In Burkina Faso, former President Thomas Sankara elevated to the rank of “hero of the nation”

The transitional government in Burkina Faso decided, Wednesday, October 4, to elevate the former president and father of the Burkinabe revolution, Thomas Sankara, to the rank of “hero of the nation.” “The council [of ministers] adopted a decree recognizing the status of hero of the nation to the late Captain Isidore Thomas Noël Sankara,” indicates the report, transmitted to AFP. This “consecration […] aims to perpetuate the cardinal values ​​​​which founded the Republic”, justified the government.

The status of “hero of the nation” was created in June 2022 to honor people who have distinguished themselves in particular by their “exceptional bravery in defense of a national cause” or their “exceptional and honorable prowess for the nation”.

Coming to power through a putsch in August 1983, Thomas Sankara, a pan-African icon, was killed on October 15, 1987 during a coup d’état instigated by his number two, Blaise Compaoré. That day, the Burkinabe president was in a meeting at the headquarters of his National Council of the Revolution (CNR) when a commando of putschist soldiers arrived on site and shot him and his companions.

After the death of Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré remained in power until a popular uprising that led to his downfall in 2014. In April 2022, after a six-month trial, the Ouagadougou military court convicted Blaise Compaoré, who lives in Ivory Coast, in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

Buried for the first time in a cemetery on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the bodies of Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions were exhumed on May 25, 2015 for the purposes of legal proceedings, before being buried in a memorial erected at the very site of their assassinations. A “national and international ceremony of tribute to the victims will be organized on October 15, 2023 to honor their memories,” according to the government.

The transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, has regularly paid tribute to Thomas Sankara since he came to power on September 30, 2022, during a coup d’état.