By Arsene Kabore, OUAGADOUGOU
Burkina Faso
The late Burkina Faso revolutionary leader, Captain Thomas Sankara was reburied Thursday, eight years after his body was exhumed as part of an investigation.
Sankara’s body, and those of
the 12 people who died with him, were reburied at the site of his
assassination, which has since become a memorial for Sankara featuring a
life-sized statue of the former leader pumping his fist in the air.
Soldiers and community leaders
paid tribute during a ceremony Thursday, some posing for pictures by Sankara’s
coffin. All the coffins were draped in Burkina Faso flags with a photo beside
them.
Sankara and the others were gunned down in the capital, Ouagadougou, during a 1987 coup and buried hastily. Their bodies were allowed to be dug up in 2015, after the ousting of former President Blaise Compaore.
Sankara, a charismatic Marxist
leader with a reputation as “Africa’s Che Guevara,” came to power in 1983 at
the age of 33 after he and Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a
moderate military faction. But in 1987, Compaore turned on his former friend in
a coup in which he seized power and then ruled the country for 30 years.
Last year, Compaore, who now
lives in Ivory Coast, was tried in absentia and convicted of complicity in
their murders. A Burkina Faso military tribunal sentenced
him to life imprisonment. Compaore’s right-hand man, Gilbert Diendere, and
former spy chief Tousma Yacinthe Kafando were also given life sentences.
Eight other people were found
guilty of a range of charges including giving false testimonies and complicity
in undermining state security.
While Sankara’s family was happy that he was finally laid to rest, they said the place of burial was like a slap in the face because of the horrors that occurred there. The family asked the government to bury him elsewhere but was told it was at the army’s discretion since Sankara was a soldier.
“That place is painful for us
to put our feet there. A lot of people were tortured there and crimes committed
there and murders,” his younger brother Paul Sankara told The Associated Press
by phone from the United States, where he lives.
The West African nation has
struggled with a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State
group that has killed thousands and displaced nearly 2 million people and sowed
division among the population, leading to two
coups last year.
The current junta leader,
Capt. Ibrahim Traore, has been likened by some to Sankara, as an
anti-imperialist pan-African leader, and is using the reburial to increase
support, analysts said.
“With undertaking a symbolic
state funeral for Sankara, Traore aims to boost his image by appealing to the
collective memory of the young revolutionary leader that still shapes society
in Burkina Faso,” said Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a
global risk intelligence firm. - AP
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