Captain Thomas Sankara Lived and Died As A Poor Man!
As promised, The Gambia Echo brings you the full exclusive conversation between the Honourable Fidèle Kientega, Captain Thomas Sankara’s Foreign Policy Adviser and journalist Bubacarr Sankanu, which took place in Cologne, Germany. Excerpts:
Sankanu: You took time off from your busy parliamentary schedule at the Burkinabé National Assembly to honour our invitation to grace our weeklong cinematographic commemoration of the 20 years since the assassination of President Thomas Sankara and 50 years since Ghana, the first Continental Black African State, gained its independence from Great British. Congratulations for your truly Pan-Africanist endeavours.
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Hon. Kientega: Whenever you have a serious African project and you need my input, I will join you even if I am on crutches!
Sankanu: I am in tears of honour! Should we be formal or informal today?
Kientega: Let’s remain informal. You are my brother. When I saw you first, I knew you were from Burkina Faso. You look like one of us. You equally speak French and your name “Sankanu” is not that much different from “Sankara!”?
Sankanu: May be there were pronunciation errors along the migratory routes from the Ancient Ghanaian Empire to The Gambia and Burkina Faso (laughs).
Kientega: We are all the same people.
Sankanu: Since becoming cosmopolitan my African identity has superseded my Gambian Nationality. The Senegalese greet me in Wolof and other dialects without knowing my nationality. The Malians speak to me in Bambara while the Congolese greet me with Linguala and Kiswahili. I was dumbfounded when a lady spoke to me in Kinyarwanda. She said she thought I was a Rwandan as I have the same slim posture as President Paul Kagame, except that Kagame is taller! The Europeans often associate me with the African country they last heard about from the news.
Kientega: Your home country, The Gambia, is a small country.
Sankanu: Yes, we have only a territorial space of around 11,000 km². Our key ethnic composition includes the Mandinkas, who are cousins of the Bambaras, and the Wolofs who are found in Senegal as well. The current President Jammeh is Jola. They are among the aborigines of the south western Region of our country and the troubled Casamance region of Senegal. I am Sarahule known throughout West Africa as Soninke or Maraka. I have some Fula genes in me from the Imamate of Boundou in present day Tambacounda Region of Senegal. The Fulas, living between the Adamawa and the Futa Djalon, are also known as Peul, Fulbe or Fulani.
Kientega: We have Soninkes in Burkina Faso and as you may have known, the late Thomas Sankara was of Peul stock!
Sankanu: Wow! These are amazing leads for a genealogical research into a possible “Sankanu-Sankara” linkage (laughs). Will you kindly introduce yourself to the distinguished readers?
Kientega: Thank you. My full names are KIENTEGA, Meng-Néré Fidèle. I am an African man of 53 years of age. Due Africa’s balkanisation, I am specifically Burkinabé. I read International Law and Literature and served as Foreign Policy Adviser and Loyal Aide to President Captain Thomas Sankara until his assassination on the 15th October 1987. Presently, I am an Elected Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Burkina Faso on the ticket of the UNIR/MS (Union pour la Renaissance/Mouvement Sankariste). I am the Party’s Secretary General for Information and International Cooperation and will remain a Sankara loyalist till my death. I am married and I have 6 children.
Sankanu: Congratulations!
Kientega: I am in the middle. Some of my colleagues have more children and others have fewer.
Sankanu: I am yet to experience how it feels to be a father.
Kientega: It is not too late. You are still very young.
Sankanu: You know our African society. If you attain a certain social status, be it economic, political or intellectual and you remain childless, people verbally torture you! It took some time before our President Yahya Jammeh became a father and people almost drove him mad with their rumours and gossip. One day he came out into the open by saying all those who insinuated that he was impotent should bring him their mothers (laughs). Jammeh is a bad boy who makes me laugh a lot!
Kientega: I met Yahya Jammeh in Senegal in 1986!
Sankanu: That’s interesting news!
