26

The Fall of Captain Sankara, or

Why You Can't Make Revolution without the Masses

His chest riddled with bullets, his na Faso was the most recent attempt tral plateau, killing people and Kalashnikov lying a few feet away to find an "independent path" to animals, pillaging and burning vil• in the dry dust of , national liberation without a revolu• lages. As part of the carving out of the Captain of the tionary war of the masses, without the French West African empire, its "revolution," Thomas Sankara, the leadership of a genuine proletar• borders were altered regularly up was cut down in a palace coup on ian political party, and without the until 1947. The vast majority of its October 15, 1987. Several members science of --Mab population are rural, herders and of his military entourage and advi• Tsetung Thought. The coup was the peasant cultivators; its economy, sors lay dead at the scene of ambush bloody denouement of a play whose never developed, was distorted and beside him. Soldiers acting on be• ending, like those of the Greek stagnated first by colonial plunder half of rival ministers within the rul• tragedies, was written into the very and further ravaged by repeated ing National Council of the form itself. droughts and famine, bringing in Revolution (CNR) he presided over Sankara was by no means a their wake foreign "" from a hurriedly threw the bodies into a revolutionary communist (and most host of Western imperialists and jeep and reappeared with shovels in of the time didn't pretend to be), their parasitical representatives of the middle of the night to throw but his militant, anti- imperialist the IMF, , the FAO, some dirt over them in a hastily- posturing, his jaunty, confident EEC, U.S. Peace Corps and so on. made common grave. style, his military The population is mainly Moslem With Thomas Sankara died an "look," and most of all his unor• and consists of numerous ethnic "experiment'' in radical reform that thodox attempt to "revolutionise" communities speaking over 60 lan• had raised the hopes of many in one of the world's poorest coun• guages and dialects. Ninety per cent Africa and even elsewhere. Burki- tries, captured the imagination of of the eight million people live in the many African youth and intellectu• countryside, which is completely Thomas Sankara als who followed his innovations dominated by Ouagadougou, the closely, just as among them his capital. The city's population con• death has become a subject of sharp sists of a tiny modern working class, controversy and has posed pointed a fairly large number of government questions: what kind of revolution employees ranging from top-level was he leading, and was his path bureaucrats to the lowest custodi• one that could liberate Africa? ans, military personnel, artisans, * * * employees of French concerns, and Burkina Faso, formerly known as a small but rapacious class of mer• Upper Volta, is a landlocked coun• chants. The city is a creation of im• try whose northern border stretches perialism and a parasitic drain on through 3000 kilometres of the Sa- the country as a whole. hel, a semi-arid region on the In 1932 France actually adminis• southern edge of the Sahara Desert. tratively attached Upper Volta to It is located at the crossroads of the far richer coastal colony at its routes that penetrated colonial Afri• southern border, the , ca. Colonial conquest of Upper making official its relationship as a Volta dates back to a reign of ter• gigantic reservoir of labour to work ror in 1895, in which a French naval the Ivory plantations and fields. captain led his men through the cen• Today, two million Burkinabe con- 27 tinue to work in the Ivory Coast, m and, as the desert advances, so does the southward migration. France restored Upper Volta's m "autonomy" in 1953 and subse• > quently granted formal indepen• dence in 1960 to a tiny comprador , continuing its neo- - o colonial presence under the rule of corrupt and staunchly loyal army officers who have been toppling i-'-l O each other ever since in a series of coups d'etat, at times with the back• ing of the powerful civil servant trade unions. It was hardly shock• ing that Sankara's politically radi• cal reign ended in the same abrupt rived in town, worried over possi• ans, of course, the trade unions o manner. More importantly, the very ble diplomatic realignments.1 based on the civil servants in the means by which Sankara came to Youth demonstrated in Ouagadou• capital!).2 power and the very nature of the gou and Sankara's left-wing officer Despite his sympathies for the 5 state power he took over is the fun• friends retreated to the elitist para- plight of the peasants and undoubt• damental reason he could not lead commandos camp in the southern edly genuine desires to improve a thorough-going revolution. Burkinabe town of P6 and planned their lives, Sankara did not rely on a rebellion to get him reinstated. them and they never became his so• Seizing Power from Above: On August 4, 1983, this column cial base: his outlook and line coin• The Left-wing Officer Corps of future ministers marched into the cided instead with that of the urban capital city of Ouagadougou and , and from the be• Sankara called his revolution a took over the government, ginning was one which could not "peoples democratic revolution," proclaiming the "revolution." This liberate the vast majority of the toil• the goal of which was to get the peo• "left" coup relied on a totally bour• ing masses in Burkina Faso. ple to "assume power." In fact this geois military line of tactically out- It is true that Sankara had gained concentrates much of the problem: manoeuvering the temporarily some popularity, and the masses — political power was never seized disorganised alliance of right- wing although mainly bystanders — did from below, through people's war. and "moderate" forces within the not generally oppose him; he was Instead, emerging as the charismatic neocolonial army; it was at best ten• confident that through time, he leader of a fiercely nationalist, anti- tative and required hasty efforts to could win them to his revolution. colonialist wing of the army, the consolidate its urban social base As for the sticky dilemma of radical young captain Sankara among the radical left organisations shedding the army's neocolonial found himself Prime Minister in which were influential in the urban heritage, Sankara thought he could November 1982, when an army doc• petit bourgeois sectors, particular• transform it into a people's army tor commander, Jean-Baptiste ly in education and among civil ser• through "political education." Ouedraogo, took over the presiden• vants, in order to hold onto state "We want the army to melt into the cy with the collaboration of the left- power. As Sankara put it candidly, people." wing officers and unions. Sankara "Without them we couldn't have Although Sankara considered his invited Libyan president Khadaffi won, they prepared the masses for leadership the "democratic to Ouagadougou in April 1983 and us." And, somewhat surprisingly, representation of the people," in was promptly arrested shortly after "Our main support is from the or• reality the struggle over political a French African Affairs official ar- ganised workers" (by which he me- power was centred within the CNR 28

