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west africa / community struggles / feature Thursday November 12, 2020 17:33 byShawn Hattingh
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#EndSARS

A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media, #EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria.

During these protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress the protests or to try and demobilise them through insincere “concessions”. To begin with, the ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President Muhammadu Buhari, attempted to quell the protests through window dressing. Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS unit would be disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel that formed part of SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the government has made similar announcements resulting in no actual change.

Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets. When this failed to produce the state’s desired result, it deployed the military and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.

africa occidentale / repressione / prigionieri / opinione / analisi Monday February 06, 2017 06:34 byGianni Sartori

Un ricordo di un militante sudafricano vittima dell'apartheid: per non dimenticare

“IL MIO NOME E' DUMA KUMALO”

IN MEMORIA DI UNO DEI SEI DI SHARPEVILLE
(Gianni Sartori)

L'anno scorso, avevo lasciato scivolar via il decimo anniversario della morte di Duma Joshua Kumalo (3 febbraio 2006, CapeTown, durante una conferenza) senza scrivere nemmeno una riga. Troppa sofferenza, troppi rimpianti.
Da pochi mesi, alla fine del 2015, era mancata Theresa Machbane Ramashamole, l'unica donna dei Sei di Sharpeville. Prematuramente anche se non inaspettatamente, pensando alle torture cui venne sottoposta.
Fransis Don Mokhesi, il calciatore, era morto pochi anni dopo essere stato liberato; Oupa Moses Diniso nel 2005, per un incidente stradale.
Ora di quei sei militanti fortunosamente scampati al capestro all'ultimo momento, rimangono in vita soltanto Reid Malebo Mokoena e Reginald Ja Ja Sefatsa (o almeno credo e spero non avendo più contatti).*

Senza togliere nulla agli altri “Sharpeville Six”, con Duma, oltre che con Theresa, si era stabilito un rapporto più stretto, nonostante le migliaia di chilometri che ci separavano. Conservo ancora gelosamente il prezioso libro ricco di foto per me inedite (“Mandela in celebration of a great life” di Charlene Smith) che mi ha inviato con dedica.

Quando era giunta la notizia della sua morte avevo subito pensato: “L'apartheid alla fine ha ucciso anche Duma”. In Sudafrica la segregazione razziale era stata abolita, ma i suoi veleni rimanevano ancora in circolazione e le ferite inferte per decenni continuano a sanguinare.
Qualche anno prima Duma aveva scritto:
“Il mio nome è Duma Kumalo e ho sofferto per quarant'anni. Dopo aver passato sette anni in prigione e tre nella cella della morte, ho ottenuto la grazia dodici ore prima di essere impiccato. Soltanto oggi comprendo come questa esperienza abbia segnato la mia identità e sia alla base delle ferite e dei ricordi frammentari che compongono la mia storia personale”.

Duma aveva letto molto sulle esperienze dei sopravvissuti all'Olocausto, cercando di trovare un senso, una spiegazione per le sofferenze inflitte da un sistema di sfruttamento, oppressione e razzismo istituzionalizzato. Voleva, come Primo Levi, ricordare e testimoniare affinché l'orrore di quanto era accaduto non potesse ripetersi.

