As the 25th anniversary of the murder of Thomas Sankara nears, many citizens from all around the world keep signing the “Justice for Sankara, Justice for Africa” appeal. Demand for truth and justice is rising from everywhere.
President Thomas Sankara would have been 63 years old, hadn’t he been assassinated by the henchmen of Blaise Compaoré, the current president of Burkina Faso, and Gilbert Diendéré, the former’s personal Chief of Staff. The latter was knighted in the National Order of the French Legion of Honour in May 2008.
President Thomas Sankara represented hope for a whole continent and he is still considered today, in Africa as elsewhere, a model leader, determined, honest, brave and creative. He used to upset the establishment because of his uncompromising stance against western domination and elaborated an alternative development paradigm, more autonomous and based on fair sharing of wealth and on genuine cooperation to the benefit of the Burkinabe people.
Since his assassination, strong evidence has supported the theory of an international plot (see the file, currently being updated, at http://thomassankara.net/?p=1104).
Blaise Compaoré’s involvement in the armed conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone is now general knowledge, as confirmed by several statements made during Charles Taylor’s trial. Compaoré then hosted and supported the rebels in Ivory Coast and, now, many question his actions in the current conflict in Northern Mali. And yet he is deemed a role model in international meetings, particularly at the UN, where his “talent for mediation” is lauded. Powerful lobbies, in France and in the US, promote his image on the international scene. It happens that these two countries are suspected to have had a hand in the plot that led to the murder of President Thomas Sankara, according to Liberian witnesses. And recently, Blaise Compaoré was welcomed with honours at the Elysée by the new French president. When will a break with the Françafrique occur?
We call on citizens, political parties, NGOs, to amplify the campaign by setting up new public actions, particularly in Burkina Faso, in the US to bring the truth about the involvement of the CIA to light, and in France in order to have a parliamentary investigation started, and, more widely, in all the countries where Thomas Sanakara was seen as a model leader.
We reiterate our call on journalists to investigate, on historians to start new research and on film makers to keep addressing this topic so that eventually the truth on the assassination of Sankara can be established.
The international network “Justice for Sankara, Justice for Africa”
On Octobre the 6th 2012, in Ouagadougou, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Turin, Liège and Bamako.
contact : contactjusticepoursankara (at) gmail.com