which gave representation to the ideology. For us, ideologies provide "pro-Chinese" (revisionist, pro- major left currents and served as a light, ways of analysing things ) ULC-R (Union of vehicle for the four rnilitary bosses which allow you to discern the real• Communist Struggles — Recon• — Sankara, Blaise Compaore, ities of society.... Human dignity, structed) who were influential on Jean- Baptiste Lingani and Henri that is our ideology." He believed the university campus, along with Zongo — to try to arbitrate the po• in no mold other than the Bur- the pro-Albanian Voltaic Revolu• litical disputes and patch together a kinabe mold he was attempting to tionary (PCRV) ' 'unity'' which would allow them to shape: "It's a continual practice of which led the General Student Un• function and carry out a platform Eurocentrism to always uncover ion and five civil servants unions; of reforms. spiritual fathers for Third World the strongest union association, the In fact if Sankara and his radical leaders.... Why do you want to put CSV (Voltaic Union Confedera• rnilitary friends could be judged on us in an ideological slot at any price, tion); and some other Marxist and the basis of intentions and good to classify us?... There can only be Trotskyist circles. Ministerial posts ideas, their marks would not have salvation for our people if we radi• were divided amongst these left been all failing. He wanted to help cally turn our backs on all the forces, except for the pro- g the peasant masses, to end the sti• models the charlatans have tried to Albanians, who were the loyal op• fling weight of the chiefdoms in the sell us for some 20 years.... We take position — until Albania came out countryside, to wipe out the corrup• from others what is dynamic and in support of Sankara and suggest• tion of government officials and the creative."3 ed they follow suit. nest-feathering of the urban civil To fashion this Burkinabe model, While the debate in the govern• servants, to make women equal to Sankara took the battlecry from the ment and the leftist circles went on, men and lighten their burden, as Cubans: "Homeland or Death! We the very practical problem remained well as to rapidly achieve the goal will conquer!" From Albania he that the imperialists had never been of two good meals per day and all borrowed the pick and rifle for the ousted from Burkina Faso and that, the water the average peasant national symbol. He patterned his from its inception, Sankara's revo• household needed; he wanted to rely Committees to Defend the Revolu• lution had been waged and deve• on "ourselves" and not on the tion (CDR) after his closest ally, loped from the top in a way that did colonialists and imperialists to build , which in turn had taken not and could not (despite its --' up the economy and he hoped to de• them from . Most of all he rhetoric) rely on the conscious velop African culture and forge took a rich blend of modern revi• struggle of the masses of people and strong alliances with other progres- sionism from the Soviets and much was not able to formulate a truly © sive African states. He wanted to be of the failed African "" revolutionary programme based on ^ truly independent, was against any they have spawned, to which he ad• their class interests — one which v § form of hegemonism or foreign ded some of the concepts and poli• would not only promise but in prac• 0\n and proclaimed com- cies Mao Tsetung developed for tice set in motion a New Democrat• mon cause with "all the peoplerevolutios of n in colonial countries, ic revolution to break the a the world ready to help us in our although unfortunately not the neocolonial and semifeudal shack• S struggle against injustice and scientific outlook of Mao Tsetung les and bring about the conditions O tyranny." or his insistence on the need for a necessary for going over to the se• revolutionary war against imperial• cond stage of a proletarian socialist i 2 Relying on the Petite Bourgeoisie ism and its allies. revolution. This process alone is as The jumble of Sankara's political able to transform the distorted and $ The underlying political problem views can be dissected into a num• backward s of Sankara's conception of revolu- ber of competing trends and into non-exploitative ones and un• ^ tion was his failure to base himself influences operating on the opposi• leash fully the potential of the on a correct class analysis and to tion political scene in Ouagadougou peasantry and other revolutionary embrace the only ideology that can and Paris. The "leftist" political masses. > liberate the oppressed — that of the spectrum included, from the mili• , its science of Marxism- tary, a "progressive" group of Sankara's Programme Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. officers within the French and Although he admitted he was in• Moroccan- trained neocolonial Sankara's ruling rnilitary circle fluenced by and attracted to some army called the ROC (Communist issued a "Political Orientation aspects of Marxism-Leninism, he Officers' Regrouping), which was Speech" in October 1983 which was eclectically borrowed those ideas tightly linked to political organisa• a mixture of nationalist, pan- which corresponded to his radica• tions within the intellectual milieux. Africanist and socialist notions lised petit-bourgeois class outlook Among these were: the PAI (Afri• nourishing a programme of — that of discontented lower can Independence Party), pro- reforms. officers in a neocolonial army — Soviet revisionists based among ad• From the beginning Sankara was and combined them with others ministrative cadre and the leading caught in the dilemma that the sup- akin to pan-Africanism and tired political force behind the mass or• port for the "revolution" was old nationalism. ganisation known as LIP AD (Patri• almost exclusively centred among "There is no politics without otic League for Development); the those urban-based sections of the 29 population who themselves enjoyed campaigns to prevent brush fires, ing. Numerous studies have shown a more comfortable position rela• stop the roaming of cattle, and to that "" is neither an tive to the huge impoverished channel the meager Voltaic river act of God nor simply the result of peasantry. At the same time, it was waters for hydro-electric power and climatic chance, but rather is large• clear that even Sankara's reformist irrigation. ly man-made and has a great deal to programme could not be im• The army was reorganised, do with imperialist relations. plemented without at least diminish• eliminating or throwing out the old Although some areas have shown ing the extreme burden that right-wing elements and reducing the capacity to produce more, such financing the state apparatus (and the number of leading officers. The as the grain-belt around Dedougou especially the salaries of govern• 8,000 soldiers were to be turned into in the west, the lack of roads and ment employees which up to 1983 } "development activists," participat• refrigeration together with an econ• ate up over 75 °7o of the budget) ing in agriculture and national con• omy geared toward producing for represented for the regime. struction. In 1984, on the first export has prompted some peasants Sankara led a battle against cor• anniversary of the "revolution," to shift more to cotton and non- ruption, as he fined offenders and Sankara changed the name of the perishables. Capital investment has brought them to be tried before country to Burkina (More word gone only into cotton cultivation de• People's Tribunals. He cut civil ser• meaning a free person) Faso (the veloped by the colonialists in the