Da molti anni lavorava senza sosta per il “Khulumani survivor support group”, un'associazione di aiuto per i sopravvissuti dell'apartheid, per coloro che avevano subito la brutalità del regime, aiutandoli a raccontare le loro esperienze. In particolare il centro “Khulumani” si occupava anche delle persone a cui la “Commissione verità e riconciliazione” non aveva concesso un indennizzo.
Duma era stato imprigionato nel 1984, quando il Sudafrica era in fiamme e le strade dei ghetti ribollivano di manifestazioni e scontri con la polizia e l'esercito. Migliaia di neri vennero arrestati e torturati, centinaia finirono assassinati o “desaparecidos”. Moltissime le condanne a morte per impiccagione.
A Sharpeville (township tristemente nota per il massacro di una settantina di persone inermi da parte della polizia nel 1960), durante una manifestazione contro l'aumento degli affitti, venne ucciso il consigliere comunale Jacob Kuzwavo Dhlamini considerato un collaborazionista. Nello stesso momento Duma stava aiutando un uomo ferito dalla polizia. Arrestato a casa sua, dopo un processo sommario, venne condannato a morte con altri cinque manifestanti. Rimasero inascoltati gli appelli di molte organizzazioni internazionali (Amnesty International, Lega per i diritti e la liberazione dei popoli...) convinte della loro innocenza.
Torturati, nel dicembre 1985 furono trasferiti in un carcere di Pretoria. Nelle celle della morte in attesa dell'esecuzione.
Il 14 marzo 1988 venne annunciato a Duma che la sua esecuzione sarebbe avvenuta dopo cinque giorni. “Questa notizia – raccontava - dopo l'angoscia della cella della morte, sembrava quasi una consolazione”.
A poche ore dall'esecuzione, quando ormai ogni speranza era caduta (erano già stati pesati e misurati per calibrare le forche), l'avvocato entrò in parlatorio annunciando di aver ottenuto la grazia. Rientrando nella cella ritrovò le lettere che aveva inviato, con l'ultimo saluto ai parenti e agli amici. Si rese conto che, se fosse stato impiccato, non sarebbero mai arrivate a destinazione. Un estremo insulto da parte degli aguzzini.
E concludeva: “Sono stato privato del diritto di essere felice il giorno in cui ho compreso cosa fosse l'apartheid. Mi sono messo alla ricerca e da quel momento ho dovuto scavare sempre più profondamente nel passato e provare ancora più amarezza. Quello che ho compreso non riguarda il dolore della morte, ma il dolore della mia vita. Confrontarsi con la morte è difficile, ma confrontarsi con la vita dopo aver visto in faccia la morte è ancora più difficile”.
Era riuscito a farlo con grande dignità, come stanno a dimostrare la sua vita familiare, l'intensa attività culturale, le rappresentazioni teatrali con cui ha dato testimonianza delle ingiustizie subite dal suo popolo.
Quel giorno, il 3 febbraio 2006, l'apartheid fece un'altra vittima. Il suo cuore generoso, infaticabile, segnato dalle sofferenze e dai ricordi, aveva ceduto. Qualche settimana prima, al telefono, si era parlato del materiale (manifesti, fotografie di manifestazioni anti-apartheid nell'Europa degli anni ottanta...) spedito a Sharpeville e inserito nel museo appena inaugurato. Ma il senso di vuoto che lasciava la sua morte non poteva comunque intaccare la consapevolezza che è stato un onore averlo conosciuto.
Gianni Sartori

* nota. Un ricordo anche per un altro amico sudafricano scomparso, Benny Nato. Rappresentante dell'African National Congress in Italia negli anni ottanta, venne varie volte a Vicenza per conferenze e dibattiti organizzati dalla Lega per i diritti e la liberazione dei popoli.

África occidental / medio ambiente / news report Monday September 12, 2016 03:06 byRebeldía Contrainformativa

Luego de un conflicto armado de varios años, donde especialmente se ha visto afectada la industria petrolera transnacional en Nígeria, la guerrilla ecologista y comunitaria Movimiento por la Emancipación del Delta Níger (MEDN) confirmó el inicio de negociaciones con el gobierno regional. Esta confirmación se da luego de rumores salidos desde el gobierno y difundidos por los medios de comunicación, que en un primer momento fueron desmentidos por el grupo rebelde.

Luego de un conflicto armado de varios años, donde especialmente se ha visto afectada la industria petrolera transnacional en Nígeria, la guerrilla ecologista y comunitaria Movimiento por la Emancipación del Delta Níger (MEDN) confirmó el inicio de negociaciones con el gobierno regional. Esta confirmación se da luego de rumores salidos desde el gobierno y difundidos por los medios de comunicación, que en un primer momento fueron desmentidos por el grupo rebelde.

