By Paul Ejime
Burkina Faso’s ex-president Blaise Compaore, toppled by the “people power” uprising in 2014 was on Tuesday formally charged in absentia for the 1987 death of his comrade Capt. Thomas Sankara in a coup.
According to Sankara’s lawyers, Compaore is on trial before a military court in connection with the murder of Sakanra and complicity in the concealment of his corpse.
Compaore was forced into exile in Cote d’Ivoire following mass protests against his tenure elongation plan after 27 years in power.
He has since taken the Ivorian nationality, and had been separately charged with the killing of 34 protesters in 2014.
Cote d’Ivoire has rejected Burkina Faso’s request to hand over Compaore as comrades, Sankara and Compaore took power in a military coup in 1983.
Sankara was 37 when he was killed but his revolutionary ideas/influence still reverberate across the continent.
In 1984, he changed the country’s name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso (the land of honest men). His pro-Maxist government denounced the HIV/AIDS pandemic and economic prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank.
