Many witnesses, often ex-associates of Charles Taylor, implicate Blaise Compaoré in the assassination of Thomas Sankara, which was carried out with the complicity of Houphouet Boigny, other African personalities, France and the CIA.
In April 2006, the UN Committee for Human Rights, spurred on by the Judiciary committee of the International Campaign for Justice for Thomas Sankara (ICJS), working in the name of the family, concluded in favor of the plaintiffs. It further asked the state of Burkina Faso to elucidate the facts behind the assassination, in order to provide the family with a means for impartial justice, to correct his death certificate, to prove where he was buried, to compensate the family for the trauma they have suffered and to publicly divulge the committee’s decision.
On April 21, 2008, the UN Committee for Human Rights, in complete contradiction with the preceding decision closed the record without an investigation having been carried out. Such a decision does no honor to this institution.
Certain members of the international community pretend to see in Blaise Compaoré a man of peace, even though he is notoriously implicated in conflicts in Liberia and in Sierra Leone, in the arms’ traffic and the trafficking of diamonds for Jonas Sawimbi’s l’UNITA, then under UN embargo, and more recently in the conflict that has torn apart the Ivory Coast.
This same international community asks us to cry over the, in fact, extremely rich continent, which is Africa, all the while working to perpetuate its submission. In reality the causes of Africa’s difficulties can be traced back to the international networks which initiate wars and assassinations in order to maintain their control over the continent’s resources — this, with the complicity of many western countries and certain African leaders.
More than 22 years after the assassination of Sankara, a historical personality, first rate african leader who is more and more seen as a reference for an honest, determined, creative and courageous leader; precursor of the fight for the preservation of the environment, the Burkina F. revolution has become a model for development. Sankara was assassinated because he denounced the odious debt and the diktat of the western powers but also because he engaged in an independent policy, oriented toward the needs of his country, for the satisfaction of the people of his country, while at the same time opening up to a pan-Africanism.
For these reasons we call for the support of the Judiciary Committee of the ICJS’s initiatives. For more than 12 years, the committee has relentlessly filed legal actions together with the Sankara family.
We demand that an independent investigation into Thomas Sankara’s assassination be carried out. It is the international community’s duty, the right of the Sankara family, and a necessity for the growth of the nation’s youth. Without such an investigation, with a history expunged of the true story concerning one of the major episodes of the 20th century, the prospects of the continent cannot be fully realized.
We call the youth, the democratic parties, the social movements in Africa and beyond to continue to mobilize in order that the light be finally shed on this assassination. Justice needs to be done so that Africa can move towards an end to impunity.
