The Economic & Geopolitical History of Burkina Faso, Part 2: Sankara, Separating Symbolism from Success
Was Sankara a Successful executor on government programs? Or an ambitious, idealistic guy who had more failed experiments than successes. Stay tuned.
Last time on Guns, Trade, and Cobalt, we discussed Burkina Faso: I spoke about the pre-colonial Mossi monarchies, French colonialism, successive corrupt leaders that led to protests and a military coup.
Now, we focus on Thomas Sankara, a Marxist-Leninist who believed in utilizing state owned firms to run the economy over the private sector. His Revolutionary National Council (CNR) and more local CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) was his administrative team to help him enact his policies.
Thomas Sankara (1983-1987)
Often called Africa’s Che Guevara, Thomas Sankara was lionized among African youth for his revolutionary zeal and commitment to the people.
Despite his acclaim, a gap exists between the mythologized Sankara and his actual actions. Early sympathetic accounts elevate his deeds and suppress his failures, while UN/World Bank reports, journalists, diplomats, and his own staff provide a more nuanced view. Brian J. Peterson’s "Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa" provides a comprehensive perspective.
In summary, many of Sankara’s achievements are true: the high proportion of women in his administration, planting 10M trees in one year to combat desertification, establishing numerous health clinics, rapid training of healthcare professionals, mass vaccination programs, big promotion of education, eradication of river blindness, and anti-corruption initiatives.
However, there are also significant exaggerations about his administration. For example, his economy was heavily reliant on debt and aid, and self-sufficiency was a goal he was striving for, not one he achieved.
Additionally, some sources claim that adult literacy increase from 13% to 73% in 4 years by 1987. That seems unlikely, as UNESCO reported Burkina Faso’s adult literacy rate at 14% in 1991. Even by 1985, his own administration told the world bank that adult literacy was 13%. That would mean a 60% jump in adult literacy in two years…
According to Valere Some, Sankara’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Sankara’s administration increased adult functional literacy from 12% to 22% through initiatives like "Alpha Commando.”
Lastly, while Sankara’s social reforms were significant (vaccinations, health clinics, etc). there is a lack of benchmarking against other African leaders and an overemphasis on his "inputs" rather than "outputs." It’s not like other African leaders weren’t vaccinating their people too. Comparing improvements in life expectancy can provide a better gauge of his performance relative to other African leaders.
Under Sankara, Burkina Faso achieved the fifth highest improvement in life expectancy among this cohort of poor African countries, though it still lags in overall life expectancy behind Madagascar, Togo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Notably, no other Sahelian country matched Burkina Faso's increase in life expectancy under Sankara's leadership.
Now let’s see how well Sankara did economically:
“Sankara made Burkina Faso food sufficient!”
Semi-True. Sankara achieved self-sufficiency in some food products, but normally when you say “self sufficiency”, that implies no food aid. However, Burkina Faso still relied heavily on food aid, especially due to weak transportation infrastructure to send food from the fertile South to the Sahelian desert North.
Don’t take it from me, you can hear it from the Sankara’s mouth in his National Conference in 1986, he said “Our country produces enough food to feed ourselves. We can even exceed our level of production. Unfortunately, due to lack of organization, we’re still forced to hold out our hand to ask for food aid….where is imperialism? Look at your plates when you eat —the imported grains of rice, corn, millet —that is imperialism!”
There’s a claim that he increased wheat production from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 per hectare, but I couldn’t verify that any original sources (World Bank Reports, Government Documents, UN Papers).
Regardless, the World Bank report stated achieved self sufficiency in cereal production (sorghum, maize, etc.). This is incredibly impressive considering the country was in a drought. The coverage ratio for the population went from 81% to a peak of 129% without imports. Unfortunately this was not maintained. The ability for Burkinabe to feed themselves decreased from its 1985 peak and continued after his death. See table below:
Also, despite increased productivity, Burkina Faso had the second-lowest agricultural yields among its neighbors, who themselves had poor yields compared to the African average.
Burkina Faso still had relatively poor agricultural yields to other African countries due to Sankara's "civil servants to the fields" policy, which mobilized all government workers to collective farms. This policy was unsuccessful as many military leaders refused to participate, and provincial commissioners and many farmers rejected collectivization.
“Sankara never took Loans or Aid!”
Not entirely true. He refused IMF loans but borrowed and accepted aid from France and America. Sankara inherited a bankrupt government and implemented austerity measures (reducing civil service & government salaries, which used to be 60% of the budget) while avoiding cuts to the poor, universities, or healthcare.