Kientega: I was on a mission to Senegal and we met at the Hotel Terranga. He was in the company of Senegalese security personnel.
Sankanu: That was during the SeneGambian Confederation when our Gendarmerie was getting technical assistance from Senegal.
Kientega: He told me he wished to meet Captain Thomas Sankara. I told him he would be welcome in Burkina Faso.
Sankanu: Maybe he wanted mentoring for his own revolution 8 years later in The Gambia on Friday July 22nd 1994.
Kientega: How is his revolution working?
Sankanu: Well, I think he likes cement and bricks more than human beings, maybe because brick structures don’t complain like humans do. They just wear away in silence. I mean his Human Rights Records and approach to the Due Process of the Law are his Achilles’ heel. The serious Human Rights advocacy organizations are having tough time engaging him in a change of course. In all other areas, I am reluctant to make any conclusion because the stories I am getting are from second hand sources with extreme emotions, rumours and inconsistencies. Those who support Yahya Jammeh report on his revolution as if he has paved the streets of The Gambia with gold and silver. On the other hand, Jammeh haters explain things in a way that makes gullible people feel as if The Gambian State will implode within 24 hours. For a firsthand assessment of the successes and failures of Jammeh’s Rule, I intend to spend one of my project breaks in The Gambia and use the time to make a documentary. I will bring it along to the next convenient Pan-African Film and TV Festival in Ouagadougou (FESPACO). We can analyse it together and compare Jammeh’s revolution with that of Sankara...
Kientega: Is Dawda Jawara there?
Sankanu: Yes, he reconciled with Jammeh, and returned home.
Hon. Kientega, on the 15th October 1987, the world was shocked by the news of the assassination of Captain Thomas Sankara in a Palace Coup d’État. Where were you on this sad day?
Kientega: I am able to talk to you now because, on this day, Thomas Sankara sent me on a mission to the north of Burkina Faso. When I returned to the capital, Ouagadougou, I was taken to the Gendarmerie where I was detained. My office and house were ransacked and all-important state files that were in my possession were taken away. Later Blaise Campaore sent me his current Interior Minister with a job offer but I rejected it. I said he had betrayed Thomas Sankara and my conscience would not allow me to work with a traitor!
Sankanu: How did he react to your rejection and what reasons did they give for betraying Thomas Sankara?
Kientega: Life became very hard for me. I lost my source of income. I was using a bicycle to move around and I was continuously threatened with torture and death. They gave no convincing reasons. They killed Sankara and buried him overnight fearing public reaction. When they could not explain the cause of his death as demanded by the public, they lied and said that he died of natural causes.
Sankanu: I saw the odd certificate of death with the inscription “causes naturelles” (natural causes).
Kientega: The public did not accept it and demanded more clarification. Instead of meeting the people’s demand, they launched a campaign to destroy Thomas Sankara’s memory. They held mass rallies telling the people that they had liberated them from Thomas’s tyranny. To their disappointment, the people went, crying and loudly mourning, to the place where they had buried Thomas. They did not stop there. They spent a lot of resources in trying to smear Sankara’s image. They called him a womaniser who snatched or slept with the wives of his subordinates, a right-wing politician who was fooling the Burkina Faso people, and a thief. They used all sort of tricks that can demolish support and respect for any public figure. They destroyed important evidence that showed the true nature of Sankara. The material on Thomas Sankara you showed in your film festival are from libraries and archives outside Burkina Faso. Everyday, the police control local video sellers for material about Sankara. When they find any, they confiscate and destroy it.
Sankanu: Have they succeeded in their “destroy-Thomas-Sankara” campaign?
Kientega: How could they? They could not even prove a single allegation. All investigations proved that Thomas Sankara died the way he lived, as a poor and upright man. He did not build a big house for himself or amass wealth when in power.
Sankanu: I saw his house. It is a simple cube built with mud bricks. I am sure that even civil servants earning just US$50 a month will feel too important to live in the kind of house Thomas Sankara called home, not to mention the types of Heads of State we now have in Africa.