fer• vants' salaries by 20-30 %, did Dioura term for homeland): the tile southern region, using up a away with housing rebates, auto• "land of the upright men." disproportionate share of available matic bank loans and lucrative side• But all of these measures could inputs and experts. line investments, imposed heavy only be quantitative and relatively Agricultural products make up taxation ("contributions") includ• minor adjustments which left intact 90 % of all exports, principally cot• ing the twelfth month of pay, and the basic parasitic relation between ton and beef, supplemented by periodically sent civil servants to the the state apparatus and the popula• karite nut butter, peanuts and off• fields to participate in national tion and between the capital and the season fruits and vegetables destined projects and "combat petit bour• countryside. All they did was to primarily to the surrounding coun• geois tendencies." Government anger the very strata on which the tries and France. Per capita income workers were required to wear suits regime relied. is just over $200. Other food grow• made out of locally grown cotton ing is largely for direct consumption and were no longer allowed to eat Semifeudal, Imperialist-distorted and exchange and sale on the local imported fruits and vegetables. Agriculture market, often at the mercy of the ex• Sankara set an example himself by ploitative merchant class that buys ^ drawing very little pay, declaring all Over 90 % of the active Bur- and resells grain in low seasons at ^ his possessions in front of a fraud kinabe population is engaged in high profit. Millet, sorghum and § board, and ordered the government agriculture as peasants — herders corn are the main subsistence crops. so Mercedes Benzes to be replaced with and cultivators. It is an extremely A few homemade products such as Q simple Renaults. primitive and backward agriculture. karite butter for oils and soaps, and Other reforms included housing Most of the arable land is used for the local beer, called dolo, allow for O construction, a mass vaccination subsistence farming and, except for a slight money exchange that worn- ^ programme (called the "comman• the south, is relatively infertile and en can use to buy a few essentials, ^ do approach") in which three mil• difficult to cultivate. The rudimen• sharpen or repair their tools or buy ^ lion children were immunised tary tools and cultivation methods, a piece of chalk if they have a child jo against common killer diseases in including extensive farming, the in school. In the twenty years since oo 15 days, and mass literacy cam• problem of nomadism and insuffi• independence, literacy had been ^ paigns modeled after those in cient fertilisers and pesticides all con• raised from 5 % to only 16 %, and ° Nicaragua and Cuba. He brought tribute to low yields. The grain it had remained below 6 % in the women into the government, and harvest per hectare is only 540 kilo• countryside, with twice as many drew up extensive proposals hitting grams, compared to 4883 kg/hectare boys as girls allowed to go to school. at their social oppression, including in France!4 Added to this are As in many neocolonial situations, to abolish , dowries, difficult and erratic climatic condi• the "educated" either went to the ci• sale of young girls, polygamy and tions, the most serious of which is ties or to neighbouring countries to the sexually mutilating practice of the 30 % decrease in rainfall over the find suitable jobs, since a weak na• excision (clitorectomy). To break past 20 years. tional treasury could not continual• down old and oppressive traditions, In the semi-arid conditions of the ly hire new civil servants, and few men were supposed to go to the , which stretches through the now wanted to return to the grind• market once a week. In the coun• northern regions, shrubs are disap• ing poverty and gruehng labour of tryside Sankara encouraged a fight pearing and, with the generalised peasant life. against desertification by launching problem of deforestation, soil deple• Life is hard; the very basic a tree-planting campaign in which tion, erosion and non-rotation of problems of sufficient food and every ceremony of birth, death or fields, as well as severe shortages of drinking water remain major obsta• marriage was celebrated by the water and lack of widespread irriga• cles in the countryside. Because of planting of trees. There were also tion, the desertification is advanc• a traditional tribal 30 in most of the many different ethnic As pointed out earner, one of groups, women are responsible for Burkina's Faso's most important the entire material needs of their and striking particularities is its rela• children as well as those children tionship with the Ivory Coast to the given to her by the lineage chief un• south. The two million Burkinabe til the age of seven, forming in many who work there represent 60 % of cases a closed community. In a typi• young men between 18 and 35 in cal day, it is she (and her daughters Burkina Faso, that is, an enormous at an early age) who must walk 10-15 percent of the country's most pre• kilometres for water, gather wood cious resource, the labouring mass• and keep a fire burning, walk with es. Their revenues are an important hoe, supplies and a nursing baby to source of income for peasant fami• plant her fields (the worst land and lies. The subsistence agriculture in furthest from home) before return• Burkina Faso is the reverse side of ing to pound millet, clean house and the coin of plantation agriculture in prepare a large evening meal. In the the Ivory Coast, with its need for evening she goes again for water and cheap labour. To oversee this reser• spends much of the night brewing voir in Upper Volta as well as its rela• beer from millet or sorghum, which tively minor investments in cotton as can be sold on the local market. Life a cash export, France propped up a expectancy is 44 years, but only 35 bureaucrat bourgeoisie, maintained for women. The imperialists rank its colonial army and delivered sus• Burkina Faso as the ninth poorest tenance (not-developmental) level country in the world.5 aid. This situation, which Sankara in• herited and tried to reform, is simi• Spreading the Revolution lar to the other neocolonial carcasses to the Burkinabe Countryside the Western imperialists have creat• ed in Africa, and despite the stream In his Political Orientation Speech of philanthropic aid rhetoric about Sankara vowed to wage "a sharp the miseries of the Third World struggle against nature... and against wide mobilisation were the hydro• which spews from the IMF and imperialist domination of our electric dam at Kompienga, the irri• World Bank, the greatest misery of agriculture." He was intent on giv• gation dam at Bagre and the Burkina Faso is itself. ing priority to developing the coun• Ouagadougou-Tambao railway. Existing side by side with old semi- tryside, "by giving the slogan of The main political vehicle created feudal class relations are the rela• food self-sufficiency its true mean• by the ruling CNR to carry out its tions between oppressed and ing, too worn-out from being repeat• policies at all levels and in all sectors oppressor nations: peasants barely ed without conviction." In 1984 he of society was the Committees to De• able to feed themselves, hoeing the nationalised the land, and took away fend the Revolution,' 'mass organi• limited good soil to grow green be• the administrative and