Depended on Aid During the Drought Induced Famine:
Sankara emphasized agricultural-sufficiency with his famous “He who feeds you, controls you”. Despite emphasizing self-sufficiency, Burkina Faso remained heavily aid-dependent during the 1983-1985 drought, where grasshoppers destroyed crops, there was a massive dust storm, livestock died, and villages were emptied out, creating “climate refugees”. Sankara’s state run newspaper, Carrefour Africain, even said “rural masses are confronted with famine.”
Facing a severe drought, Sankara’s government requested Western aid. The Reagan administration provided Burkina Faso was $21M in food aid, the largest from a single donor. The UN literally called this the “greatest peace-time relief operation in history.”
Sankara himself thanked Ronald Reagan in a letter expressing his “satisfaction with the invaluable contribution of Peace Corps volunteers to the socio-economic development of our country.”
However, Sankara hated relying on the West so he also made a “Revolutionary Solidary Fund”, where he forced civil servants to donate a portion of their salaries to provide rural famine relief.
Depended on Aid During His Only Five Year Plan:
During his 1st five year plan in 1986, 81% of the financing came from foreign donors, 19% came internally. His administration used that financing to cooperate with NGOs to build 351 primary schools, 314 health clinics, 88 pharmacies, 3350 boreholes, 2300 new wells, 275 water reservoirs, irrigation canals, and small dams to channel water for smallholder farmers. Many of his projects were done ahead of schedule and done with local volunteers and the military. The populace called it “army of the people”. But Sankara kept it secret from the public that he was borrowing money & relying on aid from France for these projects.
Complete Aid Dependence on France:
France: French advisors even told American diplomats to take Sankara’s anti-Western speeches with a boulder of salt since his words don’t match his actions. He gave anti-Western speeches to make his people psychologically feel good and have pride amongst their poverty. 40% of his government budget was paid by French aid during his reign to the tune of $55M to $60M, in technical development, budget assistance, and development. $9M in direct budget support. In fact, Burkina Faso had $155M in debt, and he was deep in arrears. 90% of Burkina Faso’s capital investment in development came from aid. Mitterrand of France was on the verge of cutting all aid, because he hated Sankara’s UN speeches condemning France, but he couldn’t do it because he didn’t want Burkina Faso to collapse and become a satellite of Gaddafi, like Gaddafi was attempting in Chad.
There were 300 French advisors and technicians helping out his country, and France was Burkina Faso’s largest trading partner. Below you can see how official development assistance (aid) increased under Sankara’s watch.
The NYT reported that during Sankara’s time, Ouagadougou was believed to have one of the highest concentrations of aid agencies in the world - 110 are officially registered…
There were so many NGOs in Burkina Faso, and despite some radicals telling him to expel French NGOs and Sankara himself hating their “patronizing attitude”, their refusal to “share necessary information”, and his belief that they serve as “spy agencies for imperialism”, he acknowledged the “good and bad” of NGOs in ending the drought in Burkina Faso when he took office.
America: To help plant Sankara’s the 10M trees, Ronald Reagan’s USAID-funded Dinderesso Forestry School was instrumental in assistance. However, Reagan defunded it in 1985, viewing Sankara as an ingrate since he criticized U.S. actions in Nicaragua, lambasted Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon to crush the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and voted against the U.S. often at the UN. Reagan later reduced total aid to Burkina Faso from $20M to $1M. Sankara then kicked out the American peace corps after Reagan bombed Libya as revenge for Gaddafi’s bombing in Berlin.
Burkinabe citizens weren’t stupid, and people understood that Sankara’s projects weren’t self financed. One citizen interviewed said “We see through all that imperialist talk - we know who gives all the aid -France, Germany, the United States, Canada.”
Economic Dependence on Ivory Coast:
Sankara was geographically and economically dependent on the much richer Ivory Coast. 33% of Burkinabe workers were in Ivory Coast. Remittances from these workers accounted for 15% of Burkina Faso’s GDP.
As a landlocked country, Burkina Faso relied on the Ivorian port of Abidjan and the Abidjan-Ouaga railway, incurring port and railway fees. Initially, Ivorian President Felix Houphouet-Boigny provided economic aid to Sankara for infrastructure improvements, including the telephone grid and railway maintenance, despite Sankara’s payment arrears.
In one meeting, Felix came in with a suitcase filled with cash and gave it to Sankara as a gift. But Sankara refused and made his staff eyewitnesses. This event, in addition to the fact that Felix was pro-France while Sankara was anti-France, created the tension between the two.
Felix would do petty destabilization campaigns on Burkina Faso’s economy like refusing to transport Burkinabe green beans to France using the French owned airline - UTA or the now-defunct, French West African airline, Air Afrique. Lastly, Sankara narrowly escaped a bomb attack in Ivory Coast, further highlighting the tense relations.
