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monday 06 may 2024
BETA: Automatically translated from Basque, translation may contain errors. More information here. 
Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, was killed at 37
37
years ago
15 October 1987,
Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, was killed at the age of 37. He was one of the most important anti-imperialist and pan-African leaders and achieved great social achievements. His ideas included the distribution of wealth, the liberation of women or the defence of the environment. The United States sponsored the coup against him.
During the four years he was in charge he carried out, among others:
- He lowered his salary to $450 a month and signed that his assets were a car, four bikes, three guitars, a refrigerator and a broken freezer.
- He sold the entire fleet of government-owned Mercedes cars and chose the cheapest official car in Burkina Faso.
- In a few weeks, he vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.
- He founded 350 schools.
- In 1983 he launched the national literacy campaign. Then there were 13% of the citizens who could read and by 1987 their number increased to 73%.
- He divided the lands of the large landowners among the peasants.
- It banned forced marriages.
- To contribute to the desertification of the Sahel, 10 million trees were planted.
- It built roads and railways that articulated peoples across the state.
- Waiver of international economic aid with the following sentence: "Whoever feeds you controls you."
- He worked for the union of African countries that would face external debt, arguing that the poor and oppressed need not pay the rich and oppressive countries.
- The area in charge of supplying food for the army made it a supermarket open to all citizens and was the first supermarket in the country.
- He refused to use air conditioning in his office, arguing that it was a luxury that only a few rich burkists could afford.
Source:
Bruno Jaffre, Thomas Sankara or the dignity of Africa (Le Monde Diplomatique in Spanish, October 2007).
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