financial sations allowing the people to ans for sale in Paris during the winter privileges of the traditional chiefs. exercise its democratic power" and months; herders raising cattle for ex• He condemned the' 'exploiters of the to actively participate in building up port to other African countries, people disguised as village chiefs." the country. Their duties were to po• while beef is not a big part of the To reach their agricultural goals, the litically educate the masses and in• Burkinake diet; a stagnant, non- CNR prepared a 15-month Plan for volve them in the revolutionary diversified economy, whose central Popular Development (PPD) in ord• changes, to organise collective na• budget had for decades been run by er to lay the basis for the first five tional interest work projects, and France and its transnationals. year plan from 1985 to 1990. "militarily defend the revolution The French imperialists carved The PPD aimed to first move against internal and external enemies out a clear-cut division of labour for towards economic autonomy and of the revolution through military its West African colonies: Congo then independence through a num• training" of CDR activists. and grew cotton; , ber of state-financed projects that Set up in the more than 7000 Bur• peanuts; Gabon, wood. In addition would build a basic infrastructure kinabe villages plus every major to being cannonfodder for Europe• and respond to the most pressing school, factory, neighborhood and an and colonial wars, hundreds of needs of the urban and rural mass• administrative unit in the urban thousands of Upper Volta's people es. This included drilling wells, areas, the CDRs became the new were sent into on building small earth dams, reser• authorities, and thus the political French-owned coffee and cocoa voirs, and irrigation projects and de• struggle within the regime which had plantations in the Ivory Coast. Bur• veloping market gardening never been settled with the seizure of kina's backwardness suits imperial• throughout the 30 provinces. Bigger the presidential palace was ism and that has been a critical factor "national interest" projects requir• reproduced within the CDRs. Old in its development. ing massive investment and nation• right-wing elements and parties out GUINEA- BISSAIT

building schools and dispensaries, even getting close to leading the Bur• digging ditches and fixing up the kinabe to stand on their own feet and marketplace, to conducting reading attain their righteous goal of feed• and writing classes, in addition to ing themselves. Just as Sankara and carrying out PPD objectives. In the friends did not rely on the struggle countryside the CDRs took charge of the masses to wage a people's war of community services and played a to overthrow imperialism and reac• big role in watching over grain sales, tion in order to seize power, neither preventing the merchants from did they fundamentally rely on the charging double the official price of masses of peasants to transform the millet, which, as a leader of the economic base of society in then- CDRs put it, would have meant that own revolutionary interests and some peasants starved to death. Hat• wage a struggle in the superstructure ing the old chief structures, the to break down tradition and its back• of power, plus deposed chieftains, youth naturally came into sharp con• ward hold on social relations. This infiltrated them, and rival leftist ten• flict with these authorities they had is a complicated question, but the dencies vied for leadership to control displaced, a clash especially concen• agrarian reform was not able to various areas. In the cities, this took trated in the collecting of taxes, mobilise the masses because it was on the added contradiction of the formerly the duty of the chief, who not based on thoroughly rupturing union officials competing with the took a share. Later this tax was with precapitalist modes of produc• CDRs, which, initially at least, took ehminated, which proved to be one tion that in fact dominate the Bur• over their social base. At a certain of the biggest blows to the old ord• kinabe countryside and weigh like an point this grew into open political er. Although the CDRs were set up anchor on the social relations. conflict, as the teacher and civil ser• to be the real links to the masses, at Correctly analysing the peasantry vant unions contested the CDRs least one observer lamented that the as the class having' 'paid the greatest power and refused to be subordinat• peasants themselves often remained debt in terms of imperialist domina• ed to them. under the chiefs' thumbs, especially tion and exploitation," and as the The CDRs were in the main in Mossi country, and in the CDR- "principal force," the Political staffed by energetic and enthusias• chiefdom rivalry, no one defended Orientation Speech incorrectly im• tic young supporters of the new re• the peasants' interests.6 plies that the introduction of the gime, armed with a lot of freedom capitalist has to go out and set in motion the Agrarian Reform transformed or done away with changes they thought necessary. At vs. Agrarian Revolution precapitalist modes. Actually, the the beginning, they were literally old and new forms of exploitation armed to defend the revolution, un• The experience in Burkina Faso is have become intertwined. Further• til "too many incidents of abuse" above all another painful illustration more, although production was brought the end of this policy. In po• that there is no half-stepping about slightly boosted, especially in the al• litical terms, they replaced the rank severing from imperialism if libera• ready capitalist-developed cotton and file of a ruling political party tion is the goal. Sankara targeted im• sector, how does this end imperialist and in this context really represent• perialism as the number one enemy. exploitation of the peasants when ed the formation of a of He argued passionately for attaining the relations between the neo- petty officials. self-reliance in food production and colonialist machine "that must be Unquestionably this youthful in• for a planned independent national destroyed" and imperialism have itiative launched many wide-ranging economy. But the CNR's economic not changed? Increased productivi• and worthwhile projects, from programme prevented them from ty for whose benefit? The state's? 32