Socialist & Communist aid
In addition, He went to the Eastern bloc in search of aid.
Soviet Union: The Soviets didn’t provide much aid to Sankara due to their own financial struggles with low oil prices. Sankara criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and expelled two Soviet diplomats for presumptive meddling. Meanwhile, the Soviets disliked Sankara’s actions against labor unions and pro-Soviet communists from Burkina Faso’s Patriotic League of Development movement (PAI-LIPAD). When the PAI-LIPAD tried to dislodge directors of parastatals they viewed as “reactionaries”, and tried to force all state owned enterprises become worker owned enterprises, Sankara did not throw his political weight around the PAI-LIPAD, instead Sankara instead re-installed the directors that the militants dislodged. Sankara arrested 30 union members and fired teachers just like Reagan fired air traffic controllers. Lastly, Sankara rejected meager Soviet food aid due to its "insulting" conditions.
Sankara received more in healthcare, infrastructure, and education aid from China, Nicaragua, North Korea and Cuba.
Libya, however, was a mixed bag. Gaddafi funded Sankara’s coup, but their relations deteriorated when Gaddafi tried to exert control over Sankara.
“He reduced corruption!”
100% True. This man was so impeccably moral and possibly the poorest head of state. He literally detailed all his assets: “one nine-year-old Renault, one refrigerator, three guitars, six bicycles, $560 in the bank, a weekly salary of $110 and $2,200 outstanding on his home mortgage.”
He fired 1000 people for theft of public funds, and in the “Diawara Affair”, Sankara arrested an Ivorian, Malian, and Senegalese minister stole 6.5B CFA franc (~$20M) from the French West African bank earmarked for famine relief.
Sankara replaced ministers’ Mercedes limousines with cheap Renault sedans, he hitchhiked to conferences with other African leaders, paid himself a meager salary of $450 a month, and deducted salaries from top officials to fund development. Proceeds from selling luxury cars went to hospitals and schools.
Sankara established “Popular Revolutionary Tribunals” to combat corruption, inspired by similar tribunals in Rawlings’ Ghana, Castro’s Cuba, and the French Revolution. He convicted former presidents (Zerbo & Lamizana) and officials, wiping out corrupt networks within two years, with no appeals allowed.
However, reducing is not the same as eliminating. By 1986, peasants and workers started complaining that Sankara’s revolutionary committees were abusing their power — arresting people arbitrarily, taking property, and scaring peasants.
Sankara even said “There are bad CDR members among us! Let’s make no secret of this… Reigning and holding sway like warlords, they’re fascists.” he said they “committed atrocities, unspeakable things” and called them “anarchic, fraudulent, wasteful, and thievish”.
“He improved Infrastructure and Provided Free Housing”
Mostly True.
Sankara and his local committees built housing units and improved sanitation, essentially rebuilding Ouagadougou and cleaning entire towns, despite significant challenges. The challenges included:
1. Lacking the funds to sustain large scale housing projects since he lacked the foreign exchange to import all the goods needed for the construction materials.
2. Because he empathized import-substitution (making things locally), there were delays in getting the resources to make the materials and the quality wasn’t great.
On New Year's Eve 1984, Sankara abolished rent for all residential properties. This decision angered union leaders, who owned rental properties, and property owners, who lacked funds for repairs. The experiment failed, and Sankara canceled the rent suspension program after a year.
Sankara also mobilized the military to repair roads and distribute food. The “Battle of the Rails” project aimed to build a railway to transport manganese ore and provide food to the North. Sankara mobilized his army and his committee compelled Burkinabe to help build the project. However the project was suspended after completing only 10% due to lack of funds.
Many workers and peasants disliked the collective work projects enforced by the committee. One of Sankara’s government ministers said “the people are not happy and compare the current labor of the construction worksites in town to forced labor of the colonial period.” Even Sankara himself made that comparison of his own projects.
“Sankara Nationalized Land!”
Mostly True. Sankara nationalized most land and minerals, collectivized agriculture, and reduced the power of the Mossi chiefs, eliminating tribute payments and obligatory labor to them. Sankara cut off the King, Moro Naba’s, electricity since he stopped paying bills.
The CDR worked with neighborhoods to support farms, but traditional chiefs undermined them. Chiefs and former leaders plotted against Sankara, leading to their arrest and execution, which drew criticism from French newspapers like Le Monde.
However, he didn’t nationalize all land. The major firms, hotels and restaurants were still owned by French citizens. Jacques Aubaret, a French businessman owned large parts of the economy and advised Sankara in 1986. To show how obvious French influence still was in the country, one journalist said in the capital that amid the “sprawl of corrugated metal shacks, old French colonial boulevards with a surprising number of tall, modern buildings, inhabited mostly by aid and development bureaucrats.”
