By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK, 20 Feb 2023 (IDN) — The military government in Burkina Faso announced this week that the burial of the country’s former president, Thomas Sankara, will take place in a private ceremony next week at the spot where he was assassinated in a coup more than three decades ago.
“The burial of Capt. Sankara and his twelve companions murdered on Oct. 15, 1987 will take place on Thursday, Feb. 23,” said Communications Minister Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo in a published statement.
Sankara’s remains will be reburied at the memorial erected in his honor in front of the place where he was assassinated at the Conseil de l’Entente.
While the government had announced reburial plans previously, no date had been specified.
The announcement came days after Sankara’s family said they would not attend the burial because they disagreed with choice of the site.
“How can you bury such a hero in the place where he was murdered?” the family asked In a press release. “We believed and continue to believe that it is fundamental that a space be found that allows us to gather and appease hearts, and not divide and increase resentment.”
The government said the choice of burial site was “mainly based on socio-cultural and security imperatives of national interest.”
After his murder in 1987 ordered by Blaise Compaore and his cronies, Sankara and his comrades were buried in some common fields with no names. Later, their bodies were exhumed in 2015 for legal proceedings.
The 13 bodies were exhumed from a cemetery on the outskirts of the capital following Compaore’s downfall. An investigation that followed culminated in the trial of 14 people accused of plotting the assassination of Sankara.
In April 2022, Compaore, who was the main defendant, was handed a life term in absentia.
Nicknamed Africa’s Che Guevara, Sankara was a military officer and socialist revolutionary who served as the president from his coup in 1983 until his assassination in 1987. He remains highly regarded among left-wing Africanists for his anti-imperialist stance. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image: Burkina’s former President, Thomas Sankara. Source: Global Information Network
IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.
We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, except for articles that are republished with permission.