DID YOU KNOW? CONGREGATION OF ST. JOSEPH Peace & Justice Report
For the week of January 16, 2015
Fast POWER STRUGGLE IN BURKINA FASO Facts AFTER BLAISE COMPAORE RESIGNS on AS PRESIDENT Burkina Faso Burkina Faso’s president, Blaise Compaoré, one of Africa’s longest- serving leaders, has been swept ✪ A former French colony, it gained from power after 27 years by a independence as Upper Volta in 1960. violent popular uprising. Since independence, the military has Compaoré announced his resignation on several occasions intervened during on Friday as hundreds of thousands times of crisis. of people took to the streets in ✪ Burkina Faso has significant reserves of protest at plans to extend his rule. gold, but cotton is the economic mainstay for many Burkinabes. (Continued on page 2) ✪ This industry is vulnerable to changes in world prices. BURKINA FASO’S UPRISING PART OF AN ✪ A poor country even by West African ONGOING WAVE OF AFRICAN PROTESTS standards, landlocked Burkina Faso has By Zachariah Mampilly—Nov.2, 2014 suffered from recurring droughts and, until the 1980s, military coups. In 1984, a year after coming to ✪ In 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara power at the seized power and adopted radical left- head of a mili- wing policies. tary coup, Thom- ✪ He renamed the country Burkina Faso, as Sankara ad- which translates as "land of honest dressed the U.N. men.” General Assem- ✪ In 1987, Thomas Sankara is ousted and bly. Claiming the killed in a coup led by his close aide, mantle for the dispossessed, for women, for youths, for Blaise Compaore. Compaore is elected the poor, Sankara — then all of 34 years old and just president for the next 27 years. three years away from his tragic killing — told the as- ✪ A popular uprising forced long-term semblage of international elites: “I protest on behalf of leader Blaise Compaore from office in all those who vainly seek a forum in this world where October 2014. See top box at right they can make their voice heard and have it genuinely ✪ An interim administration was put in taken into consideration.”
place for a year, after which elections Over the past week, I have been thinking about Sankara are to be held. a lot, both as I watch events unfold in Burkina Faso, a ✪ Read more: http://www.bbc.com/ country he bequeathed with its unquestionably brilliant news/world-africa-13072774 (Continued on page 2) DID YOU KNOW? CONGREGATION OF ST. JOSEPH Peace & Justice Report
Page 2 For the week of January 16, 2015
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POWER STRUGGLE IN BURKINA FASO’S UPRISING PART OF AN BURKINA FASO AFTER ONGOING WAVE OF AFRICAN PROTESTS BLAISE COMPAORE RESIGNS AS PRESIDENT name (Land of the Upright People), and because my stu- dents and I have been discussing his seminal 1987 speech on General Honoré Traoré, head of the women’s liberation in class. armed forces, said he had taken charge of the west African country. But further confusion and uncertainty As events in Burkina Faso move ahead at breakneck pace, broke out after another military I’m struck by how much they encapsulate different political leader, Lieutenant Colonel Isaac struggles that have defined African protest since the anti- Zida, declared himself to be colonial period. Political transformations across Africa have president and said Traoré’s claim was rarely come piecemeal. Instead, they tend to come in “obsolete”. waves, sweeping across the region and leaving massive so- cial transformations in their wake. Read more: http:// www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey- oct/31/burkina-faso-president-blaise- cage/wp/2014/11/02/burkina-fasos-uprising-part-of-an- compaore-ousted-says-army ongoing-wave-of-african-protests/