina Faso also faces sanctions imposed by the European Union.

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