Durante los últimos meses, el saboteo a la industria minero-energética local ha reducido las exportaciones de crudo de Nígeria al nivel más bajo en los últimos años, producto de la fuerte discrepancia que mantienen los pueblos locales con la visión del gobierno nacional sobre la explotación de la región del Delta del Níger. Aunque las conversaciones son hasta ahora preliminares, no se descarta que puedan avanzar, a pesar del espaldarazo que ha dado el gobierno nacional al señalar que “no negociará con criminales”.

El Delta del Río Níger es una de las zonas africanas con mayores reservas de petroleo, que contrasta sin embargo con el alto nivel de abandono y pobreza. El pueblo Igbo, tradicional de la zona, ha logrado organizarse como movimiento social desde hace décadas y formar sus propios órganos de autogobierno. Con la irrupción contemporánea del neoliberalismo, sobre todo a través de empresas extractoras de crudo como Shell, la explotación de recursos humanos y naturales ha visto los más altos grados en las dos ultimas décadas, lo que ha aumentado la resistencia de ciertas tribus y poblados, quienes han visto en peligro sus sistemas de gobierno y cooperatividad económica.

En este contexto, nace el MEDN, que es el brazo armado de diferentes procesos políticos sincréticos que se han venido gestando en los anteriores 20 años, y que contrario a otros movimientos armados de la región no se ha enfocado en la conquista del poder o el derrocamiento de un gobierno, sino en expulsar a las empresas petroleras que están en su territorio y apoyar la formación de una zona autónoma democrática. En ese sentido, han sido acusados de querer independizarse y formar un nuevo país, aunque no está claro ello en su plataforma de lucha.

Como parte de esta nueva oleada de movimientos armados que se dan en el tercer mundo, que entre otras cosas encuentran grandes paralelos con el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional en Chiapas, México, el Partido de los Trabajadores de Kurdistán en Bakur, Turquía, así como las Unidades Populares y Femeninas de Protección en Rojava, Siria, el MEDN se concentra en defender los intereses de su pueblo por fuera de los paradigmas vanguardistas de foquismo, apoyando las formas comunitarias de poder popular. Ahora mismo, el MEDN no se encuentra en una guerra abierta contra el Estado de su país o el ejército, sino que la mayor parte de sus ataques se concentran contra la maquinaria e instalaciones petroleras y minero-energéticas, sin negar que, sobre todo en los últimos años, el MEDN ha tenido que emboscar patrullas militares y policiales nigerianas que han puesto en práctica el terrorismo de Estado contra la comunidad y los sindicatos de la región.

La necesidad de unas negociaciones de paz en la región debe estar atravesada por la voluntad del gobierno central de reconocer los usos y costumbres del pueblo Igbo, así como negociar en base a ellos y no los intereses primarios de las grandes transnacionales, que lo único que seguirían trayendo es una mayor radicalización del conflicto regional. En ese sentido, el sentir Igbo es de autonomía y respeto a su territorio, y es allí donde se debe presionar al gobierno de Nígeria.

Redacción: Rebeldía Contrainformativa, Colombia.

image Ubicación de la región del Delta del Río Níger, en Nígeria, África. 0.01 Mb

west africa / history / opinion / analysis Monday April 04, 2016 22:10 byTokologo African Anarchist Collective

Ghana, West Africa, was a British colony called "Gold Coast" until 1957. It became the first independent country in "black" Africa after reforms and struggles in the 1940s and 1950s. The new president, the brilliant Kwame Nkrumah, and his Convention People's Party (CPP), had fought for independence. Now they aimed at major changes in the society, even speaking of socialism. And Nkrumah proposed a united African government for the continent: Pan-Africanism.

But by the mid-1960s, hopes were fading. There were good reforms in education and services and self- respect for Africans that helped remove colonialism's damages. But the CPP has become a dictatorship, with a personality cult around Nkrumah. Unions and struggles were suppressed. The economy was in trouble. A new elite hijacked independence and resources. When the military seized power in 1966, people celebrated in the streets. Today Ghana is one of the poorest African countries.

What went wrong and what can we, anarchists in Africa, learn from this experience?