That is, a growing urban bureaucrat not counting women slaves. solid foundation for a national econ• bourgeoisie totally dependent upon Dispossessing the tribal authori• omy can only be based on the des• imperialism, along with a parasitical ties of their formal political and eco• truction of these old relations and merchant class? nomic powers did not dispense with not by adapting or reforming them. At a conference in March 1984 them as a force, and the old customs This stage represents the bour• when the government decided to na• tended to persist. (Some found it ad• geois revolution, because land re• tionalise all the land, redistribute it vantageous to integrate into the form doesn't go beyond capitalism. according to family needs and carry CDR leadership, but many plotted But at the same time, it provides the out an agrarian reform which would their revenge.) For example, even af• necessary prerequisite for any real "break the old feudal relations of ter popular assemblies were set up in and genuine advance to the socialist production... by the poor and mid• every village, the peasants often con• revolution: "The new type of dle peasants themselves... abolish tinued to elect their old masters to democratic revolution clears the way the old landed property... bring for• higher councils. Despite the outlaw• for capitalism on the one hand and ward large-scale agricultural ing of the tribal practice of giving creates the prerequisites for social• production...," these became mere gifts to the "spiritual" masters, who ism on the other," as Mao Tsetung incantations rather than reality be• paralleled the chiefs and guaranteed put it. Only after the destruction of cause they were not part of a genuine fertility and good harvests, peasants precapitalist modes can the question New Democratic Revolution — and often devised a way to offer their of which road in agriculture will neither the old class relation between goats or cows at night or out of sight liberate the peasantry — capitalism the exploiter imperialist countries of the CDRs. Another even starker or socialism — come to the fore. and the oppressed nation of Burki• example cited in Jean Ziegler's re• Based on the initiative, knowledge na Faso nor the relations between ex- cently published book, La Victoire and revolutionary enthusiasm of the ploited and exploiter in the des Vaincus, described the long lines peasants themselves, step-by-step countryside had been destroyed. of bellahs, or slaves of the Tamachek forms can be developed, The system of land ownership and tribe, waiting to take back grain for such as mutual aid, work teams and class relations in Upper Volta and their masters, and at first refused by eventually , as the ad• similar African countries deserves the CDRs who said that servitude vantages become clear to the poor further study and differ in impor• had been abolished. The bellahs re• peasants. tant respects from feudalism and plied, "Don't give us a hard time. The proletariat is against phony semifeudalism as it has appeared You are here for two weeks, but the "cooperation'' not based on the des• classically in Asia or Europe. Land Tamacheks will be here forever"!7 truction of the old feudal structures ownership in Upper Volta was linked Although none of these incidents and relations. Such efforts only dis• to tribal hierarchical organisation, is surprising, and Sankara himself guise and eventually incorporate the described by many sources as "feu• was aware of the continued hold of old relations. In fact, in Burkina dal or semifeudal" because in the tradition on the peasants, he tended Faso it proved impossible to go over past an exploitative corvee system to see the tribal rites and powers as even to a state capitalist form (the was in operation, that is, free work only "cultural" customs that the declared but non-existent state plus certain favours exacted by the peasants would let go of, rather than farms) on the basis of semifeudal chief from peasants who worked the that these powerful superstructure agriculture and without breaking land, which was held by the tribe and domains are the reflection of real, with imperialism. ' 'belonged'' to the ancestral lineage material social relations, still exist• The other major front of the New but was "managed" by the chiefs. ing, even if they coexist with Democratic Revolution, and one This was accompanied by a cor• capitalist or imperialist ones. which is inseparably linked to carry• responding tribal superstructure that The purpose of a proletarian-led ing out the agrarian revolution as reinforced patriarchy, polygamy, agrarian revolution among the well, is the necessity of rupturing and tribal hierarchy. Ranking peasantry is precisely to shatter the with imperialism and thus building among the most oppressive of tribal old ownership system, to uproot the up an independent and self-reliant powers was the practice of the feudal (or semi-feudal) backward su• national economy. In a country aristocratic chiefs of ruling by' 'giv• perstructure and to carry out "land where feeding the population and ing away women." The more loyal to the tiller," distributing land by solving the water shortage are im• the vassal, the more women he head. (This policy of distributing mediate priorities, industry — light would receive, although the chief land per person and not per family, industry — would be built up essen• could take them back if he had some not incidentally, deals a maj or blow tially to serve agriculture, with account to settle. Peasants handed to old patriarchal property relations, modest equipment such as pumps, their-,daughters over to the chief for as suddenly women own land too, wells and tools, instead of produc• redistribution down the lineages and and in the case of divorce and other ing for export or developing their daughters' daughters in turn changes, she can participate on a resources unnecessary for these had to be returned, so that he had a more equal footing.) Making the primary goals. This means de- constant supply. This is not ancient producers independent owners of emphasising the city and not sup• history. The court harems of the their land is an. important part of porting a top-heavy state, and cer• Mossi emperor on the eve of the liberating them" from precapitalist tainly not basing one's survival on revolution in 1983 had 350 women, modes of production. Building a imperialist aid. 33

Various forms of cooperativisa- olies and the long-time traders from such obvious absurdities as comfort• tion were tried to get the villagers to the Middle East, common through• able office buildings for World Bank produce more, or rather they were out West Africa, both of whom use representatives, or paying for the imposed, something Mao warns the network of small traditional mer• $42 million FAO granted to con• strictly against. Since village associ• chants in the street and countryside. struction projects where fully one- ations were not initiatives of the But measures such as importing third of the budget was absorbed by masses themselves, the peasants saw tomato concentrate when a tomato necessities such as generators to run little reason to take part, except iron• processing plant near Bobo Dioulas- air conditioners for the Italian advi• ically in some cases where they band• so broke down, instead of fixing it, sors, who refused to hire Burkinabe ed together on a bourgeois basis to obviously worked in their favour. peasants to help.9 After the drought f orm them when they realised it was Another form of dependence can of 1984-85, aid arrived too late and a means of obtaining bank loans and be seen in the small industrial sector. sank grain prices for the following credit! Premature cooperatives, for Essentially French companies (80 % year — i.e., it didn't help feed the their part, were artificial, as the same French capital) dating from coloni• population when needed, and ruined 1984 agriculture conference report al days have been developed in the the local market when it did come... put it, and tended to be taken over name of cutting down on imports. an accident?10 by bureaucrats, landowners, mer• In reality, by importing oily acids to At the outset of the revolution, in chants or salaried soldiers, "who make oils and soaps, they compete his Political Orientation Speech, weren't afraid of pillaging the with and displace artisan products Sankara vehemently denounced cooperative's resources because the made from karite; or by importing ' 'imperialism, which in all its forms, only thing they risked was being sent equipment to manufacture soft tries to exploit us with so-called aid, to another village where they could drinks and European beer produced which are only means of aliena• start doing it again...." 