Marxist-Leninist icon Sankara and 12 colleagues were gunned down by a hit squad in 1987 during a coup that brought Sankara's former comrade, Blaise Compaore, to power. <\/p>\n
Former Burkina Faso president Thomas Sankara. Picture: Wikipedia. <\/p>\n
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - After three months of hearings, the landmark trial into the assassination of Burkina Faso's 1980s revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara enters it final stage next Monday.<\/p>\n
Marxist-Leninist icon Sankara and 12 colleagues were gunned down by a hit squad in 1987 during a coup that brought Sankara's former comrade, Blaise Compaore, to power. Compaore ruled the West African country for the next 27 years.<\/p>\n
Here are some highlights from the a military court in the capital Ouagadougou. The proceedings are being followed avidly in Burkina, where the unpunished killings were a taboo subject during the Compaore years.<\/p>\n
CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE<\/p>\n
Twelve of the 14 suspects appeared in court when the trial began in October 2021, charged with complicity in murder, harming state security and complicity in the concealment of corpses.<\/p>\n
But two of the key defendants -- Compaore himself and his then head of security, Hyacinthe Kafando -- have been conspicuous by their absence.<\/p>\n
The former president, who was deposed by a popular uprising in 2014 and fled to neighbouring Ivory Coast, has always denied ordering Sankara's murder and is boycotting what his lawyers dismiss as a \"political trial\".<\/p>\n
Kafando, who is accused of leading the commando that carried out the bloodbath at a meeting of Sankara's Revolutionary Council, has been on the run since 2016.<\/p>\n
A third key suspect, 61-year-old general Gilbert Diendere, has categorically denied the charges against him, as have all but one of the other defendants.<\/p>\n
Diendere, who became Compaore's right-hand man after the putsch, is already serving a 20-year sentence for a 2015 plot to overthrow the transitional government that replaced his former boss.<\/p>\n
SOURING RELATIONS<\/p>\n
Ballistics experts told the trial Sankara had been shot in the chest at least seven times by assassins using tracer bullets. When fired, the bullets ignite a burning powder, helping the shooter mark their target.<\/p>\n
But the defendants said the victims died in a botched attempt to arrest Sankara after he and Compaore fell out over the direction the country's revolution was taking.<\/p>\n
Sankara allies, including ex-military commander Blaise Sanou, accused Compaore -- whose bid to cling to office precipitated his 2014 downfall -- of being hungry for power in 1987.<\/p>\n
But political analyst Valere Some said it was Sankara's decision to move to one-party rule that had sparked the rift between the two.<\/p>\n
Sankara, still a revered figure for many, was an army captain, aged just 33, when he came to power in a 1983 coup. <\/p>\n
A fiery revolutionary, he railed against imperialism and colonialism, often angering Western leaders but gaining followers across Africa and beyond.<\/p>\n
He scrapped the country's French colonial name -- Upper Volta -- and pursued a socialist agenda of nationalisations and social reforms, including bans on female genital mutilation, polygamy and forced marriages.<\/p>\n
ACCUSATIONS OF CONSPIRACY<\/p>\n
In court, several of Sankara's former aides talked of an \"international conspiracy\" against a progressive leader who had sought to upend the world order and eradicate poverty in his landlocked state.<\/p>\n
Felix Houphouet Boigny, the then president of Ivory Coast and a close ally of former colonial power France, was accused of being \"central to the conspiracy\".<\/p>\n
Former Burkina television director Serge Theophile Balima said the late Ivorian leader had warned Sankara, \"If you don't change, we'll do it for you.\"<\/p>\n
LIKE SUICIDE<\/p>\n
Other witnesses said there had been a terrible inevitability to Sankara's death.<\/p>\n
\"(It) was like suicide because he knew what was coming and he did nothing to prevent it,\" recalled Boukary Kabore, then commander of the advanced airborne battalion.<\/p>\n
Sankara's security chief Famoro Ouattara said he \"had been warned about the danger he faced\", but had \"never let anyone challenge Compaore militarily... It's as if he wanted to be killed.\"<\/p>\n
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The landmark trial over death of Burkina revolutionary Sankara - Eyewitness News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marxist-Leninist icon Sankara and 12 colleagues were gunned down by a hit squad in 1987 during a coup that brought Sankara's former comrade, Blaise Compaore, to power. Former Burkina Faso president Thomas Sankara. Picture: Wikipedia. Continue reading