INTERVIEW WITH AZIZ FALL ON THE ASSASSINATION OF THOMAS SANKARA

Koni Benson and Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Koni Benson and Mukoma Wa Ngugi interview Aziz Fall, Co-ordinator of
the International Campaign for Justice for Sankara (ICJS) on the 20th
anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

President Thomas Sankara, affectionately referred to as Africa's Che
Guevera was assassinated in Burkina Faso on October 15th, 1987.
Twenty years later, his assassins remain in power and continue to
reverse the revolutionary changes Sankara initiated.

We interviewed Aziz Fall, the co-ordinator of the International
Justice Campaign for Sankara (ICJS) who has been receiving ongoing
anonymous death threats since December 2006. He has been co-
ordinating 22 lawyers from France, to Senegal, Canada, Togo and
beyond, dedicated to using legal means to find the truth behind
Sankara's assassination.

We started the interview by asking Aziz Fall about the death threats
against him and his family, and about ICJS and the UN judgements on
Sankara's assassination. We then asked him about some of Sankara's
achievements in relation to the emancipation of women, education, and
neo-colonialism in the 1980s, and then moved onto questions about
power, politics, and policies in Burkina Faso under President Blaise
Compaoré who has been in power since Sankara's assassination in 1987.
Lastly, the interview reflects on Sankara's legacy and his continuing
relevance in this age of globalisation.

Aziz, Can you please tell us the nature of the death threats? What do
they say? Do have an idea of where they are coming from? Are they
from the government? Third parties? Is it one person or several
people etc?

Thank you. I've received four death threats since December 2006.
Three letters in bubble envelopes left in the mailbox at my front
door. The first one was simple and said "stop or be stopped," the
second was similar but didn't mention my name, and the third was a
little more explicit, mentioning my name, asking me "to commit
suicide or face execution." I filed a complaint with the police in
March 2007.

Then, in April, after the screening of a film on Thomas Sankara in
Montreal, a young Burkinabé journalist, Sam Kah, who appeared in the
film, received a threat, according to the organising committee of the
Thomas Sankara 20th anniversary commemorations. The committee had
invited both of us to their activities which take place Oct 11-15th,
2007. Following the threat against Sam Kah, I decided to tell the
committee members about my own death threats, which I had previously
hidden from them because I was worried it would have a demobilising
effect.

They issued a press release concerning the threats against the two of
us. A couple of days later, I received another threat, this time by
phone. A man with a strange accent warned me that neither the police
nor my lawyers would be able to protect me, and that since I still
didn't understand, my family would be targeted first, then me.

At about this time, someone tried, unsuccessfully, to break into my
home through the back door. This was discovered as we were installing
an alarm system.

We don't know exactly who is behind these threats. But we have good
evidence that a Frenchman and two Africans have something to hide,
because they have been caught in a number of lies and contradictions.
The police and CSIS, Canada's spy agency, are still investigating.
That's all I can say at this point.

It is unacceptable that as an advocate of freedom and justice, I am
being physically threatened in a country that promotes these basic
values around the world. We have approached the Canadian authorities
about this situation, and we have great hope that they will do
everything to solve the matter.


Can you briefly talk about the International Campaign Justice for
Sankara (ICJS) and GRILA? How does the United Nations judgement (in
which the Committee considers that the refusal to conduct an
investigation into the death of Thomas Sankara, the lack of official
recognition of his place of burial and the failure to correct the
death certificate constitute inhuman treatment of Ms.Sankara and her
sons, in breach of article 7 of the Covenant) affect the search for
justice on behalf of Sankara?

Sankara's widow, Mariam Sankara, and his two sons never abandoned
their call to the international community to take action to bring his
assassins to justice. Ten years ago, the Group for Research and
Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA, an internationalist
and panafricanist group) answered that call by creating an
international campaign with a twofold strategy involving a political
component and a legal one. I had the honour of co-ordinating a team
of 22 lawyers, which put together a case for a full investigation
into the murder of President Sankara and a dozen of his colleagues.

The government of Burkina Faso, under the presidency of Blaise
Compaoré, along with a highly compromised judicial system, blocked
all efforts by the Campaign to bring the case to court. After
exhausting all possible legal recourse within the country, the
Campaign brought the case before United Nations Human Rights
Committee. Just over one year ago, the UN Human Rights Committee
ruled in favour of the International Justice for Sankara Campaign,
and demanded that the government of Burkina Faso take action to shed
light on the circumstances of Sankara's death.
(See http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/
0/8d3fe6b44a5f39bdc1257172005150ec?OpenDocument )
That was actually a world first, and certainly a legal precedent in
Africa, creating a breach in the cycles of impunity that characterize
the political life of our continent. There is also a link between the
Sankara case and the trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian
head of state, who plotted with Compaoré in the assassination of
Sankara. We expect the final UN judgement to be announced later this
year and really hope that it will represent a major step forward in
the global struggle against impunity.

What were some of Sankara's achievements, be it in the emancipation
of women, education or rolling back neo-colonialism?