"Seek Ye First the Political Kingdom"? Learning from Kwame Nkrumah's Failures in Ghana

CONTRIBUTORS: LUCKY, MTHAMBEKI, NKULULEKO, NONZUKISO, PITSO, SIXOKA, WARREN

Ghana, West Africa, was a British colony called "Gold Coast" until 1957. It became the first independent country in "black" Africa after reforms and struggles in the 1940s and 1950s. The new president, the brilliant Kwame Nkrumah, and his Convention People's Party (CPP), had fought for independence. Now they aimed at major changes in the society, even speaking of socialism. And Nkrumah proposed a united African government for the continent: Pan-Africanism.

But by the mid-1960s, hopes were fading. There were good reforms in education and services and self- respect for Africans that helped remove colonialism's damages. But the CPP has become a dictatorship, with a personality cult around Nkrumah. Unions and struggles were suppressed. The economy was in trouble. A new elite hijacked independence and resources. When the military seized power in 1966, people celebrated in the streets. Today Ghana is one of the poorest African countries.

What went wrong and what can we, anarchists in Africa, learn from this experience? Nkrumah's is the key model for African nationalists, and the test case showing the strengths and limits of African nationalism as a project - a project based on building multi-class parties, to capture the state, with the enemy seen primarily in terms of imperialism, and colonialism, with the solution seen as an independent state.

So, the lessons of Ghana are essential and remain widely applicable to countries like South Africa, where African nationalism has been and remains a very powerful current. We can learn, most of all, that revolutions and struggles are easily hijacked by elites for their own purposes. These purposes always go against the interests of the masses.

Using the state is the sure way to create a new elite. Nkrumah's slogan, "Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you," is not useful. We say instead: All power to the working and poor people.

BRITISH COLONIAL GHANA

The “Gold Coast” colony included African societies like the Asante kingdom (empire), which had class divisions, a ruling elite, and a history of slavery and slave trading. The colony was ruled by British officials, African kings and chiefs, and the small African educated and business elite linked to mission and state schools.

But Britain was in charge. Society was top-down. There was no pretence of “democracy.” Although the British provided railways and hospitals, there was much poverty and racism. The economy was based on selling raw materials (metals and cash crops) to Britain. This meant it depended on British prices, and these were often low and there was always pressure by the British state to produce more.

DECOLONISATION

After World War Two (1939-1945) there was massive unrest by the unemployed in the in Sekondi-Takoradi (“Tadi”) port zone and Accra, by farmers and black ex- soldiers.There were riots in 1948 after 3 people were shot at a march in Accra. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) formed 1945, called a general strike in 1950.

Britain started political reforms in the 1940s, allowing unions (1941) and then allowing more elected representatives in the Legislative Council (1946) but these were elections by chiefs

The elite-led United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) (1947) wanted electoral reforms, moving the chiefs aside, so the businessmen who led UGCC would have more say. Like the ANC and other South African parties, UGCC was formed and dominated by the frustrated African elite. It kept its distance from the unrest, and from Nkrumah's calls to use mass action ("positive action") to win more radical changes. Nkrumah had 4 university degrees earned in the USA, where he lived from 1935- 1945, and returned to his homeland in 1947 after 2 years in Britain.

This led to the formation of Nkrumah's breakaway CPP (1949), aiming to ride the mass struggles to full state independence. In 1951 there were the first parliamentary elections (the country was still ruled by Britain), which the CPP won, making Nkrumah Prime Minister. After more elections, the CPP led Ghana into independence.

CONSOLIDATION OF NEW ELITE

But the new CPP government developed into a one-party state. The state became a hothouse for a new elite. The old elite, the chiefs, were either marginalised or pulled into the CPP. A law in 1958 allowed detention without trial. By 1962 the state controlled the main newspapers, and could censor news.

Access to state power was key to the growth of the new African elite: frustrated under colonialism, it used state salaries, contracts and corrupt deals to enrich itself. Reports of wrongdoing were widespread.

The more that state wealth helped the elite, the more the elite clung feverishly to office, suppressing rivals and protests, and pushing for more state ownership of resources.

1964 saw the CPP became the only legal party, centred on a personality cult and network around Nkrumah, now President-for-Life. CPP party branches and related organisations like youth groups enforced control across the country. The CPP ensured its people were in key positions in various government agencies.