315000 times the cost of a hectolitre tion...." More truthful were his of dolo produced locally from sor• eclectic pleas in an interview at the Some Self-Reliance ghum, this imperialist-sponsored ac• time of his visit to the UN in autumn, and Some Dependence tivity fails to make use of local raw 1984: "We could use and we need materials, reduces greatly the num• aid from developed nations, but In 1983, France provided 40 % of ber of people employed, means cap• such aid is not so generous or forth• Upper Volta's budget, some $70 mil• ital investment is being put up for coming in these times. France helps, lion. There were also some beer of all things, and destroys im• U.S. aid is ridiculously small, espe• 3500 French personnel operating in portant albeit meager peasant in• cially when you see the wealth and various capacities there. Most of the comes while encouraging no other prosperity of that country. We have ^ aid pumped in through French or• secondary economic activity except to be careful also about aid because ^ ganisms has gone to technical as• bars and liquor sales! As long as the we cannot accept it at the risk of our O sistance and rural development as government gave these companies independence. And in the final anal- jS well as gold mining. Despite a tax breaks, peasants could buy the ysis, we know we have to depend on O "Volta-isation" of the economy af• more prestigious bubbly beer instead ourselves."11 p3 ter independence, French trade and of the homemade variety when they Three days after his first major ^ food enterprises (breweries, edible have a little change at harvest time.8 speech on foreign policy in October 5 oils, flour mining and sugar refiner• In addition to aid from the 1983, in which Sankara supported 5 ies), textile and others (tobacco, Western imperialist countries (the Nicaragua, the Salvadoran struggle shoes, etc.) managed to hold onto a U.S., West Germany, Denmark and and the Polisario in the Saharan firm position and continued to the Netherlands, and of course Arab Democratic Republic, and receive extremely favourable treat• France), the World Bank, IMF, denounced the American invasion of ~- ment through the first years of the EEC and other intergovernmental Grenada, Reagan's special envoy "revolution." In 1986 when the Bur• channels have helped keep Upper strode into his office with a diplo• kinabe government decided to renew Volta afloat, enough to begin and matic note from the U.S. govern• exorbitant fiscal advantages to the not finish many "agricultural de• ment that threatened to "reexamine IVOLCY company (a "Voltaic" cy• velopment" projects, just enough to assistance and cooperation agree• cle firm, subsidiary of the French keep massive starvation from de• ments" if Burkina continued to transnational CFAO) to the detri• veloping, and to keep solid control meddle in Central American affairs, ment of the local Burkinabe cycle over that country's future and assure about which, the note concluded, "it producers, these national bourgeois its non-development, unlike some knows nothing."12 were of course outraged. other raw materials-rich and strateg• The dilemma Sankara faced was This coincided with an overall ic countries, such as Nigeria and forging an "anti-imperialist" path policy of importing all kinds of con• South Africa. within an inherited bourgeois state sumer items, industrial and food The IMF advocated the policy of apparatus totally dependent on im• products, although luxuries were "free trade," that is, the policy of perialist aid and subject to imperi• almost entirely suppressed, to the raining the peasants through cheap• alist relations between oppressor and displeasure of the vultures in the er grain imports, thus making Bur• oppressed. An impossible task. So, merchant class — those linked to kina Faso more dependent. Very rather than treating foreign aid as a highly structured European monop• often this destructive "aid" went for reflection of this relationship, his 34

government tried to reform it; this sphere of influence in West Africa. strengthened ties with Malianpresi- c was expressed perfectly by the Na• (Burkina was never the heart of dent Moussa Traore, in part forcing tional Secretary-General of the French in its West Afri• the question of what military sup• CDRs: "They used aid for Mer• can empire, though they have port Sankara really had.15 cedes; we are using it for shovels, managed well, given the difficult cli• Then there was the coup d'etat in picks and wheelbarrows...." matic conditions and their decision October 1987 — at Sankara's ex• In fact, although Sankara not to develop the productive pense — and no more kidding promised with the People's Develop• forces.) In any case, France was around. More than one informed ment Programme (PPD) to aim for never in any danger of leaving, source pointed to evidence that it z many small accomplishments which though it had to endure stinging had been "run from abroad by re• would "turn Burkina Faso into a barbs from time to time, while, as Le mote control'' through the cosy con• vast field...," he actually gave Monde of 17 October 1987 put it, nections between Ivory Coast prominence (as the Soviets often do French policy was one of "not dis• president HouphouetBoigny, one of in such countries) to pumping mas• couraging revolutionaries who dilute the top contenders for official West sive investment into a few big their wine." On the other side was African valet for French imperial- splashy construction projects which Sankara, throwing barbs right and ism, and Captain Blaise Compaore, he thought would attract aid donors left about the imperialist pyromani- Sankara's successor, who has and earn him needed prestige and acs who burn down our forests, his promised tighter cooperation with confidence. Most became embar• hand stuck out stubbornly for more Paris as part of his "rectification" rassing fiascos, such as the Sourou money. program. Compaore's wife, a Irrigation project, which was One of the funnier episodes of this Franco-Ivoirian, is the goddaughter designed to build a dam on the Black nature was the diplomatic "inci• of the Ivoirian head of state. As the Volta River, so as to allow two grain dent" between Sankara and French French newsweekly, LeNouvel Ob- harvests a year. Sankara emptied the President Francois Mitterrand at a servateur put it, Blaise has "excel• state coffers in order to finish (with state dinner in Ouagadougou in lent references, in short," and, French bulldozers) before the impor• November 1986. Sankara invited his ' 'without the active assistance of the tant first anniversary celebration of "Socialist" guest to make his acts Ivory Coast no putsch is the revolution, on August 4, 1984. conform to his words, accused possible."16 * The structure was completed on France of doing nothing to end the Sankara had boycotted attempts time, the waters were gathered and Iran-Iraq war or the regional wars in to create a French Commonwealth channeled, but then not a cent was Chad and Sahara, and denounced and repeatedly denounced the O left for irrigation equipment to make him for receiving the bandit Savim- ' 'Balkanisation'' of Africa at Non- use of the water, which evaporated, bi (UNITA leader in Angola) and the Aligned summits and Organisation =*• oo Instead of expanding the