Vol. 71/No. 30      August 20, 2007

The caravan, conference, and other activities will discuss the relevance and political legacy of Sankara and the 1983-87 revolution he led. Events commemorating his death will take place around the same time in Canada, France, Italy, Mali, Senegal, and the United States, including an October 13 commemoration in Toronto.

Under Sankara’s leadership, peasants and workers in Burkina Faso established a popular revolutionary government and began to fight the hunger, illiteracy, and economic backwardness imposed by imperialist domination, and the oppression of women inherited from millennia of class society.

“Today we find that the same problems that brought the revolution in Burkina Faso in 1983 are still undermining people’s lives in Burkina Faso and around the world,” said Issaka Herman Traoré, a member of the National Organizing Committee for the conference, in a July 14 phone interview from Ouagadougou.

“Therefore we need to look at Sankara’s political thought and ideas today to work together and bring solutions for all those struggling against imperialism, neoliberalism, and globalization.”

The conference will have more than a dozen workshops including: “Who Is Sankara?”; “Sankara and Participatory Development”; “Sankarism and Environmental Protection”; “Sankarism and Promotion of Women, Youth, and the Elderly”; “Sankara and Globalization”; and “What Is Sankarism, 20 Years Later?”

An “appeal for the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the assassination of President Captain Thomas Sankara,” posted on a website of Sankara supporters, www.thomassankara.net, said, “If we would like to advance towards an ‘alternative world,’ it is of utmost importance to call the world’s attention to Africa’s struggles and resistance and to bring back the massive actions of Thomas Sankara.”

On Oct. 15, 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a counterrevolutionary coup by troops loyal to Capt. Blaise Compaoré, who remains the president of Burkina Faso today. As the coming conference and related events around the world demonstrate, however, Sankara’s ideas remain very much alive.

The appeal concludes, “Let’s make this year of 2007, declared ‘year of Sankara’ by those who are reclaiming this heritage, a year of study, reflection, struggle against impunity and organization for the struggles of tomorrow.”

For information on the conference and related activities, contact: Grila at admin@grila.org (Canada), Kassim Polo at kasspolo@yahoo.fr (Britain), or Amadou Diallo abaillo@yahoo.fr (South Africa).

Books and pamphlets containing Sankara’s speeches and other information about the Burkina Faso revolution can be found at Pathfinder Press’s website, www.pathfinderpress.com. On October 1 Pathfinder will release expanded editions in French and English of Thomas Sankara Speaks, a comprehensive collection of his speeches and interviews.

Michel Prairie contributed to this article, reporting from Toronto and Paris.  
 
 
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