As anarchists we know the state cannot be used by the mass of the people. It is a top-down institution that always puts power in the hands of a small elite. As the old British elite and African chiefs moved out of the new state, the CPP-centred new elite moved in. The nature of the state meant that the new elite, just like the old, looked on the people as a source of labour, money, and taxes - and a threat to be controlled, with guns if needed.

MOVING TO STATE-CAPITALISM

Nkrumah correctly saw Ghana would remain an economic “colony” of Britain (or the USA) if its economy did not change. He started efforts to industrialise the economy (building factories and infrastructure) so it could move beyond raw materials and create jobs. At first this meant encouraging foreign (mainly British and US) investment, but this left colonial-era relations in place, and did not work.

The difference with the past was that the new Ghanaian political elite benefited more. But the effects on industry were small.

So Nkrumah's CPP started to push state-led industrialisation. This included efforts like setting up a massive hydro-electrical scheme at Volta dam, state-run industries, and trade protection, called "import- substitution-industrialisation."

But although Nkrumah called the system "socialism" (and was partly inspired by the Marxist system in Russia), the reality was the new state industries were, as elsewhere, just state capitalism. They were based on wage labour and on producing goods and services for sale. And, again, the new state elite milked the new projects for its benefit.

The growing role of the state was not socialism, it was just the expanding grab of the new elite to access wealth and build capitalist industries. The top-down approach in state industries was the same as the topdown system in the state and the CPP.

WORLD ECONOMIC CHAINS

Also, independent national capitalist development in a world dominated by international capitalism was unlikely. To fund the new system, the CPP-led state relied on money from exports, especially cocoa. Cocoa prices boomed in the 1950s and early 1960s. The money went to the state through "marketing boards." This meant farmers sold to state boards at low prices, which then sold the goods overseas at much higher prices, making big profits.

But the price of goods like cocoa started to fall in the early 1960s, and the state lost money. It then borrowed heavily, going into massive debt.

ATTACKING THE PEOPLE

The new system did not put power in the hands of ordinary people. The CPP-centred new elite in the state controlled it, decided priorities and targets. The role of the working class and peasantry was to provide labour, funds and raw materials. The radical language and even the genuine socialist views of some CPP leaders (like Nkrumah who was himself generally free of corruption, unlike his followers), did not change this.

The new elite exploited the people, and the new state relied on the repression and control of the working class.

The 1958 Industrial Relations Act centralised unions into a single CPP-run body, with the only negotiating and legal rights. Urban workers were increasingly called a selfish elite ("labour aristocracy"), sabotaging the nation with wage demands. Almost no legal strikes were arranged by the CPP-run TUC. In many sectors all strikes were banned.

In 1961, a huge strike spread from Sekondi-Takoradi, including the railways, against rising taxes and a "forced savings" scheme. It drew in the unemployed and the small traders in the markets: the "common folk" against the CPP elite. After the strike, Nkrumah arrested leaders and politicians involved.

END OF AN ILLUSION

Many people had great hopes in Ghana and Nkrumah. The victory over Britain was inspiring and the "black star" of Ghana seemed to show the light to a new, prosperous Africa, free of the legacy of colonialism, racism and strife.

But using the state and a political party led straight to the opposite: a new elite captured decolonisation, for its own benefits.

Working class and poor Ghanaians continued to suffer while the new local elite and its foreign partners (initially Britain and the USA, later the Marxist USSR and its colonies) became wealthier. Mass support was built through a personality cult, with Nkrumah treated as Superman.

In 1966, the military led a coup against Nkrumah. He was out of the country. There is no doubt that the American CIA helped the military plot.

But this does not explain why people danced in the street with happiness when Nkrumah was overthrown.

They included Sekondi-Takoradi workers, who had been staunch CPP supporters in the 1950s. The masses had no more illusions and did nothing to stop the coup. Nkrumah left office in disgrace.

Everything had become managed by the party and the state, not the people. And that was where the problems started. Imperialism and the CIA played a role in undermining independent Ghana, but the local elite, which hijacked the decolonisation struggle, is just as guilty of destroying it.