Kientega: Thomas set the pace for modesty and simplicity in leadership. He renamed our country “Burkina Faso” which means, “Land of the Upright People”. He himself lived and died by an upright example.
Sankanu: Let us come back to you. How did you manage to live under Blaise Campaore knowing he did not forgive you for rejecting him?
Kientega: Life was very rough for me, my family and all the remaining loyalists of Thomas Sankara who refused to be bought by Campaore. Some were killed in unexplained circumstances and others fled into exile. A businessman wanted to take me out of the country in his private jet but I declined. I refused to go into exile. I chose to stay.
Sankanu: You read International Law and gained experience in Public Administration. You are marketable at least within the United Nations (UN) System and can live comfortably outside Burkina Faso. Why did you choose to stay and suffer?
Kientega: With the killing of Thomas Sankara, I lost my fear of death! Sankara died at the age of thirty eight (38) without betraying his cause. I could have been among those 12 people who were summarily executed with him. I believe God kept me alive to help to continue the work of Thomas Sankara. As you know Burkina Faso is a country of modest natural resources. Material poverty is, for us, a natural thing. We Sankarists (followers of Thomas Sankara) would rather live in our mud houses with our bicycles and be beasts of burden as free men than stay in golden palaces under subjugation. Besides, there is no better place than home, even with all the suffering.
Sankanu: Exile has been preoccupying me a lot. During the discussion a young man from the audience raised it too. There is often a rift between those who went into exile and those who stayed at home and suffered. For example President Thabo Mbeki and his equals spent the anti-Apartheid struggle abroad while the sacked Vice President, Jacob Zuma, and his team faced the full wrath of the white minority government. Now they are involved in serious fistfights…. In The Gambia, the opposition parties, for the first time since the July coup, formed a promising alliance in the run up to the last Presidential Elections in 2006. They got massive support from Gambian exiles mostly in the United States. Sadly, differences between the politicians broke up the alliance and the voters punished them by assuring Jammeh a comfortable majority. He now passes whatever Law he dreams of through the National Assembly and he is having fun consolidating his power base. Why are there often disconnects and conflicts of interests between exiles and locals?
Kientega: This is a very important matter. Whenever the local political climate becomes inhospitable, it is normal and necessary for people to go into exile. Not everyone can leave the country and not everyone should stay at home. But those who do stay should lay the foundation for the common cause and the exiles should bring in their international exposure. The exiles and their home-based comrades should complement each other. Of course, there are bound to be personal differences, pettiness and interests but they should not automatically lead to the failure of the alternative ideal.
Sankanu: This is the challenge. People find it difficult to resist the temptation of the “Me, First” mentality. What is your opinion on this?
Kientega: We Africans should stop fighting over trivial matters and unite our efforts towards a common goal if we are to stop begging and lagging behind.
Sankanu: As the young man at the cinema hall asked: how can it work when we cannot even unite and organise a naming ceremony without asking the cook for ingredients from Europe, America or China?
Kientega: In my response I said that no nation is an Island. Europe did not develop on its own. It borrowed or stole from other civilizations, including the African ones. We need international cooperation and solidarity. Technology, be it from Europe or any other place, is a universal asset. We Africans have the right to benefit from technology transfer and appropriately adapt the elements that are suitable to our needs and values. We need to exchange with the West and the rest of the world as partners in mutual respect. The biggest hurdle remains the attitude of the political leadership in Africa.
Sankanu: It is not surprising that former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, recently lamented the lack of attractiveness in politics for young people in Africa. They complain about the political leadership in their respective countries but are hesitant to be politically active.
Kientega: Sankara made political education and participation part of his revolution. He created the Young Pioneers groups in all schools and communities to change the old feudalistic patron-client political discourse. Young people were trained to practice democracy in decision making in terms of issues that affected them. They were asked to come up with proposals that were then formed into policies and were delegated with the mandate of implementing these same polices they helped to form. Sankara was building grass roots democracy.