land and South African murderer Pieter of African Unity (OAU) meetings. J* relying on the people to devise and Botha on French soil. Raising his He refused to attend the Franco- ^ make use of inexpensive means to ir- glass to Franco-Burkinabe friend• African summits of 1984 and 1985, g rigate, the project ended up drain- ship, Mitterrand retorted: "Captain calling them' 'organisational shack• * ing the treasury and reducing Sankara has the cutting edge of les inherited from the colonial O available farming land.13 youth, but it cuts too sharply. If you epoch," and held his own summit An example of an industrial need us, you'll let us know. And if with Khadaffi instead. -j project totally unnecessary for de- you don't, we can pass it up."14 How much to make of the - S£ veloping the Burkina economy on an In truth, pohtically and otherwise, Burkina connection? The two had ^ independent basis was the Tambao France pursued attempts to frequent exchanges, but what count• railway in the north, which called on "restabilise" the situation: the So• ed were the arms that Libya sup• ^ the people to carry out a "Battle of cialists sent a hefty shipment of arms plied: Soviet tanks, rocket the rails" and construct 300 kilo• to President Jean-Baptiste Ouedrao- launchers, and especially Kalash- metres of track in order to get out the go as early as May 1983, the moment nikov rifles, all of which sup• country's unexploited manganese, Sankara was arrested, to prevent his plemented the maintenance-level gold and bauxite reserves. After 35 return to office. A year later the So• military stock provided by the kilometres had been laid the money cialist government refused to receive French, considerably upped Burki• for rails ran out. When.the World the number two military man, Blaise na's operational potential and Bank refused to help finish the job Compaore, to renegotiate French helped the "reorganisation" of the 1 because the project was too expen• aid, as a protest against the regime's neocolonial army. On the diplomatic sive, it was abandoned. recent execution of seven coup- level, Sankara is said to have polite• plotters. ly refused to join Khadaffi's peren• Non-Aligned Dependence Further, there were recurrent nial proposal to "merge their two rumors that the three-day border countries," and some sources even France was more than irritated by war with in 1985 over a thin say his attempts to build unity be• Sankara's rise to power, particular• strip of land called the Agacher, in tween Arab and Black Africa . ly his international stance, because which some 300 people were killed, switched more towards cooperation Burkina Faso has always been an im• was instigated on behalf of France, with Algeria after Khadaffi refused portant crossroads of the French which had just renewed and (Continued to p. 56) 56

Burkina Faso and some hospitals. Despite all this gle — they approached the woman (Continued from p. 34) "friendly aid" from non- Western question in the same revisionist way. sources, Sankara avoided mixing up As one woman put it,' 'It seems that Sankara official state honors on one what he called the struggle for in• the revolution is for men and wom• of his visits to Tripoli. In addition, dependence from French neo• en in the cities, not for us." Their he carried out the first state visit to colonialism with "skin reactions." view of liberation through econom• the Saharan Arab Democratic To friends who were surprised at his ic production recognised the oppres• Republic with this aim. rapid dispatch of a contingent to sive relations between men and Sankara's tightest links were in Jacques Chirac's side when the women (hard to ignore or avoid the fact with J.J. Rawlings' similarly "right" regained a parliamentary widespread consequences of women military-coup-inspired regime in majority in March 1986 in France, still being traded as a , Ghana. The two formed a mutual assuring him of Burkina's inten• worked to an early death, voiceless defense treaty as of November 1983 tions, Sankara jokingly remarked, in arranged marriages and political and even carried out joint military ' 'Even if Jean-Marie Le Pen came to affairs, sexually mutilated to ensure manoeuvres. This alliance seemed to power one day in Paris we'd send a male domination) but, because their upset loyal French friends like delegation and keep our relations approach to the rural revolution did Gabon and Ivory Coast and, in with France''!17 (Le Pen is the head not aim at dissolving all the old re• regional terms, the possibility of a of the neofascist National Front in lations of production, they were un• pro-Soviet axis running from Tripoli France.) able to surmount the inevitable to Ouagadougou to Accra was not challenges actually posed in order to a pleasing prospect to French or Against Apartheid unleash the masses of women, and Western imperialism as a whole. and Women's Oppression were stymied by such phenomena as Sankara traveled to Cuba and the women who defended polygamy be• , but said he was not Attention was paid, by friends cause it was a way to share the ex• pitting Moscow against Paris. He and by the Sankara government cruciatingly heavy work load, to displayed a contradictory attitude alike, to building up the capital of allow them to space out eternal preg• towards the Soviet Union and the Ouagadougou as an important Afri• nancies "for the lineage" and to get East bloc, and within his circle and can centre for political, cultural and a little rest. Since the regime was in• those supporting him the struggle sports events. It became a magnet capable of carrying out a proletari• was often sharp over this question. for artists and intellectuals, a Mec• an policy of resolving the woman The Soviet connection represented a ca for social democratic and revi• question as part of umeashing wom• temptation in hopes of decreasing sionist leaders around the world, en (and men) to uproot the old reac• dependence on France, but this very from Yasser Arafat to Nicaragua's tionary relations between people, sarhe dependence locked the state Daniel Ortega. Reggae concerts were they were reduced to making decrees into a certain orbit. held in the new stadium, and the proclaiming women's rights (which Soviet aid was, as is often the case Panafrican Film Festival of Ou• in the absence of real transforma• in Africa, funneled through other agadougou became the cultural tions could only remain as empty as pro-Soviet "non-aligned" regimes. event of Black Africa, pulling India's "outlawing" of the caste sys• Cuba, so uniquely qualified in the together artists and a broad public tem) and combine them with a non-staples cash crop department, participation. The regime en• ' 'practical programme'' which with many years experience as a couraged its reputation as a sort of amounted to making the liberation Soviet neocolony, offered to help anti-apartheid centre, organising a of women dependent on first in• Burkina Faso build up its sugar in• number of forums and demonstra• creasing the number of ploughs and dustry. Ghana and Cuba helped con• tions. In Sankara's fight to wells, for example. In fact, this view struct an airport runway, Libya gave popularise women's "liberation," a is another version of the "theory of some $10 million, and other aid women's rock group was formed, the " common to came from Angola, Mozambique, the "Doves of Peace." revisionists of different stripes who Romania and North Korea, which see the increase in the productive