Our organisation (GRILA) and the revolution in Burkina Faso are the
exact same age and we have many things in common. So we may sound
pretty subjective when it comes to our assessment of what was
achieved in those three years. Sankara tried to put into practice
most of the key elements of our own philosophy; among other things,
the destruction of all forms of racism and ethnocentrism, with the
Bambaata summit and the anti-apartheid struggle; the respect of
collective and human rights; the struggle against regimes allied with
imperialist interests; a balance between rural and urban incomes;
food self-sufficiency; the fulfilment of basic needs. A key issue for
Sankara was the political, economic and social emancipation of women
and the transformation of sexist mentalities. That particular aspect
was crucial in a very traditional society where sexism was so with
entrenched. Men were invited to go to the market once a week, women
were appointed to key State positions, and civic rights and the
constitution granted women important advantages.

While there were mistakes and contradictions due to the weakness of
his alliances, Sankara was steadfast in focusing on other key issues
as well, issues that are still cornerstones to our own work, namely,
popular and civic participation, popular democracy and the promotion
and empowerment of Africa's youth. Sankara promoted self-reliant,
ecologically sustainable development, and invited locals and
foreigners alike to plant trees; the emergence of regional
panafricanist states that were politically and economically
accountable to their citizens, as evidenced by his attempts to unite
with Ghana. Sankara was committed to fighting corruption, and
personally served as a very modest example, refusing to live a life
of luxury and reigning in any tendencies by those within his
government toward ostentatious consumption.

Are some of these changes still visible or has the Compaoré
government managed to erase all of them?

While the Sankarist regime laid the ground for stability and a better
form of development, it is clear that the international order ensured
that Compaoré's regime did not take the same path. Compaoré's regime
was also involved in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean crises and wars,
generating tremendous wealth for itself. The government has become
very wealthy, which has allowed it to bribe some of the opposition
elite, while intimidating or killing others. Within the framework of
the neo-liberal agenda and the French zone of influence among its
former African colonies, the regime has been able to establish a
formal democracy and to reproduced itself, and in so doing has
widened the gap between the haves and the have nots.

Compaoré has recently amended the constitution so that he can run for
a third term which means he will have been in power from 1987 to 2012.

A very common phenomenon in Africa indeed. It's a pity, but history
will judge. Killing your comrades and opponents and tailoring the
constitution to fit your needs is nothing new. Even if the population
is frightened, and busy surviving the harsh conditions of unequal
development, there is no doubt that one day it will rise up against
this.

How do the people of Burkina Faso regard Sankara today? Is he still
part of the political imagination?

In general, people have a lot of admiration for him despite of the
regime's anti-Sankara propaganda and intimidation. The teenage
generation doesn't know him well, and many may just know him as an
icon. However, it is heartening that at the African social forum in
Bamako, Sankara was chosen as a leading model. As my comrade Ameth Lô
wrote, "The Sankarist alternative remains, therefore, entirely
relevant in addressing issues surrounding development and lasting
sovereignty. It is a panafricanist socialist alternative, focused
uniquely on meeting the needs of the African masses, impoverished by
decades of structural adjustment programs that had no results other
than to ensure continued payments to shameless creditors for the so-
called debt that's not only immoral-since a third of the initial debt
has been repaid-but also because the borrowed funds were never
injected into the economic and social fabric of these
countries." (see http://www.grila.org/e_forum.htm)
We'll see how the population will react on October 15, but it is
clear that Sankara is going to be celebrated in many countries this
year, which has been named Sankara Year by his supporters. That is
surely a great sign of vitality and political imagination!

How does Sankara challenge the idea of revolution today? What is his
legacy? What is his continuing relevance in this age of globalisation?

I think that GRILA is living proof of that legacy, and that the
struggle that is at stake, in this process of so-called African union
and various attempts at integration, has to consider what we are
still advocating, namely: democracy and progressive strategies that
focus on self-reliant and popular development. Africa should rely
more on its own forces, within a socialist and panafricanist
perspective, and develop strong ties with other third world
countries. This form of development entails subordinating external
demands to internal needs. A consciousness that is increasingly
homogenised by the dominant values of today's globalized world
system, however, is incapable of envisaging such a path. As the
Burkinabé revolution was trying to achieve, GRILA's task as well as
that of any other progressive political force in Africa, should be to
contribute to re-politicizing the discussion around development,
fostering a new political consciousness, and channelling the efforts
of an organic intelligentsia that will be capable of building an
alternative to the disorder now ravaging Africa.

How are these challenges being addressed today-locally and
internationally?

For us it is important to continue the work. We will not be
intimidated. Locally the Sankarist movement, despite numerous
factions, is more united and better organized. In many African
countries and in the Diaspora, Sankarist clubs and associations are
mushrooming. A lot of people expect that history will repeat itself
in a cyclical fashion. But each society is confronted with new
challenges, and will take different roads. It appears to me that as
long as the contradictions of capitalism deepen, and societies
continued to be destroyed by the capitalist way of life and
production, we have no choice but to invent more progressive and
internationalist paths in order to tackle the barbarism of
globalisation and the forces that dominate it.


* Koni Benson is a researcher at the International Labour Research
and Information Group in Cape Town.

* Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness
(AWP, 2006) Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change (KPH, 2003),
and editor of the forthcoming, New Kenyan Fiction (Ishmael Reed
Publications, 2008). He is a political columnist for the BBC Focus on
Africa Magazine.

* Please send comments to [log in to unmask] or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
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