Sankanu: There are many dishonest, hypocritical, ungrateful and insincere people out there. I would love to die young just to become great like Thomas Sankara!
Kientega: You should remain steadfast and respect your principles in every adverse condition.
Sankanu: Now, in terms of leadership, the 1980s were difficult times for African leaders. As Thomas Sankara’s friend, JJ Rawlings of Ghana, said, the survival of an African Head of State did not depend upon multiparty democracy or good governance but on being either pro USA or pro USSR in the cold war. Being non-aligned or maintaining “Africaness” was practically impossible. During this difficult period you served as Thomas Sankara’s Foreign Policy Chief. What type of Foreign Policy did you design for Sankara that served the best national interest of Burkina Faso?
Kientega: Our Foreign Policy was politically offensive to neo-colonialism. Like other Third World countries Burkina Faso was formally independent, but was still effectively dependent on the former colonial powers. Sankara supported liberation movements around Africa and the globe. We included Thabo Mbeki in our official delegations to the OAU (now African Union), the UN and other international meetings to help to expose him. We had no huge cash handouts but we sent a symbolic briefcase with weapons to the ANC. When Sankara changed our passport he issued the first copy to Nelson Mandela who was then in prison. We fought for the recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) occupied by Morocco. We supported Sam Nujoma of Namibia and the Canaks of New Caledonia. We spoke against the embargo on Cuba. We supported the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Our Foreign policy was meant to support all people fighting to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism. African Integration was also a cardinal element of our foreign commitment.
Sankanu: How did the United States (U.S.) react to your role in Nicaragua, which lies on their “exclusive” playground?
Kientega: The U.S. President at the time, Reagan, sent his Ambassador to Thomas Sankara saying that Sankara’s support for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas was not about Burkina Faso but the ex-Soviet Union. Sankara told the Ambassador that if Reagan could not recognize that a poor country like Burkina Faso could have its own foreign policy and interests, then he, Reagan, was not a great leader!
Sankanu: Very courageous. What about France, the former colonial power?
Kientega: Our economy was dependant on France and Sankara wanted to change that. He said that if France was serious with its policy of association with its former colonies, it should respect their right to economic independence. The CFA common currency we use is still pegged to the French Franc (now the Euro). France fixes the price for our cotton and other farm produce. Our gold mines were in the hands of the French and Sankara wanted to address this economic injustice. He threatened to stay out of the Francophone Summit if France refused to listen to him.
Sankanu: How did France respond?
Kientega: France’s reaction was not immediate and official but rather automatic and indirect. It embarked on a campaign to isolate Burkina Faso. It provoked a border war between Burkina and Mali in 1985. Sankara tried to prevent this war but, as Commander-In-Chief, when your soldiers are attacked, you have to respond. France maintained a full service intelligence office in the Ivory Coast with a network of listening posts in Francophone Africa. The Abidjan-Ouagadougou railway was taken out of operation to hurt the Burkinabé import-export trade.
Sankanu: Were there cases of direct interference?
Kientega: When Thomas Sankara was Prime Minister in the government of his predecessor Ouedraogo, France flew in its Presidential Adviser to order the arrest and detention of Thomas on the same day the man landed in Ouagadougou! Public outcry freed Sankara from detention. He served less than a year as Prime Minister.
Sankanu: How did Thomas become Prime Minister?
Kientega: Sankara had earlier initiated a programme of Military-Civilian Dialogue. You remember his widely quoted saying, “a soldier without political education is a virtual criminal”. Through this principle Captain Sankara advanced peaceful dialogue with civilians in all strata of life, including the government constitution, to see the country out of the perennial governance crises. He was then appointed Prime Minister in the government of civilian Jean Baptiste Ouedraogo. Sankara initiated it in the early 1980s without foreign support or pressure.
