Thomas Sankara

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabé military officer, politician, Marxist and pan-Africanist revolutionary who served as the first president of Burkina Faso from 1983 until his assassination in 1987. Sankara previously served as the fifth prime minister of Upper Volta from January to May 1983. After Sankara was appointed Prime Minister of the Republic of Upper Volta in 1983, he disputed with the sitting government and was placed under house arrest, during which a group of revolutionaries seized power on his behalf in a popular coup later that year. Following the coup, Sankara, then 33, became the President of the Republic of Upper Volta and launched an unprecedented series of social, ecological, and economic reforms that were part of what he referred to as the people's democratic revolution. In 1984, Sankara oversaw the renaming of the country as Burkina Faso ('land of the upright people'), and personally wrote its national anthem. His foreign policy centered on anti-imperialism and self-sufficiency, and he rejected loans and capital from such organizations as the International Monetary Fund. However, he welcomed some foreign aid in an effort to boost the domestic economy and diversify sources of assistance. His domestic policies included famine prevention, agrarian expansion, land reform, and suspending rural poll taxes, as well as a nationwide literacy campaign and vaccination program to reduce meningitis, yellow fever and measles. Sankara's health programmes distributed millions of doses of vaccines to children across Burkina Faso. His government also focused on building schools, health centres, water reservoirs, and infrastructure projects. He combatted desertification of the Sahel by planting more than 10 million trees. Socially, his government enforced the prohibition of female circumcision, forced marriages, and polygamy. Sankara reinforced his populist image by ordering the sale of luxury vehicles and properties...