He is the first president of Che Guevara of Africa and the small African country Burkina Faso . He strives to establish an independent and democratic country. In order to change the status quo of the country, he takes the initiative to lower the presidential standards and reduce his salary. He is called the cleanest president in the world. He implemented measures such as distributing land to farmers, improving the status of women, carrying out national literacy, and vaccinating children for free, which once showed a vibrant scene in Burkina Faso, the poorest country. However, in just 4 years, the president was overthrown by his closest comrade-in-arms and right-hand man, and he himself was assassinated, which was Thomas Sankara. Welcome to today's wonderful story.
1949, Sankara was born in a military family in the Pasore province of northern Burkina Faso. At that time, his country was called Walter, and was colonized by the invaders. It was one of the poorest countries in the world.
However, because Sankara's father was a military policeman, he was summoned to the French army to participate in the war during World War II . Therefore, Sankara's family conditions belong to the middle class. Walter is pretty good in the poverty, and Sankara has received a good education because of this. However, at a young age, he is very concerned about the suffering of the people. He has seen too many compatriots under the colonists being enslaved.
11966, Sankara, who was only 17 years old, did not choose the pastor she expected from her parents, but chose to join the army without hesitation and went to multiple foreign military schools to study, and achieved excellent results in each course. It was during this period that he came into contact with Marxism and read a large number of works by Marx and Lenin, which had a profound impact on him. At the same time, he also met a group of young people with common ideals, future comrades and partners Conborre , and they secretly formed a Communist officer group.
In 1974, Sankara, who returned from her studies, was sent to the border guards at the junction of Walter and on , and officially began her military career.
In the army, Sankara's leadership ability has been revealed. The troops under his leadership can always win battles. He himself was highly praised for his bravery in the Sum Swamp Blitz, and became a famous hero in the country. and was appreciated by his superiors, which quickly climbed to the position of paratrooper commander and reached the rank of captain.
Not long after, Colonel Zebo took office through a military coup. In order to maintain his rule, he summoned a large number of officers to take office. Thanks to this, Sankara was also pushed from the army to politics. In 1981, he became the secretary of the press of the military government.
During this period, he used the state TV station as a medium of publicity and was committed to understanding and reporting real and reliable things that concern the people, which is rare in Africa. However, because he advocated freedom of the press and had differences with Zebo. Sankara was forced to resign, and at the same time, he was expelled from the military post and exiled to the military camp in the desert area of the northwest province.
Therefore, Sankara decided to overthrow Zebo, and he began to take the opportunity to secretly contact his partners in the paratrooper unit where he was originally located.
111982, Sankara and Major Military Medical Vadraogo joined forces to lead a group of young paratroopers, disguised as athletes, lurked into the capital with guns and ammunition, with their targets directly aimed at the Presidential Palace. What surprised many people was that Zebo was easily overthrown and Sankara and others won.
After this, military doctor Vadra Ogo served as President Walter and Sankara served as prime minister. At this time, he had a high prestige among the people of Upper Walter and was deeply loved by the people.
But the combination of doctor president and military prime minister is destined to not last long. 1983, Sankara advocated establishing close and friendly relations with anti-imperialist and anti-colonial countries such as Libya, while Vedrao had no idea and even took pride in holding the thighs of former colonizer France.
This made the conflict between the two sides deepen and gradually become in harmony, and in April 1983 the conflict was completely detonated. At that time, Sankara invited Libyan President Gaddafi to visit Walter alone, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of Vederaogo, as president.
So he arrested Sankara and removed him from his post as prime minister.
Facts proved that Vedraogo was reckless. He underestimated Sankara's reputation. After Sankara was arrested, the troops supporting Sankara led by Compore strongly opposed it, and the two sides almost fought each other. At the same time, ordinary people also spoke out in resistance. Under this pressure, Vedraogo had to release Sankara.
At this time, Sankara had realized that the president had changed one term after another, but he always changed the soup and did not change the medicine. The country and the people suffered a lot, and it was nowhere to be achieved. He decided to overturn all this and change the situation himself.