And Nkrumah's nationalist vision, even in its Marxist phase, despite its heroic intentions, helped pavetheway, with its statism, authoritarianism and multi-class capitalist project.

west africa / imperialism / war / non-anarchist press Monday February 09, 2015 17:08 byErnest Tate

A press report in 1983 that a popular uprising in Upper Volta, a small and poor land-locked country in Western Africa had led to an obscure, but charismatic army officer becoming head of state was truly inspiring news for all those looking for some kind of breakthrough against imperialism in that part of the world. It had come after the depressing news that Margaret Thatcher's Britain had defeated Argentina in the Malvinas and Ronald Reagan's America had crushed Grenada, a clear message to the world that, on a moment's notice, imperialism would brutally crush anything that threatened its power. But because the American empire had been taken by surprise by the Cuban revolution twenty-four years earlier, many of us were then hopeful that maybe we were witnessing such a possibility again, in Africa.

And indeed it looked like our hopes were being realized. In a few short dramatic years, we saw the setting up, in what would become Burkina Faso, of the first “workers and farmers’ government” on that continent. (A political variant first envisioned by the early Communist Third International where the oppressed get governmental power but the state remains in the hands of the ruling classes, a highly unstable arrangement not envisaged to last very long.)

Ernest Harsch's short biography of Thomas Sankara (the first in English) who would become an icon of Africa's long struggle against neo-colonialism, helps us to understand the revolution that swept the small country of Upper Volta in the 1980s. It ended with Sankara's brutal assassination, along with six of his closest advisors and seven drivers and guards, in a counter-revolutionary coup from within the armed command and government, inspired by France's neo-colonialist Social Democratic President, Francois Mitterand and headed up by Blais Compaoré, one of the leaders of the 1983 revolution, who until last October, had been President of Burkina Faso.

Back in the News

Harsch's book couldn't have come at a better time. I had almost forgotten about Burkina Faso (population 11 million) but it's in the news once more. Last October saw a country-wide uprising, with over one million Burkinabes surrounding their parliament, occupying the building and setting it ablaze, enraged that Blais Compaoré, Sankara's successor and in power for 27 years, had been attempting to change the constitution to again allow himself another term. Compaoré, “Sankara's best friend” who is commonly regarded as the chief architect of his murder, had led the roll-back that all but cancelled the revolution's gains. His swift departure last October led to a deep political crisis in his military-led regime, with an internal struggle about who would fill the resulting political vacuum. Mysteriously, in the midst of the crises, an Isaac Zida, a colonel, emerged from the army to declare himself head of state, but after intervention by the African Union, he was quickly replaced by a “transitional president,” a Michel Kafando, a prominent diplomat under Compaoré, who has promised elections “soon.”

A research scholar at Columbia University, Harsch has for many years worked on African issues at the United Nations and had the good fortune to visit Burkina Faso in the 1980s on behalf of the American socialist journals, The Militant and Intercontinental Press, when he interviewed President Sankara on at least six occasions then, two of them at length and one of them shortly before his death. One of his sources in preparing this work, one of Ohio University Press’ “Short Histories of Africa,” was Paul Sankara, the President's ten years younger brother. Harsch is also author of the book, South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt.

This biography provides valuable information about Sankara's early life as he grew up amidst the tumultuous events and intellectual climate of his times as the country emerged from French colonialism. Educated at a lycee (state secondary school) – a Muslim, and of the Mossi tribe – one of the four major ones in the country, he came from a small, but privileged strata that had helped administer the old colonial state. Upon graduation he entered military college, the country's first, that had been set up by the army after its overthrow of the first post-colonial regime in 1966.

Periodic crises and political instability followed by military coups seems to have been permanent features of political life of the country after formal independence began in 1960. Still under the influence of Paris, the first post-colonial regime had been unwilling or unable to deal with the country's immense social and economic problems, leading to mass unrest, labour and student strikes and of course, a military coup.

As a result of the coup, Ernest Harsch writes, the army's popularity had increased and came to be seen by many young intellectuals as a possible instrument for social change, a “potential modernizing institution that might help discipline the corrupt bureaucracy, counter-balance the inordinate influence of the traditional chiefs, and generally help modernize the county.”