His Economic Policies Delivered Fast Growth!
False, due to huge macro headwinds. Sankara took power during a drought-induced famine, faced plummeting international cotton prices (Burkina Faso’s main export), and the African debt crisis. He defaulted on debt in 1986 and unsuccessfully attempted to convince other African leaders to default in unison. In 2022 prices, average incomes were $674 annually when he took office and $669 at his death.
On the plus side, he tried to make the poor farmers’ lives better by increasing crop prices for peasants paid by the marketing board and kickstarted the Burkinabe film industry, making Burkina Faso a hub for African cinema.
Low Foreign Direct Investment:
Under Sankara, foreign direct investment (FDI) was nearly nonexistent, even by African standards. While African countries averaged 0.4% of GDP in net FDI, Burkina Faso under Sankara averaged only 0.08%. Investors feared expropriation due to Sankara's communist leanings, resulting in minimal investment, roughly a million dollars. By 1986, Sankara was trying to be less communist and slightly more business friendly so he removed communist ideologues and replaced them with French and African business men, and he changed the investment code to allow more private business activity. The only significant investment he received was a joint venture with a French firm in the Poura gold mine, exporting $84M in gold in 1986 and $246M in 1987. However, Sankara’s own committee stole gold, and there negative net FDI in 1986 because more French firms were leaving than investing.
Import-Substitution: Sankara banned fruit imports and raised tariffs on imported beer, soft drinks, and soap, requiring citizens to wear local homespun cotton. This led to a tariff war with Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso’s largest trade partner. Neither Burkina Faso’s fruit industry nor its textile industry took off even with protection. Burkinabe complained about higher prices and insufficient local production of soap and drinks.
“Sankara was a Pan-Africanist who could have to United Africa!”
True on Pan-Africanism, False on his ability to unite Africa. He said “African Unity is a necessity and no longer a choice. We can only fight against desertification by erasing borders”.
However, the only person entertained the idea of a currency union was Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, but it never materialized and their countries barely traded with each other.
Most French African heads of state were Pro-French, so they hated Sankara. Also, there were people in Sankara’s revolutionary committee who tried to start a coup in Togo, annoying the Togolese leader, Eyadema. Morocco hated Sankara for supporting Sahrawi Arabs independence in Western Sahara/Southern Morocco. In a conference where Sankara wanted to be chairman of the Economic Community of West Africa in the Abuja summit, he was bluntly rejected by peers.
Sankara faced a brief border skirmish with Mali when its leader, Moussa Traoré, attempted to secure the potentially resource rich, Agacher Strip, in December 1985. The conflict, which killed around 300 people, led Sankara to propose resolving the dispute through the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ eventually split the strip between the two countries.
Economic stagnation, reduced aid, and failed policies, led to all 25+ major labor confederations sign a joint communication to list their grievances to Sankara’s regime. As Sankara was losing popularity in Burkina Faso, he gained more international acclaim in International leftist & Pan-African circles.
Also, Sankara made many enemies because he refused to engage in corrupt patronage. This alienated interest groups, the old political class, urban elites, French expats, and traditional chiefs. Even urban workers, civil servants, and university students grew discontent.
By 1987, Blaise Compaoré, Sankara's best friend, had garnered enough support and he and his men killed Sankara. Some argue that France supported Compaoré's coup, which is plausible but not confirmed yet.
Concluding Thoughts
In my early 20s, I thought Sankara was a great leader based on the documentaries and videos I watched. But my parents who remembered his reign and my relatives who briefly traveled to Burkina Faso, saw him as more of a visionary than executor. As I learned more economics and analyzed World Bank reports, I realized the gap between the idealized and actual Sankara. Brian J. Peterson's book confirmed to me that Sankara's legacy has more symbolism than tangible success.
Given the challenges Sankara faced, such as falling cotton prices, a severe drought, being landlocked, increasing isolation from his own administration & abroad, and a debt crisis, he still had tangible accomplishments and fought corruption. But the notion that Sankara could have unified Africa overlooks geopolitical realities and the diverse ideological leanings of regional leaders.
Click here for the final part on Burkina Faso!
As you aptly summarize, there is a gap between the idealized and actual Sankara legacy. Great article. I didn’t know half of these things. I wonder how many Burkinabés are aware of this and to what extent. And what this means for the comparisons between Sankara and the current Junta leader. Looking forward to the next posts in this series!
> Sankara's legacy has more symbolism than tangible success.
No wonder he's popular amongst international leftists and Pan-Africanists.