On August 4, 1983, Sankara and Compore led their troops to launch a military coup. They surrounded important locations such as the Presidential Palace, the Police Headquarters, the State Administration of Posts and Telecommunications, and quickly controlled the situation. At the same time, many people also support Sankara very much, and they took the initiative to help cut off the power supply lines in the capital. In the end, Sankara became the new president of Upper Walter. This year, he was only 34 years old. Not only that, among the members of the new government, 15 civil servants and 5 soldiers, their average age is around 30 years old.
In order to change the status quo of the country, Sankara immediately launched an ambitious reform, and redistributed land to farmers. Then, the former main crop cotton was replaced by growing food, so that the people could achieve self-sufficiency.
and also abolished the capita tax, , land rent, etc., and a series of measures have achieved remarkable results. Upper Walter's wheat output increased from 1,700 kg per hectare to 3,800 kg, basically achieving self-sufficiency in grain.
In order to improve people's living standards, he increased the purchase price of agricultural products and strictly controlled the prices of daily necessities and medicine. Not only that, Sankara also provides free vaccines to millions of children, launches literacy campaign nationwide, advocating women's liberation, and he said that women can support half of the sky.
In order to implement this measure, he took the lead in taking the initiative to recruit female public officials, strictly prohibited female circumcision, abolished polygamy, encouraged women to receive education, go out to work, etc.
1984, he also made an important decision to abolish the existing country name Walter (name obtained during the French colonial period) and renamed to Burkina Faso, meaning a country of gentlemen. Moreover, the versatile Sankara also personally wrote the national anthem and designed the national flag for his country.
At the same time, a larger project plan has also been put on the agenda-building of highways and railways. As the saying goes, to get rich, you must first build roads. If you want to break the gap between the rich and the poor and achieve common prosperity in the country, you must first have convenient transportation. But because Burkina Faso is already poor, there is no money to do infrastructure. In addition, Sankara's foreign policy is anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, so its relations with countries such as France are not good, and France has also reduced a lot of aid to it.
The only thing Sankara can ask for help was the Soviet Union at that time. However, the United States and the Soviet Union had stopped competing for spheres of influence in Africa, and the Soviet Union was already unable to take care of itself, so it only gave Burkina Faso verbally support and did not provide substantial assistance.
Sankara had to make a fuss about increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. He set an example, sold his Mercedes-Benz to exchange for the cheapest car, and his office prohibited the use of air conditioners. He only took economy class when he went abroad. He also lowered his salary and public servants' salaries, and asked senior officials to donate one month's salary to public projects, etc.
Sankara's series of measures have been supported by the people, and he is also known as the Che Guevara of Africa.
But at the same time, his measures have also touched the interests of some people in China, especially caused dissatisfaction in France. This led to his regretful departure after the next war and meeting and even paying the price of his life.
In 1985, Burkina Faso fought a war with its neighboring country Mali. The battle lasted only a few days and ended in the failure of Burkina Faso. The failure of this war caused Sankara's reputation in the army to decline.
was followed by a visit to the French head of state Mitterrand in 1986. He offered to visit Burkina Faso, but the people were greeted at home by the call for the people to overthrow imperialism. What's even more terrible is that at the state banquet, Sankara slammed France in front of everyone, and everyone present was shocked. This is the first time this approach has been done in diplomatic occasions.
Although Mitterrand did not show any dissatisfaction during this visit, it was obvious that the seeds of hatred had been planted. During this period, the conflict between Sankara and her old comrade-in-arms Compore became increasingly serious. Compore and others became increasingly dissatisfied with Sankara's radical measures. The two quarreled many times over this.
So France secretly provoked and instructed personnel to propose to Sankara to solve Compode, but this proposal was rejected by Sankara. But this suggestion was quickly reached Compore's ears. Compore decided to take the initiative. On October 15, 1987, he led the army to launch a military ZB and rushed directly to the conference room. Sankara, who was in a meeting, was shot to death. He was only 38 years old at this time. After that, Compore became the new president, he implemented a dictatorship, and under his rule, Burkina Faso returned to his former miserable state and became the poorest country in the world, and it remains the same. It seemed that Burkina Faso during Sankara's rule was just a flash in the pan and then disappeared.
Today's story ends here. If you have any opinions on Sankara, please leave your opinions in the comment section.
