Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara
The 'African Che' who traded the state Mercedes fleet for Renault 5s
“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.” — speech a week before his assassination, 1987
A Marxist pan-Africanist revolutionary of Burkina Faso. Taking power at thirty-three in 1983, he renamed the country 'land of upright people' and drove mass vaccination, literacy and women's-rights campaigns. He rejected IMF structural adjustment and was assassinated in the 1987 coup of his comrade Blaise Compaoré.
Career timeline
- 1983Takes power at thirty-three; the National Council of the Revolution
- 1983–1987Vaccination, literacy, reforestation and women's-rights campaigns
- 1984Renames the country Burkina Faso, 'land of upright people'
- 1987.7The Addis Ababa speech: Africa must repudiate its debt
- 1987.10Assassinated in the coup of his comrade Compaoré
- 1987Delivered Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle on International Women’s Day