Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabè military officer and revolutionary who led Burkina Faso from 1983 until his assassination in 1987. He pursued anti-imperialist, socialist policies and renamed the country from Upper Volta.

Burkina Faso: A landlocked West African country formerly known as Upper Volta. Sankara renamed the country and governed it from 1983 to 1987.
Blaise Compaoré: A Burkinabè military officer who became president after Sankara’s assassination and ruled until 2014. Compaoré was Sankara’s close associate before leading the coup that overthrew him.
Land reform: Changes to land ownership, access, or administration intended to alter agricultural production and rural power. Sankara’s government redistributed land and sought to weaken the authority of traditional chiefs.
Upper Volta: The former name of the West African country renamed Burkina Faso in 1984. The name change expressed Sankara’s break with a colonial-era national identity.
Burkinabè Revolution: The revolutionary political and social transformation launched in Burkina Faso after Sankara took power in 1983. It was the program through which Sankara sought to remake society and state institutions.
Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo: A Burkinabè military officer and physician who served as president from 1982 to 1983. Sankara served as prime minister under Ouédraogo before being arrested and later taking power.
Vaccination campaign: A coordinated public-health effort to immunize a population against infectious diseases. In 1984, the government vaccinated millions of children against measles, meningitis, and yellow fever.
Thomas Sankara’s government: The revolutionary military government that ruled Burkina Faso under Sankara from 1983 to 1987. Its reforms coexisted with restrictions on political opposition and independent unions.
African socialism: A family of political ideas advocating forms of socialism shaped by African histories and social conditions. Sankara’s policies belonged to a wider effort to pursue socialist development after colonial rule.
Fidel Castro: A Cuban revolutionary who led Cuba from 1959 to 2008 and shaped its socialist government. Sankara drew on Cuba’s revolutionary example and visited the country as a head of state.

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