It was in military college that Sankara came under the direct ideological influence of the college's Director, the Marxist academic, Adam Toure, a clandestine member of the pro-Moscow African Independence Party which was centred in Senegal with branches in other former French colonies. It would turn out to be an important step in the future president's political evolution. Keeping his political affiliations hidden in those conservative circumstances, Toure quietly gathered together – outside the class-room – his brightest and most politically inclined students – among them Sankara – for informal discussions on topics such as, “imperialism and neo-colonialism, socialism and communism, the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, the liberation movements in Africa, and similar topics.” (Toure would later serve in Sankara's government as Minister of Information, only to be jailed for two years in 1984 because of his oppositional activities. He was nearly shot, only being saved because of Sankara's personal intervention.)

In 1980, in another period of widespread unrest, the army again carried out a coup, its fourth – “because of the erosion of state authority” – but by this time Sankara, who had risen to a leadership position in the officer corps, opposed a strict military take-over. Deepening his links with students and labour organizations and encouraging the press to expose corruption, the young officer's popularity dramatically increased. Taking his distance from the new regime as it became increasingly repressive, he used his appointment as Minister of Information in the new government to make a public declaration of his exit from it in a major speech, live over radio at the closing session of a prestigious conference of African ministers responsible for cinema, issuing a strong plea for freedom of expression. “Woe to those who would gag their people,” he warned.

Revolutionary Alliance of Young Radicals

Immediately arrested by the army, he found himself deported to a military camp, far from Ouagadougou, the capital. But maintaining his contacts with other oppositionists and activists throughout the country, by August 1983 he emerged at the head of a revolutionary alliance of young radicals, military officers and civilian activists, to take over the presidency, in a new government called, the National Council of the Revolution (CNR), an overturn that was greeted with a mass welcoming demonstration in the capital, that lasted for several days and that rapidly spread across the country.

Sankara in his first major speech on coming to power called for the implementation of sweeping measures to increase the economy's productive capacity to reduce hunger and poverty, including the strengthening of a state that was extremely weak and that barely had a presence outside the major cities and towns. The previous regimes had governed through a system of chiefs and notables. Very quickly Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) sprung into existence in the poorest neighbourhoods and spread throughout the country.

The problems facing the tiny country were numerous and enormous. Food production had not increased in twenty years. Hunger was common with life expectancy only 44 years. Women suffered deep oppression: “Our society – still too primitively agrarian, patriarchal and polygamous – turns the woman into an object of exploitation for her labour power and of consumption for her biological reproductive capacity,” Sankara declared. And with an adult literacy rate of a miserable 11 per cent, only three per cent of school children made it to secondary school. Annual per-capita income in 1980 was a pitiful $210. Less than one in ten lived in an urban area – the working class was tiny – and 90 per cent of the population worked the land. Bordering the Sahara, desertification threatened to further reduce the country's arable land: the need to extend the irrigation system was urgent: only six per cent of the land was irrigated. Approximately ten per cent of the farmers still used animals to work the land. Cotton, introduced by colonialism, created a gross distortion of the economy. Most of the fertilizer and agricultural inputs – often imported – went there.

Under Sankara's revolutionary government, the population was soon mobilized to tackle the country's problems within a framework of creating a national economy, “independent, self-sufficient, planned at the service of a democratic and popular society,” as Sankara stated in his first orientation speech. Education spending was increased. The CDRs enhanced tax collection and the colonial era “head tax” was abolished. From the beginning, an emphasis was placed on helping agriculture in a “Struggle for a Green Burkina,” making the country among the first to deal with environmental issues.

As Harsch notes, from early on, the government's primary orientation was toward implementing “small tangible improvements,” such as the construction of small rural irrigation systems to increase the production of food and the planting of trees, and the restriction of cattle movement to protect them. New schools, health clinics and reservoirs were built. Campaigns were immediately undertaken to reduce illiteracy and a massive child vaccination programme was rolled out to reduce disease. Land and mineral wealth was nationalized, with the farmers’ right to till the land guaranteed by law. And the power of the chiefs was severely reduced – the old regime had partially ruled with their help. They were stripped of their state benefits.