Sankanu: This shows that Sankara was a Man of Vision. I saw reports that the people of Burkina Faso were tired of Sankara’s “unproductive” revolution, but I also heard the UN Rapporteur on Food Security said that, within four years, Sankara made Burkina Faso self-sufficient in food production. This is a record for a Sahel country. It is clear that an international scientific UN report cannot be the propaganda product of a local political movement. I sense some contradictions here. Were the people really tired of Sankara, as some of the media outlets want us to believe?
Kientega: This is part of the propaganda to deconstruct Sankara’s legacy. The imperialists and their puppies control most of the concerned media systems and can create and unmake heroes according to their agenda. Blaise Campaore destroyed most of the local information that documented Sankara’s work. He refuses to open the archives or declassify certain information. Food security apart, Sankara has, within his 4-year rule, improved the lot of women at a time when women’s empowerment did not get the attention it draws today. He appointed women to his Cabinet. He stopped the practice of sending impregnated female students/pupils out of school. He initiated an adolescence-counselling scheme to control teenage pregnancy, unsafe sex and sexually transmitted diseases. He banned female circumcision and other harmful traditional practices. Women who enlisted into the army had an equal chance of promotion through merit and were fully trained in all military skills. During the International Women’s Day on the 8th March, women stayed at home and their husbands went to the market to do the shopping.
Sankanu: I saw women talking about how much fun they had that day laughing at their husbands who returned home with the food baskets looking shy and embarrassed. One man bought fish and started running! I have also seen how ordinary Burkinabé used their bare hands to build roads and lay rail tracks with very little construction equipment.
Kientega: We had no money but we had our healthy hands. Sankara did not dictate to people or force them to work. He told them about the mechanisms of getting loans from the Bretton Woods Institutions and France. He said that they could relax at home and ask him to borrow money from the neo-colonialists, but that they would have to bear in mind that they and their children would have to pay back the loans with interests. Consequently, his government would find it difficult to provide universal education and health care because he would have to spend a greater chunk of the meagre tax revenues in servicing the debt. They could also beg for aid but then they would remain beggars forever. The people got the message and were motivated into working harder. Sankara led the people into taking their destiny into their own hands by being open and honest with them. Our country, Burkina Faso, has only a few world-class raw materials. As a poor country, Thomas Sankara wanted to turn the poverty into an asset by encouraging people to value those immaterial things money cannot buy. If you allow materialism and greed to dominate in society, you invite social injustice with fatal competition for the few resources. Sankara was building a just, upright and self-sufficient nation. The greatest resource of any nation is its people and Sankara tried to use this human resource to develop the country. Sankara was also the first African leader to openly call for debt cancellation in the 1980s!
Sankanu: What about mistakes?
Kientega: Of course mistakes were made. Sankara was a results-oriented leader. At the end of every year, we made reports on the state of the revolution and he openly said “we were right here…we were wrong there and now will do this…. and that… in another way…” He was a leader who openly admitted mistakes and listened to the people. A leader like Sankara who openly admitted errors and worked towards avoiding repetition did not serve the interests of those who benefit from Africa’s failure. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country surrounded by Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Niger. The citizens of these countries were very receptive to Sankara’s idea of the “African Way”. The puppets of neo-colonialism like Houphouet Boigny feared an overspill effect in these countries and worked against Sankara.
Sankanu: How was the working relationship between Houphouet Boigny and Thomas Sankara as neighbours?
Kientega: It was not an easy one. When Sankara visited Houphouet Boigny, I was there. He told Sankara: I understand that you are young and full of energy. Our young people like you and they see you as source of inspiration for change. We don’t want change. It is not good for us! Change your programme! Sankara told him: I respect your wisdom but it is fair to give the young people the chance to lead change towards self-determination and fulfilment.
Sankanu: Some commentators call Thomas Sankara, the Che Guevara of Africa. What is your take on this comparison?