The question of women's oppres• forces, and not the revolutionary sent iron and cement to build popu• sion in itself would be enough to seal lar theatres in Ouagadougou and struggle of the masses, as the key to the fate of the Burkina path, partic• advancing society. Bobo Dioulasso. ularly as it had advertised that the On the other hand, Sankara an• liberation of women and revolution nounced that Soviet troops should go together, raising a lot of false Sankara's Overthrow leave Afghanistan and he favoured hopes and sharp opposition. For just maintaining diplomatic ties with as Sankara and Co handled the bas• The urban sectors which had sup• Albania. ic class contradictions in Burkina ported Sankara's efforts began to China, for its part, donated some Faso — with a very rnilitant, left- grow increasingly disillusioned with 100 wells as part of the campaign to sounding phraseology which was his programme. In particular, they reduce water shortages. They also very "right" (economist and un• were less and less willing to tolerate gave several million dollars used to achievable) in essence and that never his reform measures that cut into construct an' 'August 4th Stadium,'' relied on the masses and their strug• (Continued to p. 80) 80

revolutionary tendency might even• deviate from the traditional neo• Burkina Faso tually emerge, the more the thin non- colonial path, and their overall proletarian base he had built his necessities in today's world acceler• (Continued from p. 56) revolution on began to crumble un• ated their political and financial derneath him. manipulations to normalise the their comforts (as meager as these script, after tolerating a brief flirta• might seem alongside those in * * * tion with African social-democracy. wealthy countries). The playing out of this scenario, Civil servants and others stopped When he took over the presiden• at the price of a tightened grip on the participating regularly in political cy Compaore dissolved the CNR, oppressed, strengthens the verdict meetings and rural voluntary labour, formed a Popular Front and that no social class other than the and many intellectuals left in search promised to reinstate the fired proletariat can represent their of higher-paying jobs in neighboring teachers, carrying out a "rectifica• genuinely revolutionary interests states. tion," but keeping the goals of the and no shortcuts are available to Parallel to this, political infight• revolution. The official line coming liberation from imperialism from ing within the CNR itself was es• out of Ouagadougou is that Sankara the difficult and demanding road of calating and the left organisations was an isolated man, autocratic and people's war and the conscious had realigned to take advantage of trying to silence much of the voice struggle of the masses. • the erosion of Sankara's support. of the left who helped him into pow• Additional Sources The unions began to flex their mus• er. While it is probable that Com• Africa Confidential, 21 Oct 1987,26 Oct 1987, paore might find it useful to "Burkina Faso: The End" cles, backed by at least a couple of CarrefourAfricain, 23 Oct 1987 (Ouagadou• members of Sankara's close ruling continue to mouth "leftist" slogans, gou — Weekly organ of the popular military circle. After a strike in the his criminal ascension to power put government) spring of 1984 he had laid off 1200 a brutal end to the Burkina Faso ex• Jeune Afrigue, N° 1399 (28 Oct 1987), teachers, replacing them with CDR perience and a return to a more N° 1400 (4 Nov 1987), N° 1401 (11 Nov 1987), includes interviews with Thomas instructors, and throwing the ' 'sober'' recognition of the reality of LIP AD minister out of the govern• . Le Monde, 17, 21, 22, 24 Oct 1987 ment on accusations of pushing Bur• Any genuine revolutionary regime Le Monde Diplomatique, Feb 1985, Nov kina into the Soviets' arms and confronting the mammoth task of 1987, articles by Pascal Lazabee; March 1984, article by Jean Ziegler manipulating the CDRs. uprooting the old oppressive rela• Marches Tropicaux et Mediterraneans, 16,10, On the first of May, 1987, after tions in Burkina will face extremely 23 Oct 1987 the four biggest union confedera• difficult obstacles. Since Sankara's West Africa, "Towards Self-Reliance," downfall, the bourgeois press has 14 Jan 1985; "Progress to Turmoil," 26 Oct tions presented a common demand 1987 for a return to "democratic free• gloated at his inability to hold on as Footnotes doms," 30 leaders of salaried civil the "troublemaker" in French West 1. The Guardian, 17 Oct 1987 servants were arrested, including the Africa. The problem is not so much 2. Afrique-Asie, No. 318, 12 March 1984, that Captain Sankara failed, but that p. 21 head of the pro-Soviet LIP AD; one 3. Citedin Geneve Afrique, 24(1), 1986, p.39 faction even reportedly wanted to his "revolution" could only fail. 4. Jean Ziegler, La Victoire des Vaincus, execute him. The so-called moderate Sankara tried to mobilise but (Paris: Seuil, 1988), p. 192 pro-Chinese revisionist ULC were could not rely on the peasantry, 5. Ziegler. Interesting account of tribal tra• ditions and the life of peasant women in the also evicted from the government. which has to be the bedrock and fourth part. Increasingly a split within the CNR main base of support for any real 6. See chapter four of Rene Dumont, Pour broke out, with the unions and the revolutionary transformation in a I'Afrique J'accuse, (Paris: Plon, 1986) CDRs more or less on opposing country like Burkina Faso. He want• 7. Recounted in Ziegler, pp. 176, 226 sides. ed to break out of the clutches of im• 8. BonaventureTraore, "Une canette debiere ou calebasse de-dolo," Le Monde Diploma• Sankara had proposed enlarging perialism but stood at the head of a tique, March 1984 the CNR and forming a single party reactionary state apparatus that had 9. Dumont, pp. 60-61 to try to unify the fast splitting been created by the imperialists 10. From an interview with French agronomist themselves. The fact that he was shot Ren6 Dumont revolutionary groups and hold them 11. Quoted in Newsweek, "We Have to together. Within the army, many of down by the very neocolonial army Depend on Ourselves," 19 Nov 1984 the leading military figures, includ• in which he served shows once again, 12. Ziegler, p. 163 ing Blaise Compaore, preferred a as if the proletariat had need of 13. Based on the first-hand experiences of front to a single party. Through in• another such lesson, that there is no Ren6 Dumont 14. Afrique Internationale, 199: Nov 1987, creasing tensions and manipula• substitute for the destruction of the p. 16 tions, coup plans were being laid. state apparatus by the revolutionary 15. See Pierre Engelbert, La Revolution Despite Sankara's continuing masses. Burkinabe, (Paris: Harmattan, 1986) and popularity, particularly among the Sankara's relatively painless sei• Liberation Afrique, Special Haute Volta, Sept 1984 youth and students, the more he zure of power in 1983 actually left 16. SeeLeNouvelObservateur, 29 Oct, 1987 tried to put his "independent" the old state power and the old so• and Ziegler, p. 157. Compaore also was said stamp on the course of events as he cial system essentially intact. Despite to be close to the pro-Soviet LIP AD, tacked through the sea of reformist this, the Western imperialists were 17. Sennen Andriamirado, Sankara le Re- squabbles, hoping some unified not indifferent to this attempt to belle, (Paris: Jeune Afrique, 1987 ) p. 214.