Female circumcision was banned, along with forced marriages and polygamy, with the government making a strong commitment to the liberation of women from exploitation and oppression, leading to the setting up of a mass women's movement, the Women's Union of Burkina.

Measures were introduced to shake-up a lethargic state bureaucracy and severely reduce its privileges and remuneration. Official portraits were prohibited and the country's name changed to Burkina Faso. Setting a personal example, Sankara shunned luxury and imported goods, getting rid of the presidential Mercedes and Cadillac, instead using a budget-priced Renault and was often seen riding his bicycle to his office.

No longer continuing the old regime's policy of following the direction of France or the United States in foreign policy, the new government stated it would establish relations with whomever it wanted, declaring its solidarity with all oppressed people and liberation movements. Sankara, to Mitterand's visible discomfort during a state visit to the country, publicly took him to task because of France's relations with the apartheid regime of South Africa which was, at the time, under international sanctions and he criticized France's attitude toward African immigrants.

“We Burkinabe have never understood,” he told President Mitterrand in front of a large assembly of journalists who had accompanied him to Ouagadougou, “why criminals like Jonas Savimbi, the head of UNITA, and murderers like Pieter Botha, have the right to travel to France, which is so clean and beautiful. They stain the earth with their hands and their feet covered with blood,” a confrontation that caused an international sensation. Botha was President of South Africa.

Sankara did not confine himself to only opposing neo-colonialism in Africa. At the Non-Aligned Movement in New Delhi, he sought out revolutionary leaders such as Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop and gave his support to Daniel Ortega's Sandinista government in Nicaragua and he backed the rebels in El Salvador who at the time were battling a U.S.-backed dictatorial regime.

Critical View

Ernest Harsch's book is no hagiography of Sankara nor is it a neutral account of the revolution that was an inspiration to many in those years. And although he admits to an admiration for Sankara and clearly states his partisanship with the revolution, he carefully notes some of its terrible mistakes, some of which may have eventually contributed to its defeat. Sankara increasingly, he writes, had to combat arbitrary oppressive powers against potential allies or even ordinary citizens, but with his approval, the government and the CNR sometimes reacted with a heavy hand against opposition currents. Relations with the unions soured when 1,300 teachers were dismissed and their leaders arrested.

“Despite the rhetoric of people's participation,” Harsch says, “there were insufficient channels through which popular ideas and grievances could be transmitted upwards.” In one horrific example he gives of the government's attempts to improve the rural economy, he describes how a few CDRs that had been set up to help improve agriculture, turned the prohibitions to prevent cattle wandering and destroying trees and crops, into “an unmitigated disaster. Some CDRs took to extremes Sankara's call to shoot roaming animals. Many were shot whether they were trampling vegetation or not, and ended up on spits for CDR feasts.”

It wouldn't be long before the country came under direct imperialist pressure. Very early France halted all budgetary support as did the World Bank, and the new government was compelled to reject the IMF's “conditionality” for loans, an arrangement that would have meant an end to the revolution and the shifting of decisions over economic policy to an external entity. The United States immediately suspended its Peace Corps. As U.S. Ambassador, Leonardo Neher, would tell the BBC's Joan Baxter, “...we are not going to allow another Cuba in Africa.”

The historic influence of Sankara after all these many years has not been wiped out, despite the strenuous efforts over the years of the Compaoré's regime to do so. Harsch writes that youth in Burkina Faso and across the continent continue to see him as the embodiment of their hopes and dreams. And as Alexandra Reza notes (London Review of Books, 4th December, 2014) when writing about what has become known as last year's “Black Spring”: “One of the most interesting features of the insurrection was the re-emergence of Sankara. There were references to him everywhere, notably on street banners: ‘Sankara, look at your sons. We continue your fight.’ At the forefront were a number of Burkinabe musicians involved in the collective Balai Citoyen, or ‘citizen's broom’, a movement intended to sweep away corruption and clean up public life.”

Harsch's book helps us understand why his ideas are still very much alive. It's a good read and well worth the price.

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