Kientega: Ernesto Che Guevara was Minister of Industry in the Cabinet of Fidel Castro in Cuba. He resigned his office to support the international liberation movement. He went to the Congo to support Kabila and the loyalists of Patrice Lumumba. He went to Bolivia to support the freedom fighters there. Sankara was Head of State and acted in that capacity to support the international liberation cause. Both Sankara and Che never valued material wealth. They both died in penury without betraying their ideals.
Sankanu: What about Thomas Sankara as a normal human being?
Kientega: Sankara was a very cheerful person. He had the charisma of convincing and winning people over without pressure. If you come to him angry, you would leave smiling. He was jovial. He was extrovert, simple and very upright. He played the guitar. At international conferences, he liked playing the junior brother. This gave him the freedom to say things that other Heads of States were afraid of saying.
Sankanu: And Blaise Campaore?
Kientega: Blaise has what we call a “wet stomach”. He is very much into life and very difficult to deal with. From the beginning of the revolution we knew that the difference in character between Sankara and Campaore would affect the revolution. We never expected it to lead to such a betrayal with foreign manipulation. France and the Ivory Coast knew this and found it very easy to win Campaore over.
Sankanu: How?
Kientega: We have three (3) million Burkinabé living in the Ivory Coast. Before Thomas Sankara came to power, the Ivorians looked down upon the Burkinabé who are never afraid of doing menial jobs. When Sankara came to power, the Burkinabé there gained their pride and openly displayed their national identity cards. France and Houphouet Boigny had always considered Burkina Faso as their source of cheap labour and wanted it to remain that way. They felt that the migrants from Burkina Faso could influence the Ivorians for a revolution. Campaore’s love of money and power made it easier for them to use him in achieving their goal of eliminating Sankara. Blaise, as the Number 2 Man, represented Sankara at international events he was not able to attend. When Blaise travelled to the Ivory Coast, Houphouet introduced him to his current wife, Chantal. Sankara understood the political game being played but he could not impose a wife on his friend. He accepted the marriage of convenience of Blaise Campaore into the pro-France Houphouet Boigny clan knowing the side effects on the revolution. During the week of Sankara’s assassination, Chantal was sent to France to wait for news of post coup stability before assuming her new role as First Lady.
Sankanu: One of Sankara’s bodyguards said he detected Blaise Campaore’s plot and asked Thomas Sankara for the permission to arrest Blaise but Sankara declined. He said he would not betray friendship and that, if Blaise wanted to betray him, he could go ahead. What super human qualities prevented Sankara from stopping his killer, Campaore?
Kientega: Thomas Sankara was not a power hungry leader who would kill people in order to enjoy and monopolise power. He saw himself as a Servant of the Burkinabé and was prepared to die serving his people. One day we were working until very late at night and I called my family to advise them that I would be late. Sankara heard me and took the handset when my mother was on the line. He said “Mama, some of us have to sacrifice so much time for the next generation. Many people lost their lives in plane crashes before the aeroplane became a convenient form of mass transport for other people. Many people died in shipwrecks before the ship became a worldwide means of transportation for humanity”. Sankara knew that he would be killed. The Ghanaian secret service also detected the plot to kill Sankara and JJ Rawlings offered his help. Sankara named our National Slogan “La Patrie Ou La Mort, Nous Vaincrons” (Fatherland or death, we will vanquish). Death was an option Sankara preferred to failure!
Sankanu: How did Campaore treat the rest of the Sankara’s family members?
Kientega: At first he did not allow Sankara’s widow, Mariam Sankara, to travel. It was when some Heads of States pleaded on her behalf that she was allowed to leave Burkina Faso. She now lives in France with Sankara’s two sons. Sankara’s other siblings are living in Burkina Faso and the United States. Their fate keeps them together despite their geographical separation. Sankara’s mother, Margaret Sankara, died on the 8th March 2004. His father, Joseph Sankara, died on the 4th August 2006. Before his death, he told Blaise Campaore to go to him and ask for forgiveness. To be continued